Left to right: Lisa MacLeod (FT Strategies), Lea Korsgaard (Zetland), Joshi Herrmann (MIll Media)

Two European media companies have one thing in common: agility is in their DNA.

Mill Media started as a Substack newsletter covering Manchester in 2020 and has grown into a newsletter franchise covering six UK cities. The combined titles are read by more than 150,000 email subscribers and close to 10,000 paying members. The first three cities have achieved profitability, and the other three are on course to do the same.

Zetland launched in Denmark in 2010, growing its readership to 40,000 paying members in a country of 6 million. This year, it expanded into its slightly smaller neighbour Finland, with another 17,000 paying members.

At Newsrewired last week (13 May 2024), Mill Media founder Joshi Herrmann and Zetland co-founder Lea Korsgaard shared their top lessons in scaling a modern media business.

"People get micro updates from group chats and social media now," Herrmann explains. "What readers really want is help navigating society and emotional resonance rather than being bombarded with news."

Zetland and Mill Media both share a laser-focused vision of what purpose they serve in their readers' lives. And they have both arrived at the same conclusion that the traditional news model of 'something for everyone' has lost its appeal.

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