In a recent blog, I wrote about Economist Play, The Economist’s new subscription tier bundling video, audio, games, and podcasts at a lower price point than their Premium subscription.

At the time, I had reached out to Liv Moloney, head of video at The Economist. Good things take time. Here’s what she said.

Kerstin Hasse: Economist Play bundles video, audio, games, and newsletters into one lower-cost tier. What is the main goal, the main audience you want to reach with it?

Liv Moloney: Play is a new subscription tier and customer experience that brings together our extensive video and audio journalism. This new offering includes access to: daily audio briefings, Insider, podcasts, short-form video, and smart games.

Play reflects how many of our audiences already consume journalism: through audio and video, fitted around busy lives. It brings together The Economist’s expertise and editorial authority into the formats younger, globally curious, time-poor audiences already prefer, at a more accessible price point than our Premium subscription.

Most newsrooms fear a tier like this because they are afraid they would cannibalise their own product. What would be your answer?

No, because Play serves a different audience need. Premium is for readers who want the full depth of The Economist; Play is for audiences who prefer audio and video.

Play bundles the exact formats — short-form video, audio, games — that your team spent the last few years proving work with younger, social-native audiences. Did the success of the video strategy directly build the case internally for a tier like this?

The success of both our video and podcast strategies helped to build the case for Play. Our short-form video strategy has proven extremely successful in reaching and engaging younger audiences, with more than 300 million video views a year across social media.

Since we brought them onto The Economist’s own platforms, they have also proved extremely popular with our subscribers. This includes a 130% increase in vertical video views from 2024 to 2025.

But also very significant is the success of our long-form video since we launched The Economist Insider in October 2025; 75% of our subscribers have engaged with Insider since it launched. Subscribers who consume Insider content are also more likely to renew their subscription. 

Back in February, you told me in my podcast you didn’t want to patronise your subscribers by dumbing content down. Is there a similar principle behind Play — building a lighter tier without making it feel like a “lesser” product?

I wouldn’t describe Play as a “lighter tier.” It includes all of our most wonky and hard-hitting analysis, alongside The Economist’s irreverent wit. Just the same as our Premium subscription but in a different audio and video format.

If the vertical video shift was about meeting audiences in the right format, is Play about meeting them at the right price? Is that the next frontier newsrooms need to get comfortable with?

Play brings these two strategies together: meeting people in both the right format and at the right price. In 2027, we are aiming to have three clear tiered offerings at varying price points: Play, Premium, and Premium + Print. Each of these products solves a different audience need and desire.

We think that’s the best way to grow our subscriber base. There is no one-size-fits-all model anymore. That’s a strategy we think all newsrooms should be comfortable with in 2026.

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