The State of the Writ, Year 3
The State of the Writ, Year 3
How things are going with The Writ after three years.
Time flies when you’re having fun — and so it’s remarkable that it is already the moment to mark three years since The Writ was launched!
Every year at around this time, I take the opportunity to reflect on how this project is going and to share my thoughts, and a few numbers, with readers. I do this exercise publicly because The Writ, and newsletters like it, are a very different beast than most media. While the traditional news outlet tries to broadcast its content to the widest audience possible, hoping to attract the eyes and ears of whoever it can, this newsletter is aimed at a very specific audience, one that has actively sought it out.
It’s a more personal relationship — even if that relationship is now extending to thousands of people. But for that reason, I think it’s worthwhile to bring you into the inner circle of this project, because it only exists with your continued support.
The last 12 months have been relatively quiet ones. There was only one provincial election (in Manitoba) and no momentous leadership change, particularly at the federal level. Yet, the newsletter and podcast has continued to grow. I take this as a very positive sign!
I’m also looking with anticipation for the next 12 months. The number of provincial elections that are scheduled is already set at three, but the number of rumoured early calls could double that number. It will make for a busy fall and spring, all of it overshadowed by the looming federal campaign in 2025.
I have some plans for how to cover the next federal election and I will be excited to share them once they are finalized. I plan to do more — much more — than I did in 2021, and I might road test a few ideas this fall when New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and British Columbia will all be campaigning at the same time. Stay tuned.
The lack of big campaigns on the calendar over the last 12 months, however, means that readers were primarily interested in looking toward the future. The top performing post was my Grenier Political Report for the federal election, and other top performers were my in-depth analyses of the new electoral map. Lastly, cracking the top tier of most-viewed posts was my deep dive into the riding of Mount Royal and Anthony Housefather’s chances of being re-elected there as a Conservative. He never made the jump across the aisle, but readers were fascinated by the story.
There have been only a few changes to The Writ over the last 12 months. I continue to try to improve the look of the newsletter, with a focus on cleaner artwork for the articles and charts. I also launched the If The Election Were Held Today twice-yearly analyses, which expand on the seat projections that are presented every Wednesday in The Weekly Writ.
Here’s the most recent example:
Whether or not it is the readers’ favourite, the #EveryElectionProject continues to be one of things I’ve done over the last few years that I’m most proud of. Nothing gives me more joy than to spend an afternoon researching an obscure election or leadership race and trying to condense it into a short(ish) and readable story of part of Canada’s political history. I’m already up to 120 entries!
Podcasting and broadcasting
The biggest change over the last 12 months was the launch of two new podcasts, The Numbers and Les chiffres, with my friend and 338Canada-runner Philippe J. Fournier.
The response to the new podcasts — particularly The Numbers — has been very positive and the audience has been growing. It’s been a lot of fun to do these episodes with Philippe every week, and I hope that listeners are having fun with them, too. It’s a forum for us to go very deep and nerdy into the latest polls and political maneuvers.
It’s also freed me from putting out weekly episodes of The Writ Podcast. I’ve ensured that subscribers are still receiving a new episode of one or the other every week, so that the amount of content subscribers are getting hasn’t changed. But it’s been a godsend to cut the number of episodes of The Writ Podcast in half, as finding new topics and guests on a weekly basis was one of the biggest stressors I had. Now, I can more deliberately plan out my episodes of The Writ Podcast rather than having to scramble every week (I have the next year already lined up, at least on paper, subject to events, of course!). With reduced quantity, I feel I’ve improved the quality.
I’ve particularly enjoyed the regular panel of former partisan pollsters (Andrew Enns, Dan Arnold and James Valcke) and my check-ins with journalists in different provinces.
The audience for The Writ Podcast has grown to well over 4,000 weekly views and downloads per episode, with YouTube being a big driver of that growth.
In last year’s State of the Writ, I said how the YouTube Channel had grown to 1,800 subscribers. It’s now over 2,800 and growing by 20-30 every week (if not more). Videos now routinely get over 3,000 views when I was lucky to hit 1,000 a year ago. The top-performing video was my year-ender wrap-up with the pollster panel, amassing nearly 10,000 views on YouTube alone.
Of course, the election night livestreams with Philippe have also been a lot of fun and very successful. Our last one on the Durham federal byelection had over 10,000 views. We’ll be doing one for Toronto–St. Paul’s next week!
I hope to do more on YouTube during the provincial elections this fall, as well as next year during the federal campaign. So, if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the YouTube Channel in order not to miss a thing. It’s free!
Audience growth
The number of total subscribers to any Substack is usually public information — the entry page to a given Substack usually says how many thousands of subscribers a newsletter has. The Writ, for example, has “over 7,000 subscribers”, but you know a newsletter like this one can go into more detail than that.
At this time last year, The Writ had 5,187 free and paid subscribers. The number is now just shy of 7,300, a growth of about 2,100 subscribers in 2023-2024, outpacing the growth of 1,500 in 2022-2023. I’m especially pleased by that since the electoral calendar has been light over the past year.
Since mid-2022, the rate of growth has been steady and there hasn’t been a repeat of the post-2021 election plateau. I had hoped to reach 6,000 subscribers by the end of 2023, and I was pleased to surpass that goal and hit 6,400 by year’s end. With the current pace of growth, I think it will be achievable to reach 8,000 by the end of this year.
I’ll get into the number of paid subscribers to The Writ after the paywall. But if you aren’t already a paid subscriber, what are you waiting for? The next 12 months are going to be huge!
We already know there will be three provincial elections in the fall. The race in New Brunswick is a toss-up, British Columbia could be the scene of a historic re-alignment and Saskatchewan’s election could be the closest in decades.
Next spring is also setting up to potentially be very busy, as speculation is rife that there will be an early election call in Ontario. It’s also possible that Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador will go early to get ahead of the federal campaign that will kick off next September (if not earlier).
We’ve got some barnburner federal byelections on the docket (including Toronto–St. Paul’s next week, and I’ll have an analysis for it up on Monday morning and a livestream with Philippe that night) and leadership races coming to a close in Alberta, Quebec and Manitoba — and who knows where else!
And, of course, there is that federal election. It’s scheduled for October 2025, but it could happen earlier. Even if it doesn’t, you know the polls will be worth keeping an eye on until the writ drops.
So, I hope you’ll take the plunge and support The Writ. If you can’t swing it just yet, no worries — I still appreciate your readership and interest! Share it with a friend!
Now to business.