The publishing game is far from easy. The sector has long struggled between audience building and monetization; even those at the top still strive to optimize and thrive.
Commercial viability isn’t up for negotiation, and even those publishers lucky enough to have the support of a generous patron with deep pockets eventually need to show they’re more than a money pit.
Understanding what does and doesn’t work as a publisher and not being afraid to switch up approaches is vital to unlocking commercial success. SODP has openly discussed its strategy review and the need to pivot toward a healthier mix.
But only some sectors of the publishing sector have had their woes so exhaustively covered as the local news industry, with the decline of the US industry, in particular, receiving frequent and in-depth updates.
Former Washington Post editor Martin Baron observed recently that while some news organizations are fortunate to receive the support of wealthy investors, the “future of our business has to be to be able to support ourselves”. He noted that news outlets need to make tough choices to survive.
Expecting for-profit organizations to turn an actual profit is hardly revolutionary thinking. Yet such a conversation does highlight the perpetual balancing act between business objectives and creativity that many find themselves trapped in.
Even The Atlantic, a publication that has been around since 1857, has struggled to stay out of the red for much of this century.
The publication turned a profit in 2010 after a decade of losses. Before the decade’s end, however, it was back in the red following an investment spree. Despite projections two years ago that 2023 would be the year for renewed profitability, the publisher now expects to re-enter the black in 2024.
Getting to this point has required reworking The Atlantic’s advertising model to boost its ad deal margins. At the same time, the publisher has been tweaking its paywall — re-installed in 2019 after a decade of absence — to make it more flexible and attract a new audience.
The ad revenue downturn has forced many publishers to rethink their strategies following “traffic-war casualties” such as Buzzfeed and Vice. These digital natives embraced an open-door content policy, relied on ad revenue when times were good and hoped venture capital would bail them out when they weren’t.
However, the content sector’s post-pandemic downturn has caught both tech giants and publishers napping. Both sectors have been forced to rethink how they plan to keep the lights on.
Content from our partners
What captured my interest during media startup Puck’s second round of funding was that it has earmarked some money to fund the expansion of its subscription and advertising departments. While the company is still young, the fact that money is being used to improve its commercial prospects is a positive shift.
It’s important to note that rethinking monetization strategies doesn’t always need to be a seismic operational shift. Sometimes, it can start with something as simple as publishers reviewing their programmatic ad-tech stack. This idea was the subject of my conversation with PROG founder Miles Finlay last week, which is an interesting read for publishers wondering if they could be doing more with their existing ad inventory.
