Don’t Blame Media’s Business Model

And it doesn’t actually matter how you generate the revenue component of the flywheel because it’s all based on the exact same thing: attention.

Do you know one of the biggest contributors to subscription churn? People not actually reading the publication they pay for; aka, not having their attention.

At the core of this is a debate on whether The New York Times, The Washington Post and others are failing the American people by pushing more content behind the paywall.

Originally, circulation’s responsibility was to get as many people to subscribe to subsidize the cost of the physical product so that profits could be generated from advertising. Now we think about the subscription as the means of generating actual bottom-line profit. Circulation is not just to provide an audience for ad revenue; it’s to generate a... See more

... it’s not a question of whether consumers should pay for content. It’s a question of if we’ve done enough to deserve being paid for.

That doesn’t mean that business models can’t get better, though. They’re simply evolutionary. Banner ads used to be the only game in town for revenue. Then we started seeing the rise of native advertising. It fit more naturally into the experience. Fast forward, we’re now seeing this trend where the ad carries a semblance of brand validation.

But looking at this, it’s important to understand that while the content is very much a consumer benefit and we strive to make it as good as possible, the business model is not a consumer benefit. We are not trying to make people’s lives better when we decide to charge for content through dollars or attention.

But there is a lot of work ahead of us on the operational side. We need to continuously deliver an amazing product to consumers worth paying for. No one balks at paying for a cell phone, gym membership, Netflix, BabyYoda+, Peloton and every other subscription. Why should they balk at paying for news if the product is actually important to them?

The business model is fine. It’s whether we matter that needs to be discussed. We believe we do, but we need to prove it to our audience.

There are only two main ways to generate revenue in media: You sell exposure to your audience, You sell things to your audience.