Analysis: Many Digital Subscribers Are ‘Zombies’

Local News Initiative: Nearly half of local news outlets’ digital subscribers are “zombie” readers who visit the website less than once a month, according to a data analysis in 45 markets by Northwestern University’s Medill Spiegel Research Center. Spiegel found that 49% of subscribers didn’t go to the websites they had paid for even once a month, putting them in a category known in news-industry slang as “zombies.”