Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Esther.

Ukraine media aiming to raise $1m with an NFT paywall — pressgazette.co.uk

How's this for an idea: we write some content. We only show it to people who pay us money to access it. Brilliant, right?

Yes yes, that is how subscriptions, memberships and paywalls work. I have to confess my initial thought when reading this piece was, 'This is a paywall pretending to be something innovative'.

But what these three Ukrainian outlets are doing by creating NFT keys in order to access original content actually turns the whole concept on its head. Rather than racing to attract thousands, or indeed millions of subscribers, there are just 10,000 of these access keys available.

This piece is well worth a read, but try to look past the NFT hype at what this actually is: an experiment in driving demand by limiting access to content.

‘We’ve no idea if it will work’: Taskmaster launches own streaming service — www.theguardian.com

In yesterday's newsletter, Peter highlighted a piece from The Atlantic claiming that we've reached Peak Subscription. Reading this story today, I really, really hope we have. TV show Taskmaster has decided to become its own streaming platform, Taskmaster Supermax+*. For £5.99 a month, subscribers will get every episode of Taskmaster ever made, ad free. This 'Great Unbundling' had better start bundling again pretty damn fast before we all lose our minds.

*Note: I'm not entirely convinced this isn't just a wind-up...

Beyond Affiliate: Stores, Subscription Boxes and 3 other ways publishers are generating revenue through eCommerce — whatsnewinpublishing.com

Although affiliate remains an important plank in publishers’ eCommerce strategies, it is far from the only method being used. Diversification even within revenue streams can help shore up against future storms. Damian Radcliffe looks at five of the most promising ways publishers are going beyond affiliate relationships to develop their eCommerce revenues.

Ukraine special: how Kyiv Independent keeps on covering the war — www.journalism.co.uk

The GoFundMe page for the Kyiv Independent has just topped £1 million, thanks to the generosity of almost 23,000 donations. Journalism.co.uk's Jacob Granger talks to Kyiv Independent CEO Daryna Shevchenko and chief financial officer Jakub Parusinski about how the team is faring, and the impact of crowdfunding campaigns.

This week's podcast:

Mansueto Ventures CEO Stephanie Mehta on leading a modern media business — voices.media

This week we hear from Stephanie Mehta, CEO & Chief Content Officer of Manseuto Ventures, parent of Inc. and Fast Company. She talked about going from an editorial career to the CEO role, the changes in leadership attitudes to publishing over the last decade, and what the revenue models for Inc. and Fast Company look like post-pandemic.

“We’re designed to be a marketing engine for the cities”: 6AM City hits milestone 1 million newsletter subscribers — voices.media

We're doing more written analysis work this year, including pieces diving deeper into the learnings from some of our guests. Our latest piece explores 6AM City's business model, and how its blueprint for hyperlocal news has enabled it to hit a milestone 1 million subscribers.