Wednesday 31st January: Finding resilient business models for local news

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The second part of our local news deep-dive series is now live. This episode looks at the challenges and opportunities that local news organisations are facing with finding sustainable revenue streams. We also look at some specific case studies of publications across Europe to find out what mix they’re using.

It’s a packed episode, with plenty of interesting points raised for media businesses even if local news isn’t your bag. It’s hard to pick out a highlight, but something Press & Journal editor Craig Walker said has stuck with me this week. DC Thomson launched a paid subscriptions model in 2020 on some of their news titles which within 18 months had passed 25,000 subscribers.

“My entire journalism career, just over 20 years, has been talking about managing decline on print sales,” he said. “But we’ve seen significant growth in digital subscriptions since we launched 2.5 years ago, and it’s continuing to grow.”

The point? It’s never too late to try a new business model, and if executed well, it can really transform the future of the business.

Going into 2024, with elections on the horizon for many countries and growing pressures from AI-generated ‘slop’, trust perhaps isn’t something we’d be thinking about with much optimism. As part of our Media Moments 2023 report, Chris Sutcliffe rounds up the past 12 months in trust, and identifies some opportunities for publishers to grow trust and differentiate themselves.

Okay there’s technically 8 (short) stories here but the juxtaposition of them made it worth putting the lot in. On the one hand, G/O Media and the WSJ are shopping brands out and laying off staff. On the other, The Ankler is moving into radio and has given back money it raised (“We didn’t need it,” co-founder Janice Min said), and Minute Media is now valued at over $1 billion after a new round of funding.

Some good news to finish. Apparently just over half of news executives are optimistic about their company’s business prospects over the next 12 months, and 58% are optimistic about the next three years. Worth noting though that the survey was carried out halfway through 2023, and it was the latter half of the year which proved particularly difficult for many.

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