Monday 26th: Should you start with a free or paid media strategy?

October 26, 2020

Happy Monday! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Peter.

Media analyst Thomas Baekdal featured in our recent special episode, discussing the realities of going solo as a journalist. The episode raised lots of questions about the relationship between paid and free subscribers, and what stage journalists need to get to before they can realistically go it alone.

Thomas agreed with most of what his fellow interviewees said on the episode but took issue with the idea that content producers should start by building a community with a free offering and then develop revenue. Thomas believes producers will be profitable faster if they start out with a paid product and build from that.

In his article, Thomas discusses the options for allowing people to sample and share content for free, but highlights the differing mindsets of people that sign up for a free product and people who sign up for paid.

"Paid is the new normal," he says, "It forces you to think about the value of what you do every day, and you can directly measure whether you are doing a good job or not by looking at whether people convert... embrace the paid-for mindset. The sooner you do that, the quicker you can optimize for the right things."

We've looked at Substack mostly as a reader-revenue play but advertising has grown to be a six-figure earner for some of the newsletter platform's leading creators. Max Willens points out that it's not news that, like Jurassic park dinosaurs, ads have found a way to appear beside good content. But it is notable that they are there despite Substack's founders having no interest in ad cash.

Working from home since March hasn't stopped the New Scientist innovating "We’re starting loads of new businesses and products," editor Emily Wilson told Press Gazette. "We’ve completely changed our business, all from our bedrooms.” So far this year the team has introduced newsletters, a podcast, a Youtube series, and explored new commercial opportunities online.

I love a good Vice take down and this is a great Vice takedown. If you want to read the full thing - 18-minutes worth - you'll need to hand over your email. But this piece basically asks why at a time when the world is on fire and the edgiest-of-edgy media brands should be killing it, the most popular content on Vice is a docu-series on pro-wrestling.

This week's podcast:

This week Rory Brown, co-founder and CEO of AgriBriefing, speaks about building a niche B2B business, the issues with finance in media, Agribriefing’s acquisition strategy, and keeping an entrepreneurial spirit alive as a larger company.

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