Innovating the Digital Subscription Model

November 2022

ABA in conversation with: Jennifer Ritvo Hughes, Executive Director of Boston Baroque

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted cultural organizations on many different levels. One of the most evident challenges, particularly during times of closure, was the somewhat forced shift to digital platforms to keep programming alive and to enrich audience engagement. For some organizations, this led to a new strategic focus on expanding online endeavors.

One such organization is Boston Baroque. We recently interviewed Jennifer Ritvo Hughes, the orchestra’s Executive Director, who walked us through their innovative digital subscription model, including the challenges they faced when building it and the decision to make their primary subscription model a digital one. 

Below you can find the summary of our conversation with Jennifer, which has been lightly edited for clarity.

What can you tell us about the shift to a “digital first” subscription model? What prompted the focus on digital?

The “digital first” subscription model has been transformative for the organization and how we think about our reach, our mission, our engagement with audiences, and how we define our audiences.

We have a legacy of interacting with audiences and using digital to expand our reach through that, but in a very passive way. When the pandemic hit, we thought about our pivot a little differently. Being a small organization, I knew that we shouldn't be in the business of distributing our content autonomously, as our reach would be pretty limited. With that in mind, in April 2020 we secured a licensing arrangement and launched an Amazon Prime channel, gaining a partner who could monetize our content. We also systematically acquired our back catalog of multi-platform streaming rights, which allowed us to spend more money on post production. In 2020, we actually paid more artists than we ever had before in the history of our organization, because we went back to a catalog that spans a decade. 

In the 2021 season, the number of households who engaged with our content grew from about 4,000 to 35,000. This showed us that there was a real interest in what we were selling in the digital space. So we have also begun partnering with Idagio, becoming the first group orchestra to stream our entire season on that platform. Idagio has a much more beneficial revenue sharing model with its partner arts organizations. Moving to that platform made a lot of sense, in order to increase our production value. We presented our entire concert season at WGBH TV studios, where we could create a six-camera live stream. That partnership allowed us to have the capacity to create a level of production value, and a level of stream production value that has been excellent and made our streaming audience grow. Last year, we had ticket buyers on five continents in 22 countries who paid to buy our live streaming, on demand content. It now accounts for 30% of our own revenue.

How do you see digital working alongside live performances for you in the long run?

What we're seeing is that people and audiences are saying clearly that they want to do both. And we know they're returning to live performance, but the way they're making choices for what they attend live is different — and the market is so much bigger for digital. We need to consider if it can be at a production value that people want to spend money on.

What kind of changes did you have to make to your organization to build your audience around a digital first subscription model? 

We needed to think about how to structure ourself. I actually looked more at what the structure is of a media company or of a production company, because it's a little different. So we did some staffing around. Due to the pandemic, we didn't need to market in-person sales, so we moved people's roles around. 

We did need to expand capacity in the digital sector — to have a digital production role — so  we expanded our artistic capacity and had someone come in as our live stream director. They are now in a part-time role in artistic planning and streaming. It became evident from an early phase that, while we have our music director and artistic director creating what's happening on stage, we need somebody who's just as creative about choreographing the artistic plan. It's almost like you're making a movie of a concert — and you need to staff both teams simultaneously.

What has been the response of the audience to this shift?

There is a portion of our audience that couldn't wait to be able to come back to our traditional performance venues. Of course, there's that joy of going back to a big, beautiful, historic hall, and nothing that you create on TV is going to replicate that experience (nor do we aim to). What has been surprising was that last year 18% of our in-person ticket buyers also watched the same production online. It is a different way of engaging with our organization. 

How did you change pricing, if at all, for a digital subscription? What most influenced your thoughts on pricing?

In terms of our subscription model, we did change things up quite a bit. The basis of our subscription model is digital. Anybody can become a Boston Baroque subscriber, anywhere in the world. And with a subscription, you get access to our entire back catalog of about 22 full length productions and 40 documentary shorts that are all in an on-demand library. And then you also get tickets to our live stream as well as interactive programs throughout the season. So anybody who subscribes pays a base fee and gets digital content. 

Then, subscribers who choose to can add individual tickets for in-person programs onto their subscription. We have one flat fee for a digital subscription, and it gets you a pretty hefty amount of content. And with that we looked at the value: if you were buying a single ticket for every single program, plus the back catalog, what would the value of that be? And we sort of worked it back from there. But it's different because it's one subscription per household.

What advice would you offer to organizations that want to modify their subscription model?

I think that this is such an important time to be painfully customer-focused in terms of how people are engaging with the arts. I'm trying to be really disciplined about looking at the numbers and the data to understand what my current and potential audiences are asking for, as it's continually changing. I think people in the private sector talk all the time about how most companies that we think of as tech companies aren't actually tech companies. They're media or production companies that use technology. I'm trying to use that same type of discipline myself to think in those lines. And I think it's exciting to see the art sector embracing that.

Jennifer Ritvo Hughes is the Executive Director of Boston Baroque. As the group’s chief administrative officer, Hughes is responsible for the overall management and oversight of Boston Baroque’s finances, development, operations, artistic performances, educational outreach and long-range planning.

Prior to joining Boston Baroque, Hughes served as Executive Director of Cantata Singers for six and a half years. In her previous experience as Director of Publicity and Coordination for the Arts at Wellesley College, she led the promotion of the College’s public arts and cultural events and ran the Music Department’s Concert Series.

To know more about her professional journey, find her on LinkedIn.