How Publishers Will Regain the Home-Court Advantage

For more than a decade, media brands have had to chase audiences onto the ever-quickening carousel of social platforms and search engines. Initially, “meeting the reader where they were” was lucrative. Traffic poured in, advertising dollars followed and brand visibility soared.

But the carousel has screeched to a halt, leaving publishers dizzy, disoriented and dangerously dependent.

Worse: No one has a clue what comes next.

Now that a) platforms have pivoted away from news, deprioritising publisher content in favor of user-generated and creator-driven media, and b) LLMs have further disintermediated information discovery, offering consumers immediately personalised answers to their questions, we have to face an uncomfortable truth: Audiences may still consume versions of our content, but they don’t think they need our websites—or, by extension, our ads, memberships and e-commerce offerings—to do it. Which means that if something doesn’t change, they will eventually leave us behind altogether.

It’s time to reverse the years we’ve spent conditioning readers to find us on someone else’s digital real estate. Now is when media reclaims its ground.

At Code and Theory, we believe that publishers must shift from being passive content providers to active digital experience architects, offering value so unique beyond users' commoditised algorithms and genericised AI responses that they actively seek it out.

This means adopting a product mindset: embracing user-centric design, leveraging deep data insights for content specificity, investing in innovative storytelling and service delivery (like interactive “super formats” and time-saving tools that help readers action your expertise), and prioritising the creation of engaging spaces that foster meaningful participation from and with your reader.

Code and Theory excels here. Our track record of fusing cutting-edge technology with best-in-class creative strategy—from enhancing TIME’s design and digital capabilities to revitalising The Minnesota Star Tribune—demonstrates our expertise in crafting indispensable publisher platforms.

To us, the next step is clear: The media industry needs to bring the audience back home. With 200 newsroom transformations under our belt and a deep bench of media experts, Code and Theory is uniquely positioned to guide our partners in this moment, turning publishers into a new generation of must-visit places.