<story><title>Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads</title><url>http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/11/asking-members-to-support-its-journalism-no-prizes-no-swag-the-guardian-raises-more-reader-revenue-than-ad-dollars/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>f055</author><text>This. Years ago it was obvious to most newspapers that paid subscribers are their lifeline. Advertisers come and go, daily sales come and go, but long-period subscribers keep you afloat. Somehow, when the respected newspapers moved to the web, they forgot that, and kept pumping ads like crazy. This, in essence, moved the sense of their product from quality content to clickable content - these two don&amp;#x27;t mix. Consequently, this eroded quality journalism, investigative, explanatory view of the world (and let&amp;#x27;s face it, TV could never replace that void, as they are solely relying on ads to survive). And then, a lot of bad things happened with peoples&amp;#x27; opinions and understanding. I am glad many outlets are now seeing the correct path. The best news source in Poland nowadays is a wealthy, but niche, &amp;quot;Dziennik Gazeta Prawna&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;Daily Law Newspaper&amp;quot;) with great, balanced content on serious issues - that relies mostly on subscribers. The best English periodical I have found is Foreign Affairs, also a very subscriber-focused outlet. Note that both of these seem to offer much better content in their paper issues than online.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dalbasal</author><text>I agree that content quality and revenue source are related in this way. There are bunch of analogies online, that I think help fill out this picture.&lt;p&gt;Youtube “monetisation” spawned a bunch of clickbait-driven spam. Patreon produced good quality content, acting on the same platform, at the same time. This is somewhere between a subscriber and supporter model. A lot like some newspapers. Almost a natural experiment.&lt;p&gt;In terms of operational scale, patreon’s “creators” are kind of similar to journalists. It takes similar sums to support the work, and they’re on similar timescales. This makes me think a similar model might work for journalism, though maybe not for newspapers.&lt;p&gt;Podcasting is another possibly useful comparison. Very little clickbait (earbait?) ever crosses my radar. Podcasts are usually ad supported, but there’s still no way to SEO or clickbait your way to a win. To succeeds a podcast needs subscriptions, usually free. Even @ free, the need to attract a dedicated subscriber base encourages the same sort of focus on the same audience. Slow &amp;amp; steady growth. Win more subscribers than you lose…&lt;p&gt;This example is messier, but I think it shows that the rules are rules of thumb.&lt;p&gt;Basically, the path to success needs to depend on quality for quality to be likely. Subscribers are generally quality sensitive. I dunno how to formulate a principle exactly, but it feels like there is something here somewhere.</text></comment>
<story><title>Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads</title><url>http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/11/asking-members-to-support-its-journalism-no-prizes-no-swag-the-guardian-raises-more-reader-revenue-than-ad-dollars/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>f055</author><text>This. Years ago it was obvious to most newspapers that paid subscribers are their lifeline. Advertisers come and go, daily sales come and go, but long-period subscribers keep you afloat. Somehow, when the respected newspapers moved to the web, they forgot that, and kept pumping ads like crazy. This, in essence, moved the sense of their product from quality content to clickable content - these two don&amp;#x27;t mix. Consequently, this eroded quality journalism, investigative, explanatory view of the world (and let&amp;#x27;s face it, TV could never replace that void, as they are solely relying on ads to survive). And then, a lot of bad things happened with peoples&amp;#x27; opinions and understanding. I am glad many outlets are now seeing the correct path. The best news source in Poland nowadays is a wealthy, but niche, &amp;quot;Dziennik Gazeta Prawna&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;Daily Law Newspaper&amp;quot;) with great, balanced content on serious issues - that relies mostly on subscribers. The best English periodical I have found is Foreign Affairs, also a very subscriber-focused outlet. Note that both of these seem to offer much better content in their paper issues than online.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>VeejayRampay</author><text>Also, individuals paying for a subscription have no effect on the editorial line of a given newspaper. There&amp;#x27;s been a case recently in France where a billionaire was involved in the infamous Paradise Papers. Some newspaper wrote a lengthy piece about it and it turns out said billionaire pulled 600.000 euros of ads from the outlet a few weeks later. Totally coincidental of course :)&lt;p&gt;That cannot really happen with actual subscribers. They can pull their subscription en masse if the editorial line doesn&amp;#x27;t please them, but they cannot endanger the livelihood of the newspaper as one fell swoop like that.</text></comment>