4. Let’s Start at the Very Beginning
A very good place to start
5. There Is No New Revenue Stream
Robert Niles: bit.ly/biz-check
“For all those hopeful newspaper
managers, searching for a new revenue
model that will save good, old-fashioned
newsroom journalism, I have a message
for you:
You're wasting your time. Please, stop.
There is no new revenue model for
journalism.”
7. The Positive Side
Constraints are a Good Thing
http://bit.ly/cool-constraint
8. We can Still Do a Lot!
This does not mean we can’t improve, experiment, update,
adapt old revenue models.
It just means that some things change and some things.... stay
the same.
9. Some things HAVE changed.....
●But it’s not the revenue streams - it’s the production
mode, production cost.
●Qualitative changes abound: Relationship with
audience, engagement, etc. These can be positive on the
revenue stream.... but revenue streams are the same.
10. Let's talk about each of these
●Advertising
●Direct Purchase
●Donations
17. Donations.....
NPR can get 1/12 listeners.
Perspective: KQED has roughly
750k listeners and is the second
largest NPR station in the country.
Average donation $125.
Total yearly take: 7.8 million
18. Don't forget the content.....
All this assumes your content is good.
Otherwise you’re in trouble
19. *
Overall stats Spot.Us
●All data based on a database replica
from 1:10 AM December 16th 2011
●Breakdown:
● Number of members: 12,588
● Number of donors: 6,647
➔ 52.8 % of the community donates
20. *
Community *
●Number of donations: 13,020
●Average number of donations:
● Per Spot.us community: 1.05
● Per donor: 1.93
●Average donation: $38.17
●Average time between donations: ~
59.9 days
21. *
Doing some math *
●If Spot.Us Could Get 200,000 people to
join....
●Keep same level and occurrence of
donations ($76 from 1/2 community)
That’s 7.6 million.
●
23. *
Reverse Numbers
Game
●Percent of Traffic that Joins: 1.9%
●Means - Every 1k visitors = 20 new members!
●Percent of joiners who donate (50%)
●Means every 2k visitors = 20 donors
●100,000 donors needs: 10 million eyeballs
●OR: 833k a month (KQED traffic)
●NOTE: NPR throughout the country = +30
million listeners
24. Final Conclusions
If I were a pure scientists - it would be apples and oranges. My "sample" is
contaminated. At best I could say "inconclusive" at worst "theory doesn't hold
true."
25. But apples and oranges are always there
And I'd argue they play in favor of my theory
We are an unknown brand
Managed by a team of 3-4 people (at our height)
Our content was good - but I'm willing to admit we didn't
win any Pulitzers.
27. *
Spot.Us - as example
but extrapolate....
●MinnPost
●Voice of San Diego
●Bay Citizen
●etc. etc.
●Let’s take LARGE foundation grants out of it.
●Their current mechanism of donations is
traditional - but if they were 100% donations -
they’d have to hit numbers similar to KQED.
●Can we lower that barrier?
39. Are you Ready to Compete in Video?
66% of American's say television is their main
source of news.
That's down from 74% in 2008
Down from 82% in 2002
40. Open Fields For Those That Can Grab it
Bottom of the second inning.
