On a slow morning in the New York subway, you can read through the handful of billboards that decorate the wagon. This past month, we could only see the podcast startup Luminary’s advertising, covering New York City’s subways. With its bright yellow banners and its enticing slogan (“Original podcasts with original ideas for original people,”) […]
What the almost 3,000 journalism job cuts tell us about the media industry
The US economy is growing, companies are hiring, and the unemployment rate is the lowest since 1969—a meager 3.6%. It’s a party for almost everyone, except for journalists. In the first half of 2019, nearly 3,000 people were let go from newsrooms all over the country, traditional and digital media alike. The scarcity of revenues, […]
No more subscriptions, please
In 2019, subscriptions are everywhere. If you want to read the news, you may subscribe to a couple of outlets, like The New York Times and The New Yorker. If you are watching a show, you’ll get one or two streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu. And if you listen to music, you’ll probably have […]
The Weekly, the NYT’s latest show, is all about branding
The New York Times has started the summer off by releasing its latest product—a docuseries called The Weekly. On June 2nd, the pay television channel FX, property of The Walt Disney Company, aired the first episode telling the story of the Louisiana school T.M. Landry College Preparatory and the moral struggles of the Times’ reporters […]
How The Guardian capitalized its membership model
For most digital news outlets, advertisements are the business’ bedrock and for some others, paywalls (and thus, subscriptions) have become a significant revenue source. Yet for a few, donations through membership models, fuel the newsrooms. The Guardian belongs to this last group of outlets and has recently proved that memberships can be profitable—members donate whatever […]
Disney could very soon become the king of online streaming content
In November, the online streaming industry will suffer another shock. The entertainment company Disney will release its own streaming service in the United States, entering the competition for viewers time. With its strong fan base and brand awareness, Disney+, as the platform is called, will disrupt an already crowded market. By paying only $6.99 a […]
Will incumbent TV companies in Spain get consumers to pay for content?
Since Netflix entered Spain in 2015, Mediaset and Atresmedia, the two largest private TV companies, have struggled to compete with the streaming platform. Now, the majority of their revenues comes from advertising. But as their audience decreases, both Mediaset and Atresmedia need new sources of revenue and strategies to retain viewers. The obvious solution is […]
Slow journalism to cut through the clutter
Slow journalism, which consists in offering only a few stories to the reader so he can understand the news and move on with his day, is coming back again to the front stage. Startups like the British Tortoise Media or new features by The New York Times are proving that readers want fewer notifications and […]
Netflix struggles to compete against content moguls
60% of Americans stream content online and more than half of them do it through Netflix. But that might just change unless the company makes some moves. In early 2019, the company announced price increases. Now, the one-stream subscription plan costs $9 instead of $8; the two-stream plan $13 instead of $11, and the most […]
Apple intends to save journalism… at a price
The next tech ‘solution’ for the news industry seems to be coming from Cupertino, California. Apple wants to launch a subscription service for news, what the media is calling “Netflix for news”. The tech company would require a flat monthly subscription fee—estimated to be around $10—in exchange for access to an unlimited number of articles […]
