How To Make Money From News

Four new business models for journalism have been presented by a research team in the US.

The group from the City University of New York put together the proposals after conducting interviews with industry insiders, studying media data, and carrying out a survey of hyperlocal websites.

Visitors to the New Business Models for News site can examine these in depth as they are presented in the form of a spreadsheet detailing costs and projected revenue.



The team was tasked with providing business models for a sustainable form of journalism for a city without a notable news offering in print.

Here are the four business model proposals:

1 & 2

Hyperlocal & Ecosystem Framework Models

“Incorporates two models: hyperlocal and the sales, support, and technology framework that we believe is necessary to optimize businesses in the ecosystem.”

3

New News Organisation

“This model envisions a new, metro-wide news organisation ... that operates on a smaller scale and performs a wide variety of tasks.

“It will produce original unique beat and investigative reporting and it will also work collaboratively with the other members of the ecosystem and its readers to add value.

“Advertising will remain the key business driver, but to maximise profits the new organisation will diversify its revenues.”

4

Not-for-Profit News Organisation

“We want to show the level of resources that might be available in a given market to augment local news gathering efforts.

“Researching the available charitable money in a market, we picked a hypothetical bottom line of $3 million and built one possible organisation to augment journalism in the market.”

Have Your Say

Each spreadsheet can be downloaded by users who can then alter figures such as staff numbers etc and add their own ideas.

See Paul Bradshaw’s Online Journalism Blog for his thoughts on the viability of the proposals.