Against a backdrop of the continued reliance on print dollars for most small-market newspapers, and the challenge of attracting sufficient local advertising, this section explores some of the ways in which small-market newspapers are looking to expand and diversify their income base.

It’s not easy, but fortunately, good ideas are plentiful: there are a plethora of case studies showcasing different ways in which local newspapers can generate income.63 64 Below we outline some of the more popular and practical options being explored by publishers.

1. Subscriptions and single-copy sales

Alongside traditional display advertising subscriptions(online and in print), single-copy sales and paywalls continue to be popular income sources at small-market newspapers.

Many smaller titles, particularly weeklies, remain heavily dependent on single-copy sales. Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, told us, “People are making the buying decision every single week, plunking down fifty cents, or seventy-five cents, or even a dollar for that paper.”

Without the certainty of subscription income, many smaller papers are “vulnerable,” Cross argued, and understandably wary of rocking the readership boat. While this type of risk aversion is not unique to these kinds of weekly outlets, these titles may have less wiggle room than those with a larger circulation base. The type of papers that Cross describes have an average weekly circulation of around 4,000.

At many daily newspapers circulations are higher, which may offer a slightly larger margin for error in terms of the opportunity to experiment. Nevertheless, as many interviewees told us, they are still potentially hamstrung by a number of other strategic considerations. Several editors identified issues such as the fact that their print subscribers tend to be older and resistant to change, while others highlighted the discrepancy between the size of their digital and print subscriber bases (sometimes digital is around ten percent, or less, of the print audience). These factors can impact on the scope for maneuverability and innovation.

Yet change is often necessary, not least because of shrinking newsrooms and the need to create content for an increasing number of platforms. This means that the newspaper of today cannot afford to look like the newspaper of yesterday.

As Robert York of tronc explained:

If you want to do new things, you have to stop doing old things that don’t work. And I think that’s something in our industry [that] is very difficult to do because everything has a constituency of at least one.

So, if you take a comic out of the newspaper, somebody likes that comic, and they will call and complain and cancel their subscription. If you take a box of ten mutual funds that you always run, and take that out of the paper, off to online, once again, somebody will call and complain because that was their mutual fund.

2. Paywalls and digital subscriptions

The predominance of paywalls, often present at even the smallest small-market titles, is a more recent phenomenon than is generally recognized. In 2012, Gannett, Lee Enterprises, and McClatchy all announced plans to introduce paywalls for some—or the majority—of their titles65 66 67 with Scripps following suit later that year,68 before Digital First Media in 2013.69 70

Since then, in just a short period of five to six years, paywalls have rapidly become an established means for newspapers to generate income from readers.71 This doesn’t mean, however, that paywalls aren’t necessarily a source of potential tension for newsrooms and audiences alike.

In an era where journalists are frequently rewarded for page views, anything which creates a barrier to readership can be a source of friction. Meanwhile, for audiences accustomed to free, unmetered access to content for much of the early internet age, the move to paywalls marks a major shift in their online relationships.

From an audience perspective, research from Alex T. Williams for the American Press Institute72 found that larger newspapers were often good at communicating to readers how and why paywalls were being introduced.73 But that dialogue often ceased post-launch. New visitors may be therefore unclear about paywall structures and the need for them.

Journalists can play a direct role in contributing to this conversation. Lauren Gustus, at the time the executive editor of the Coloradoan in Fort Collins observed how her reporters will often share details on social media of special subscription offers, telling their followers: “I’m proud of the work I do . . . Here’s the link if you wanna subscribe.”

Gustus contends that, alongside this, her journalists don’t simply leave these matters to the sales guys. “Anyone in our newsroom could tell you about the demographics of our subscribers,” she said. “They could tell you how many subscribers we have and they could tell you how much it costs to subscribe to the Coloradoan for print or digital.”

The paper has one of the highest digital-only subscriber bases across the Gannett group, with paid circulation up year-on-year for the past two years. Whether this can be attributed to the continued communication between the newsroom and the paper’s audience cannot be proven, but it remains, nonetheless, a model that others can potentially learn from.

Our research also found clear evidence that paywalls and digital subscription models are not set in stone. There are plenty of opportunities to experiment with them. The Dallas Morning News, for example, has deployed three different paywalls over the years, from a hard paywall,74 and later 75 a mixed premium76 versus free site, to a metered model.77 The current paywall also distinguishes between in-market and out-of-market audiences.

For titles like The Dallas Morning News, some sections of the site (e.g., entertainment) don’t count toward the meter, as the content is well supported by ads. Other outlets, but not all, take a similar approach to popular verticals such as job boards and “what’s on” listings.

It’s clear from our research that not only are paywalls newer than we might realize, but they’re also a space that is far from static.

3. Events

Of the new, emerging sources of revenue that newspapers are engaging in, the events space may be one of the most promising. Aside from their potential as a means for story gathering and community engagement, events also offer opportunities for sponsorship, ticket sales, and other income streams.

