An independent FT Strategies assessment examined Old Queen Street Media’s transition from a legacy subscription bureau to the integrated CoEditor platform, exploring the implications for subscription growth, customer insight and operating costs.
Subscription bureaus have long played an important role in publishing operations. For decades, they have provided the operational backbone for subscription businesses built around print, managing product fulfilment, processing payments, handling renewals and maintaining subscriber records.
For many organisations, these systems have ensured that print products reached readers on time and that subscription revenue was collected accurately and consistently. In a world where predictability mattered more than agility, the bureau model offered a way to simplify operations.
Legacy systems are limiting growth
As subscription revenue becomes the primary driver of publisher value, legacy bureau infrastructure is increasingly a growth constraint. Some widely used systems were not designed for real-time optimisation, cross-channel user tracking or data-driven decision-making, and their development has not kept up to the speed of publishers’ needs. This has resulted in:
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Constrained revenue growth: Inflexible systems slow down pricing tests, product innovation and checkout optimisation, limiting acquisition gains.
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Preventable churn and revenue loss: Poor visibility of customer behaviour and payment performance reduces retention effectiveness and increases avoidable leakage.
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Structural cost inefficiency: Workarounds, duplicated systems and add-on services inflate the total cost of ownership and absorb resources that should be focused on growth.
These system limitations have material implications for customer acquisition, retention and operating costs — as Old Queen Street Media found.
Case study: Old Queen Street’s journey to a connected backend
One example of how these issues play out in practice is the Old Queen Street (OQS) portfolio. OQS titles, including The Spectator and UnHerd, have been constrained by fragmented backend systems that have limited customer growth.
CoEditor was developed to address these challenges. Developed in-house and now a core part of the OQS technology stack, CoEditor functions as a subscription-focused CRM and a unified platform that integrates Stripe Billing, Piano and other operational systems. Its architecture creates a clearer flow of data across subscriptions, payments and access, something the previous setup could not reliably deliver.
FT Strategies was commissioned by CoEditor and Stripe to conduct an independent assessment of the migration of Old Queen Street Media’s (OQS) publications — with a focus on The Spectator — from a legacy bureau provision to CoEditor’s integrated technology suite. The assessment was carried out in September 2025.
We found that:
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Increased acquisition: The Spectator optimised onboarding and checkout, increasing on-page conversion rates from 5% to 17% by streamlining the process and supporting local payment methods.
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Reduced voluntary churn: The Spectator has improved its save rate from 16% to 27% through the implementation of an automated retention workflow to re-engage customers who want to cancel.
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Reduced involuntary churn: Utilising Stripe’s scheduling system increased The Spectator’s payment success (95% to 97%) and recovery rates (18% to 49%) significantly.
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Enhanced customer insight: Consolidating customer records from across 10+ systems under one unified ID allowed for consistent event tracking and a more complete view of user behaviours.
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Reduced operating costs: By reducing the need for costly “extras”, we estimate that Old Queen Street Media could have reduced running costs by 66% compared to its previous subscription bureau.
The foundations to grow
Early signs across the OQS portfolio are positive: The Spectator recorded its highest ever total subscription revenue and total subscription volume, including a 2.8% year-on-year increase for print and digital edition newsstand and subscription sales.*
As CoEditor rolls out across other titles in the group, each publication retains control over its own offers and customer journeys while benefiting from a shared customer view. This supports more consistent reporting, clearer insight into audience behaviour and, where relevant, opportunities for cross-brand discovery.
Together, these shared foundations reduce duplication, strengthen operational resilience and enable more connected innovation across titles. Find out more about CoEditor here.
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