📲 Thriving without ads

Monday, February 19
by The Fix Team

Thriving without ads

Hello and big welcome to our new subscribers from Euractiv, CINS, tactile.news, and many others.

Funding quality hard-news journalism, especially investigative reporting, is hard. This work is consequential but doesn’t yield enough traffic to bring meaningful ad revenue.

Many investigative outlets rely on grant funding, some have structured themselves as nonprofits with strong fundraising operations.

Greek investigative outlet inside story has managed to secure significant reader revenue with around 4000 paying subscribers, as Priyal Shah reported for The Fix last week. The publisher still has to find grants and look for other sources of monetisation like workshops, but the result is impressive.

What has inside story done right – and what are the lessons other publishers can draw? Read the full story on The Fix’s website.

Also in today’s newsletter:

The Fix’s latest stories: a crisis in Portuguese news media; how the war reshaped the Russian social media landscape
News and analysis on profits and losses across news companies in Europe and the US
Learning and grant opportunities

From The Fix

How the war reshaped the Russian social media landscape

Veronica Snoj

Russia’s censorship and the withdrawal of foreign companies from the Russian market since the 2022 invasion have carved out a space for new social media platforms. Yet, numbers tell that they aren’t as popular as the Russian government would like them to be

a close up of a cell phone with a music player on the screen

Portugal wakes up to the crisis of journalism business models

Francisca Valentim

A severe crisis in a big media group forced journalists to finally come together

a group of people sitting at tables in a large room with sleeping bags

Thriving without ads: How inside story sustains investigative journalism on subscription revenue

Priyal Shah

A look at how a Greek investigative platform is surviving without ad revenue

How Mother Jones successfully operates a nonprofit national news outlet in the US

Anton Protsiuk (from The Fix’s archive)

CEO Monika Bauerlein shares her view of benefits and limitations of the nonprofit model – and her lessons for other nonprofit outlets

What we are following

Alexei Navalny, Russian opposition leader who died in jail on Friday, was a politician but also leader of a big media organisation that conducted the most important anti-corruption investigations in Russia’s modern history. A 2020 piece by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project looks at Navalny’s history as an anti-corruption investigator.

Swiss German-language publisher Blick introduced its freemium paywall last year and has gained over 16,000 subscribers since then. Press Gazette looks into the strategy behind the launch.

Industry news

DMGT, a British media company that owns the Daily Mail and other titles, showed revenue growth in 2023 “as a strong performance from UAE-headquartered B2B events division offset falling income at its UK consumer newsbrands”, Press Gazette reports. While online advertising slightly declined and print advertising shrinked to the smallest revenue stream, print subscriptions remained a major source of revenue, and the events business showed strong growth.

In the meantime Guardian News and Media, The Guardian’s publisher, came under budget in the wake of the advertising downturn. “GNM brought in £192m [€226m] in revenue in the nine months [to 31 December], down £10m [€11.8m] or 5% compared to the same period in 2022”, Press Gazette notes. Digital reader revenue increased year-over-year but came in slightly below expectations.

Over in the US, tech outlet 404 Media said it was profitable six months after launch, NiemanLab reports. The publisher is small but interesting for its ownership structure – it’s wholly owned by the four journalist co-founders. Meanwhile Slate, a 27-year-old veteran of digital publishing, reported its best year ever. The company’s revenue grew 28% year-over-year thanks to the focus on its podcasting business and the website, Semafor reports.

Axel Springer, the European media giant headquartered in Germany, announced its new US leadership team. Over the past years the company made significant investments in the US media market, most notably with the acquisitions of Business Insider and Politico. Axel Springer now employs about the same number of journalists in the US as in Germany, the company says.

Opportunities and job openings

Media Blend Hackathon. The Media Development Foundation and International Press Institute launched an open call for media teams willing to participate in the Media Blend Hackathon. This is an opportunity for media-related professionals in Europe to explore business models in journalism, receive mentorship from industry leaders, pitch your ideas for media sustainability, win a grant prize and more. Your travel to a three-day event in Sarajevo in May will be covered.

More info: https://bit.ly/3HBaGAg

Deadline: March 10

SoJo Europe. Journalismfund Europe will award grants in solutions journalism. Small European media outlets can submit their stories to receive an opportunity to get funding and take part in training and mentorships. Overall grant budget is €320,000 which will be spread among grantees.

More info: https://bit.ly/3wf3iIs

Deadline: Apr 4

Job opening – Executive Director. The Seek Initiative is seeking an executive director to oversee the organisation's strategy and be responsible for its management, leadership and finances. An ideal candidate should have experience in investigative journalism and the non-profit sector. The position is based in Berlin.

More info: https://bit.ly/3ULk24n

Deadline: March 10

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