Sylvia Chan-Olmsted is one of the leading scholars of media economics, and she stopped by the University of Navarra Dec. 13 to chat about some of the trends she is seeing in the industry.
“Media companies need to translate data into intelligence.” |
Consumers prefer choice
She has done the same herself. When she and her family realized that they were subscribing to several of these services and that they were no longer watching programs on cable, they joined the legions of consumers who cut their cable service.
Implications for journalism
The U.K.’s Guardian announced recently that it now “has 500,000 regular paying supporters“, 80% of whom take “digital subscriptions or memberships”, according to Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief. It is notable that this commercial enterprise asks its users to make “contributions” to support the high cost of its investigative journalism. Also notable is that revenue from users now exceeds that produced by advertisers, as reported in Nieman Lab.
In other words, the Guardian is attempting to monetize the engagement of its users–including those who don’t currently pay– to offset the losses it has suffered in the flight of print advertisers to digital platforms like Google and Facebook.
And they are not the only ones, as I have written about in previous blog posts, and as Forbes has reported. Publishers are developing successful models to get support from users for journalism that holds business and political leaders accountable.
Related:
The audiences are in charge: Are publishers listening?
How journalists can sell advertising without selling their soul
Chasing clicks isn’t bringing in readers or money
How high-quality, credible content wins in the long run
In Latin America, women are making their mark in digital news startups
The top reason globally for paying for news? Mobile access