Case study: The small player change that drove a 10x lift in engagement at JFM

Jysk Fynske Medier, better known as JFM, is one of Denmark’s largest privately held media groups, second only to JP/Politiken. 

The group publishes 15 daily newspapers and more than 40 local weekly papers, reaching more than 2.7 million Danes per week (out of the 6 million population). 

With a founding mission to enhance democracy and create unity amongst Danish communities, AI audio has become core to their strategy. 

After in-house attempts fell short of expectations, JFM looked to BeyondWords to help unify AI audio across the titles. 

Reliability and speed to market

JFM knew that their future success would depend on offering new formats that could reach audiences wherever they were - especially those consuming articles on the go. 

They began experimenting with AI audio in 2020, starting with an in-house attempt to configure and integrate a text-to-speech API.

After some testing, and a review of the potential partners on the market, they chose to proceed with BeyondWords. 

The platform made it possible to roll out high-quality audio across all their titles, drastically accelerating their time to market, whilst also enhancing the quality of their text-to-speech product along the way.

Kristoffer Hamborg, Head of Editorial Technology at JFM told us:

“BeyondWords had something that would work across all our brands. Something that could drastically shorten the time to market compared to developing it ourselves. If there’s a good solution in the market that fits our needs, we’d rather use that, rather than inventing the solution ourselves.”

Once integrated, AI audio quickly became a core part of their reader experience - an essential feature within their websites and apps.  

Kristoffer adds:

“Today, for a lot of users, it’s one of the most important features on our sites. If audio is the only way you can stay updated and consume local news, then it is the most important feature for you.” 

Engagement gains with playback-from-paragraph

In April 2024, eager to spark listening amongst their subscribers and amplify engagement, JFM introduced the BeyondWords playback-from-paragraph feature.

The upgrade allowed readers to start playback from anywhere in the article, simply by clicking on the text, making the audio experience more dynamic, and allowing readers to switch to listening mid-article.

The results were immediate. Listener data from three local dailies - Lemvig Folkeblad, Helsingør Dagblad, and Viborg Stifts Folkeblad - shows dramatic gains.

For the 3 months to 1st of September 2024 vs 3 months to 1st of March 2024, audio listen rates skyrocketed:

• Lemvig Folkeblad - from 0.14% to 6.71%
• Helsingør Dagblad - from 0.15% to 3.03%
• Viborg Stifts Folkeblad - from 0.19% to 2.1%

Across the three titles, engagement rates rose from under 0.3% to around 4% - a tenfold increase.

Kristoffer notes:

“Naturally, we saw a lot more audio being played. It helped people become aware of the possibility of listening to articles. We expected some pushback but the response has been nothing but positive. It’s been a real success.”

Looking ahead

For JFM, audio is no longer an experiment - it’s a proven driver of engagement and an essential part of the digital news experience. 

BeyondWords has enabled them to scale AI audio efficiently across dozens of titles, unlocking new ways for readers to connect with local journalism.

And this is just the beginning. Looking to the future, Kristoffer told us they’re excited about how new formats - such as article-to-video and audio digests - will further drive engagement and maintain their reputation for publishing excellence and innovation. 

If you want to learn more about how your team can leverage BeyondWords, lift the impact of every article, and bring peace of mind to your product team, reach out at [email protected] or book a meeting today.