One digital site, Billy Penn in Philadelphia, has made events a cornerstone of its business model.78 As founder Jim Brady told us, “I’ve said a bunch of times, and I’m dead serious about it, that part of what makes it—people say, ‘What’s your business model?’ It’s like, ‘Events and low overhead.’ ”

For many other digital operators, such as those tracked by Michele McLellan as part of her database of promising online local news startups, Michele’s List,79 events are described as an effective means to engage with their community, even though for most outlets they account for less than twenty percent of revenue.

This percentage may grow in the future, but it also alludes to another benefit from events: their ability to provide opportunities for face-to-face engagement and interaction with readers and non-readers alike.80

MinnPost, a nonprofit serving the Twin Cities in Minneapolis, for example, uses events to deepen relationships with existing supporters by offering members free and discounted tickets.81 Others such as The Seattle Times have worked with external partners to bring non-subscribing audiences to their education events.82 Meanwhile, as far back as 2013 the Chattanooga Times Free Press (circulation 75,336) was producing twelve large events a year, generating seven-figure income levels, eleven percent of its retail revenue, in the process.83

Tom Slaughter, executive director of the Inland Press Association, was one interviewee who felt that events were likely to be part of the “portfolio of businesses” required to “support the infrastructure of what we call a daily newspaper.” After all, he reflected, “Newspapers will not be able to sustain themselves solely on digital advertising.”

4. Media services

One clear way that a number of publishers are expanding revenue sources is by creating, or buying, spin-off businesses which capitalize on their editorial and design expertise. Income from these services, which includes building apps and websites for small and medium-sized businesses, can then be poured back into resourcing the core product.

In doing this, small-market newspapers are not just leveraging the skills they have developed, but also the trust and heritage associated with their brand.

As Steven Waldman, author of 2011’s FCC report on “The Information Needs of Communities” argued:

Those brands and that reputation means something and that’s partly why I think these service businesses really do have some potential. I think when you’re a small business and you’re getting calls from five different people claiming to be able to help you with your website, and you have never heard of four of them and one of them is the local newspaper, I think you may get the local newspaper [to help you].

Other newspapers such as the Oregon-based RG Media Group and EO Media Group are leveraging different areas of expertise and resources, offering commercial print operations, which includes printing the publications of their neighbors.84 The Columbian in Vancouver, Washington, prints The Oregonian, which is based in nearby Portland, and The Register-Guard in Eugene publishes the Gannett paper for Salem, the Statesman Journal.

Given these transferable skills, it’s perhaps no surprise that we’re seeing small—and large—newspapers across the country branching out into the media services space. This is another trend we can confidently expect to continue.

5. Newsletters

On a smaller scale, the humble newsletter is back and in vogue with sales teams and audiences alike. “As the digital ecology evolves, it sometimes pays to go back to basics and adapt relatively old ideas for new times,” noted London School of Economics’ Charlie Beckett in his introduction to a 2016 report, “Back to the Future—Email Newsletters as a Digital Channel for Journalism” by Swedish journalist Charlotte Fagerlund.85

The revenue opportunities in this space include sponsorship for specific newsletters covering key verticals such as politics, sports, the environment, or education, as well as the opportunity to embed advertising as hyperlinked text or display ads.

With analytics offering user insights such as clickthroughs and open rates, it’s relatively easy to calculate an ROI, too. Although as Digiday has pointed out, this is not without its challenges.86 “E-newsletters are limited in their ability to monetize because of the lack of a third-party auditor and the constraints of third-party platforms,” argued a recent article,87 not least because if emails are forwarded, then third-party tools don’t count these as new opens.

This is clearly an issue, but irrespective of this newsletters remain88 a source of investment for small-market newspapers, and a potential tool for valuable revenue and consumer data.

Rob Barrett, president of digital media for Hearst Newspapers, stressed the role that newsletters can play in creating a “daily habit” with readers, which is particularly important at a time when the daily habit of reading a newspaper may be on the wane.

Meanwhile, Lee Rainie at the Pew Research Center highlighted the power of using newsletters to offer a “foot in the door” to your website and other content. From these lower-level engagements, deeper relationships may flourish.

Perhaps with this in mind, Barrett posited that newsletters are about more than just delivering content (and ads); they should also be considered part of a newspaper’s customer relationship management (CRM) efforts, given the potentially valuable information that newsletter subscribers share on sign-up and through their consumption.

He explained, “I wouldn’t say, ‘Hey, we’re investing in newsletters.’ We’re investing in customer retention, customer relationship management, and it’s very clear that using sort of the best email technology to generate it, to target, to personalize it, and to have the database of customers, and that having the best technology investment is a very, very big deal.”

Given these factors, newsletters are an area of investment—and one with a potentially positive financial return—that we expect to see a further focus on.

6. Obituaries

As we noted in our discussion about digital subscriptions, publishers aren’t necessarily blocking access to all of their content. Obituaries are one area where we see different approaches being used.

