news media INNOVATION 2020

Centre for Media Transition Jacqui Park is a journalist, media strategist

and social entrepreneur. She is the Senior Fellow for Asia-Pacific journalism and innovation at the Contents Centre for Media Transition, University of Executive summary ...... 4 Technology, Sydney, and founder and principal Introduction: Why this report? ...... 8

of Engagement By Design Pty Ltd where she advis- Chapter 1 What do we mean by innovation? ...... 10

es on strategic development, coaches startup teams Chapter 2 Where are we now? How did we get here? ...... 12

and publishes a fortnightly newsletter on media Chapter 3 Innovation in the journalism ...... 20 Chapter 4 Innovation in the business model ...... 26 startups and innovation in Asia-Pacific, The Story. Chapter 5 Innovation in distribution ...... 36 Subscribe here: http://bit.ly/TheStory-AsiaPacific Chapter 6 Innovation in product development ...... 40 Chapter 7 Challenges ahead – and some tentative solutions ...... 48 news Media Case studies ...... 52 Innovation Works cited ...... 64 2020 Interviewees ...... 66 Jacqui Park About the Centre for Media Transition (CMT) ...... 67

She was the founding director for the Splice Beta a note about festival for Asian media startups and innovators in THIS REPORT Written and researched: Jacqui Park Chiang Mai, Thailand, 2019. Previously she was CEO Layout and design: Kevin Kearney > Short ‘bios’ of the news media CMT project lead: Peter Fray of the prestigious Australian Walkley Foundation organisations cited in this research Additional research and writing: are contained in stand-alone Chris Warren, Jacqueline Robson for journalism where, among other initiatives, she boxes. Many of organisations and Copy editing and reading: Katie Pollock, projects are further profiled in the Rosa Alice, Derek Wilding, Chrisanthi Giotis created an innovation fund and incubator for media case studies section, pages 52-62. and Sacha Molitorisz Referencing: Gabriel Yakub, Jacqui Park, Charlotte Lian startups. She was also Asia Pacific director for the > Quotes not otherwise cited come from interviews or discussions Suggested citation: Park, J. 2019, News Media Innovation 2020, Centre for Media Transition, International Federation of Journalists, and in conducted as part of this research. University of Technology Sydney, Australia, cmt.uts.edu.au Quotes or information from speech- 2016 was a Knight fellow at Stanford University. es or interventions at conferences This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribu- not otherwise published are refer- tion-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 This report draws on her work over the past year enced to the conference in the text. International License. To view a copy of this licenses visit: researching and interviewing media innovators in http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Australia, New Zealand and across Asia.

2 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 3 Executive summary Disruption and innovation is the call and response media: do you have what it takes to hold the audience’s and what we know we don’t know. As futurist Amy Webb of the modern world. News media is caught shuttling attention? The situation calls for an innovation response says, deep challenges need deep questions, so these helter-skelter from one to the other, attempting to juggle that captures the audience with compelling content, pack- learnings – and the suggested ways forward – must al- Six Takeaways the impact of disruption while innovating to create a new aged and delivered in the right way at the right time. ways have a touch of the tentative about them. Being agile media ecosystem. It’s hard and exhausting work. The goal is R.E.A: repeat engaged attention. has become something of a cliché. It is also a necessity. Disruption of news media has come from outside. Because a vibrant news media in a democratic society is 1 Innovation is about remaking news media from But disruption is not a matter of having to deal with new It has taken a long time to understand that too important for us not to prepare to embrace solutions, the inside. technological tools or the platform-based internet. The beyond the business model, social distribution and to jump in and experiment. The stakes are too high. disruption of news media lies in the abrupt turnabout in technology, the biggest disruption has been to the The disruption is not about the technology. It’s not the information and the attention economies. Previously, audience: their habits, needs and expectations and Coming to grips with the centrality of the audience 2 even about the business model. It’s about the clash information – and access to information – was relatively how they value information. This calls for an audi- marks the third overlapping innovation cycle in news between living in a world of information abundance and scarce. It could be corralled, packaged and sold. But ence-focused response, and an understanding that media this century, following the first cycle of process having only a finite amount of time to pay it attention. now, information is everywhere. It strains to be free, to just as disruption is at the heart of the business, engineering that transplanted the old mass market ad- be ubiquitous. And where supply is effectively infinite, innovation too has to be at the centre of everything. vertising-supported model to the web, and the second Innovation in news media has circled through three demand for each individual unit falls. Business as usual is not an option. cycle of mass and targeted distribution through search 3 overlapping cycles: digital-first publishing, social and social media. media distribution and, now, audience-centred publishing. On the other hand, attention – the time any one person Practically, this means aggregating, identifying or creat- has to consume information – is all too finite. As all the ing an audience with a holistic approach: creating journal- This audience-centred dynamic is creating a diverse It has taken these three cycles to understand what other magnets for attention come rushing in to compete ism they value, designing distribution tools to reach them ecosystem, made up of traditional players, start-up media, 4 is at the core of the disruption challenge: audiences. with news media, the attention available for journal- where they are and developing the products that embed public broadcasting and global players seeking a local ism has dwindled. Journalists are engaged, whether the business strategy to complement the journalism. footprint. There is good reason to be excited about the Practically, putting audiences at the centre means they know it or not, in a global fight for attention, from This report tries to take the first step in responding to journalism that it’s generating and the business processes 5 having a holistic strategy that combines innovation competition within their own industry and from outside it. these innovation challenges: to catalogue what we know, and distribution that are underpinning it. in content, business models, distribution and product. Once, information scarcity allowed news media to mo- nopolise significant blocks of attention, with the morning The case studies in this report reveal how new newspaper over the breakfast table or the television It calls for an innovation response that captures the audience 6 and established media organisations are placing news in the evening. Now, the challenge is to win that audiences first. attention through the power of journalism. And that is with compelling content, packaged and delivered in the right the core question posed by the digital disruption of news way at the right time. The goal is R.E.A: repeat engaged attention

