Digiday+ Research: Where publisher revenue stands with ads, video, content licensing and subscriptions
By Julia Tabisz • December 1, 2025 •
Ivy Liu
This research is based on unique data collected from our proprietary audience of publisher, agency, brand and tech insiders. It’s available to Digiday+ members. More from the series →
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Publishers are fresh off of third-quarter earnings and gearing up for a new year — which means it’s time for them to sort out their revenue sources, both the ones they’re making money from now and the ones they’ll focus on growing in 2026.
As senior media reporter Sara Guaglione reported earlier this month, many publishers saw growth in digital advertising revenue while the programmatic ad market continued to struggle. The likes of The New York Times, USA Today and Ziff Davis are planning to reinvest in video, and People Inc. and News Corp are among those looking to AI licensing deals to make more money from platforms.
At the same time, Digiday+ Research conducted a survey among nearly 40 publisher professionals in Q3. Here is what they had to say about these revenue sources:
Direct-sold ads
Survey results reflected publishers’ Q3 earnings regarding digital advertising — direct-sold ads remain the top revenue source for publishers, with 95% saying in Q3 2025 that they get at least a very small portion of their revenue from direct-sold ads and 56% saying they get a large or very large portion of revenue from this source.
These percentages have remained steady over the last few years, according to Digiday’s survey data, and lend themselves to how much publishers say they’ll focus on growing this part of their business in the next six months: Every respondent to Digiday’s survey said they would put at least a very small focus on building their direct-sold ads business and just shy of three-quarters (72%) said they would put a large or very large focus on building that part of their business.
Programmatic ads
Digiday’s survey results also reflected the struggles in the programmatic ad market.
From Q3 2024 to Q3 2025, the percentage of publishers who said they get at least a very small portion of their revenue from programmatic ads dropped from 86% to 75%, while the percentage who said they get a large or very large portion of revenue from this source fell from 36% to 25%.
At the same time, publishers’ plans to build their programmatic ads business have also fallen: 80% of publishers said this year that they would put at least a small focus on building their programmatic ads business compared with 84% last year, and 37% said they would put a large or very large focus on building that part of their business in the coming months compared with 47% last year.
Video advertising
Video advertising (including branded content and pre-roll ads) is proving to be a bit of a mixed bag for publishers, according to Digiday’s survey.
While the percentage of publishers who said they get at least a very small portion of their revenue from video ads has fallen slightly from 91% last year to 85% this year, the percentage who said they get a large or very large portion of their revenue from video has risen from 18% last year to 24% this year.
Meanwhile, publishers’ focus on building their video ads business has fallen over the last year: 90% of publishers said in Q3 2024 that they would put at least a very small focus on building that part of their business, while 86% said the same in Q3 2025, and 41% said last year that they would put a large or very large focus on building their video ads business, compared with 33% this year.
Content licensing and sales
Contrary to news regarding publishers’ AI licensing deals, Digiday’s survey found that content licensing and sales doesn’t account for a significant portion of publishers’ revenues now, nor is it likely that it will in the near future.
Fewer than three-quarters of publisher pros (71%) said in Q3 2025 that they make at least a very small portion of their revenue from content licensing (down only very slightly from the 72% who said the same in Q3 2024). Meanwhile, just 6% said this year that they get a large or very large portion of revenue from content licensing, down from 11% last year.
The percentage of publishers who will focus on building their content licensing business has also fallen over the last year: 71% said in Q3 2025 that they will put at least a very small focus on building their content licensing business in the next six months, down from 83% in Q3 2024, and 11% said in 2025 that they’ll put a large or very large focus on building this part of their business — a significant drop from the 21% who said the same in 2024.
Subscriptions
Despite a lack of news on subscriptions in recent reporting, it’s worth mentioning that Digiday’s survey found some noteworthy shifts to publishers’ subscriptions businesses — but not exactly in a positive direction.
The percentage of publisher pros who said they get at least a very small portion of revenue from subscriptions fell significantly in the last year, from just short of three-quarters in Q3 2024 (74%) to just over half (57%) in Q3 2025. The percentage of publishers who get a large or very large portion of their revenue from subscriptions also fell, although much less sharply, from 22% in 2024 to 18% in 2025.
This shift is reflected in how much publishers plan to focus on building their subscriptions business in the coming months. Last year, 83% of publishers said they would put at least a very small focus on growing their subscriptions business. This year, that percentage fell to 73%. The percentage of those who said they would focus a lot also fell significantly — from exactly half (50%) in Q3 2024 to one-third (33%) in Q3 2025.
