Strategy Friday: @WNIP 's paywall deep dive from '50 ways to make media pay' and @pressgazette 's look at building a digital first publishing business

January 21, 2022

Product leaders like me are always looking for ways to drive strategic change, and we have a couple of good examples today. My friends at What's New in Publishing focus on paywalls as part of its excellent report '50 ways to make media pay'. This is so important because I will admit that I recognised how digital technology would open publishing to anyone with a passion.

Radical shifts in the economics of local media

What I completely missed because a young me (as with most journalists) ignored the business side of things was how the shift to digital media would radically remake core pillars of traditional media models. Print advertising eroded to the point of near collapse, particularly for local publishers. And look some of this is about the pivot to digital and some of this is about globalisation and the inequities in regional development. Another trend was that retail shifted dramatically to national business and then to online giants like Amazon that never advertise locally. I digress, but the reality is that local media economics are under pressure from a number of different forces.

Revenue diversity

In addition to WNIP's media revenue report, the Press Gazette has a very good interview with Gabe Karp and his 10UP consultancy. I think Karp makes excellent points about how successful publishers are developing a diverse revenue mix. I also like his approach of developing content strategy and then the business strategy to support it. It's smart, and a good read.

Plus. A great look at how changes in Google's algorithm will affect your business in 2022. An explainer about Web3 (although before the crypto bros co-opted the term it meant the semantic web, and there is a lot of financial-political unpacking of this trend). More coverage of Axios' local newsletter strategy. And news app RocaNews raises $4.4 m.

This is an excerpt from our free-to-download report, 50 Ways To Make Media Pay Online paywalls are a primary means for publishers to encourage audiences to take out digital subscriptions. Upon hitting the paywall, readers will find themselves unable to access further content unless either they become subscribers, or wait for an extended period of time …

Press Gazette has been reporting on British journalism without fear or favour since 1965. Our mission is to provide a news and information service which helps the UK journalism.

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Press Gazette has been reporting on British journalism without fear or favour since 1965. Our mission is to provide a news and information service which helps the UK journalism.

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