The data presented in Chart A.2 shows the sources from which the participants draw their revenue. In the past, newspaper revenue relied heavily upon the sale of advertising and subscription fees, and minimally upon other sources of revenue like events or grant funding. Traditionally subscription fees did not subsidize the production of the news, but rather the cost of printing and distributing the newspaper (which is now mitigated via an online distribution model that costs significantly less, if anything). This presents an interesting point of analysis, looking at the ability of an online niche publication to attract subscription-based revenue. What we found in this study is that the most common revenue source respondents identified was grants (9), then individual donors (7) and advertising (6), followed by self-funding and subscription revenue (5) as well as
external projects (4). On the lower end of responses was seed-funding. Not surprisingly, most who identified grant revenue also identified receiving individual donor contributions (7 out of 9). While many listed grant funding, only four respondents included subscriptions as part of their revenue stream, and only two out of those four offered it as a significant portion of their revenue. While clearly advertising and subscription still play an active role in funding for these sites, the data favors grant- or donationbased funding.
In addition to the data collected, our research team asked participants to identify their ideal amount of funding for one year of operations to better establish the range of funding necessary to operate a single-subject website. While two participants’ ideal budget ranged into the millions, and one quoted just $20,000, the most common response was $500,000 for one year of operations. The average, excluding the aforementioned outliers, was $358,917, which is highly divergent from traditional newsrooms, which can cost millions of dollars per year. Budget Expenditures The data in Chart A.3 demonstrates that the majority of expenses participants reported fall under the categories of operations (9) and personnel (9) then technology development (8), followed by content development (6). Only three respondents listed external projects as a budget expenditure this year. While many of the businesses place emphasis on operations and personnel as funding priorities, responses indicated that less important funding priorities include marketing and external projects. Respondents noted that content development and operational personnel salaries are often interlinked, since many employee pools consist of journalists or reporters fulfilling different operational, administrative, and marketing roles in addition to their content development roles at their organizations.
Chart A.3 – Budget Expenditures Analysis The participant interview process yielded one consistent finding: the lack of formalized marketing programs. The data shows this trend as constant, with only five respondents allocating any percentage of their budget toward marketing, and only one dedicating a large chunk of its expenditures to marketing. The research team discovered that while many journalists can identify with the concept of working to “get eyes on a story,” very few identified this process as marketing. In fact, during the interview process many participants expressed a desire to see how other companies conducted their marketing and internal operational procedures. As a qualitative assessment, it is fair to conclude that many journalists were not formally trained in business operations, especially among older generations. As the newsroom paradigm shifts toward one wherein online journalists are now expected to market their websites as a product, this is an education gap that may need to be addressed in the future.