The Bulletin, a daily newspaper in Bend, Oregon, excludes obituaries—alongside classified ads, job openings, its events calendar, and restaurant and golf guides—from its thirteen-dollar-a-month paywall. In contrast, the Calhoun County Journal, a weekly in Bruce, Mississippi, places obituaries, along with other popular content such as recipes, behind a paywall accessible via a WordPress login.

One possible reason for this divergence is the different attitude that some small-market newspapers adopt when producing this content. As Waldman told us, the cost for publishing obituaries can range from hundreds to sometimes thousands of dollars. But not everyone is comfortable with that approach. He said:

There’s still a couple newspapers out there that do it for free. They [see] this is a service to our community and we’re not gonna charge for it. I think those are very few and far between, but I have come across some like that, and some have kept their prices down in the forty–fifty-dollar range, something like that. But, certainly in the metro papers, the rates are going way up.

As publishers seek new revenue streams, some of them are turning to obituaries as a potential means to attract different sources of revenue. The Courier Record of Blackstone, Virginia, is one such paper which has made this journey. As owner Billy Coleburn reflected, “We used to never charge for obits, then we charged for some versions and didn’t charge for others. Now, basically most obits in our paper are paid. Do a color photo, and it’s not a bad additional piece of revenue.” At the same time, Coleburn readily conceded that “obits are a very important part of record of the paper, no doubt, [and a] record of the community.”

This wider value helps explain why some small-market newspapers wrestle with where obituaries sit on the revenue versus information continuum. Many local journalists, perhaps, underestimate the importance of this content to members of their community and individual readers. But Waldman reminded us, “The most important news event in most people’s lives is not the Iowa Caucus, it’s the birth of their child or the death of your parent.”

Leveraging this may seem rather cynical to some, but as Waldman argued, “If the newspaper can be a part of actually helping that person, you’re gonna be connecting with them on a much more powerful level, being much more useful than you’ve ever been.”

7. Foundations, crowdfunding, and other emerging ideas

Finally, in this section we highlight some of the other revenue-raising ideas being explored by our interviewees and others across the industry. This list is by no means exhaustive, but instead seeks to highlight some of the various ways in which small-market newspapers across the United States are looking at different revenue sources to help underpin their journalistic endeavors.

Foundations are, perhaps, the most obvious example of this. In many cases their support has enabled news organizations to experiment and do new things. This has included new forms of journalistic activity,89 support for specific beats such as Education Lab at The Seattle Times90 and state reporting by the Center for Public Integrity,91 exploration of new revenue models,92 and relationship-building.93

Of course not every publisher is able to benefit from the foundation support. In particular, we note that the pool of outlets that has benefited from this is small, relative to the size of the sector, and that the focus is often restricted to tech and innovation. However, there’s no doubt that this income source is valuable for those that have benefited from it. We expect to see more publishers seeking to tap into this potential revenue stream.

Another reasonably established form of fundraising is crowdfunding,94 which has been used to cover specific stories and beats such as The Texas Tribune’s series “Undrinkable,” “The Shale Life,” “The Ticket,” and “Bordering on Insecurity,”95 as well as its recruitment of a community reporter in late 2016.96

Another long-established means for attracting additional revenue is the use of consumer questionnaires by local news outlets such as the Herald and News (Klamath Falls, Oregon) and The News Journal and DelawareOnline.com (Wilmington, Delaware).

Though this isn’t necessarily a new idea (Nieman Lab wrote about an early iteration in 201197) it offers publishers an opportunity for alternative forms of monetization, with publishers being paid by Google for each completed Google Consumer Surveys (GCS).98

Pop-Up Consumer Survey from the Herald and News (Oregon)


Source: Herald and News 99

Meanwhile, the Blue Mountain Eagle in John Day, Oregon, the oldest weekly community newspaper in the state, launched in 1868,100 enables its audience to purchase popular images (see below).101


Source: Blue Mountain Eagle 102

Readers can repurpose images for everything from a four-by-six print ($3.99) through to mugs, mouse mats, t-shirts, and large canvas prints (twenty-four-by-thirty-six mounted, $143.50).103

This additional revenue stream sits alongside traditional advertising and metered access to its content (unlimited access to the website costs forty dollars per year).104

It’s likely this isn’t a large money-spinner for the publication, but setting up an online store in this way may be a relatively simple method for generating some additional revenue with minimal effort.

Other outlets are also exploring opportunities around eCommerce, ranging from mounted front pages of The Denver Post105 to keepsake pages and coffee-table books from The Seattle Times.106

For some outlets, harnessing their unique local archive in this manner may be a revenue area to watch.

Final thoughts on revenue matters

These examples, as well as initiatives such as membership schemes, sponsored content, and other ideas, give us a sense of how newspapers are experimenting with different opportunities to generate income. There’s no magic combination for making this work, but what this section shows is that there are no shortage of potential routes to revenue.

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