4 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 5 Innovating the business model – aka: where’s the money coming from? Traditionally that’s been advertising. But grabbing a slice of the pay in the age of Google and Facebook requires smarts If the business model is about building diverse reve- n give the current generation of journalists (and, for In this report, we draw insights and questions about There’s another distribution trap: your audience wants nue streams with the audience at the centre, innova- universities, the emerging generation) training to drive innovation across the four pillars of product development, it when they want it – not when you decide to give it to tion in product development is about designing news innovation in journalism that meshes the imaginative business models, distribution and, of course, the journal- them: think of time-shifting in video or the rise of the products that people need and want, will seek out and the practical? ism that must continue to lie at the heart of news media podcast. And there’s an emerging challenge: artificial and will pay for. It brings together the journalism, the n in a democratic society. These need to be integrated in a intelligence has the potential to make personalised distribution and the business strategy into a product network news media innovators across Australia, holistic strategy that understands and engages its audi- delivery the ultimate in what the audience wants, when that fits its market, a product that solves a problem for New Zealand and Asia and link them with innovators ence at the centre of the process. they want it. Link that with the trend to voice activation the audience it centres on. around the world to share the wisdom that comes and you have the drivers of the next cycle of news equally from success and failures? How do we enable The big takeaway for innovation in the journalism itself media innovation in distribution. That means there’s a need for skills development, networked innovators to support each other through is that the story can’t take for granted the attention where innovators need business skills – either sharing knowledge as peers and mentors? of the audience. It must be earned over and The next question is how to innovate their own or someone else’s. And start-ups need n over again. Journalists need to start any the business model – aka, where’s to find someone to help them get on, and off, the build the support structures and space for experimenta- story by asking themselves: what’s the the money coming from? Tradi- runway. That someone might be you, bootstrap- tion and shared learning for the whole craft and industry? value in this? Why should a reader, tionally for news media, that’s ping yourself. n viewer or listener use some of their been advertising – and inno- build initial runways for access to investment and vators are still finding those While there is much to be excited about in this innova- other funding? limited attention on this. This dollars too attractive to just give tive ecosystem, there are also reasons for real concern. n requires understanding the job your away. But grabbing a slice of Too often, the ecosystem lacks depth and there is much understand the role and value of journalism where journalism is doing, as well as providing the pay in the age of Google and work to be done to develop a robust culture to support internet culture is rapidly changing the context? compelling content, engaging storytelling Facebook requires smarts. media in transition. The current culture risks building and a targeted market niche. walls that confine news to those able and prepared to There are plenty more related questions to ask and Increasingly, news media innovators pay for it and facilitating the creation of news deserts, problems to wrangle with. But the positive note is, by Once, ‘distribution’ went one way, through loading are turning to their readers, viewers and listeners most notably in local news. and large, the news media industry knows it has to papers on the truck or firing up the broadcast tower. for revenue, turning them into subscribers, donors and meet the challenge of disruption with innovative re- Now innovation in distribution is multi-directional. partners. But it comes with a warning – that changes a lot So what’s next for these four innovation responses? sponses. This report is a good place to start to With the internet now the front page, each media out- more than you might think. How might we: understand how it is doing so. let needs to find its cut through, from managing the n trials of the algorithm to the secret distribution power What other dollars are there? The magic answer is truly understand the needs of our audience and commu- of email and much in between. revenue diversification – an answer that requires real nities? How do we turn this understanding into a media that innovation and often rethinking the product. is profoundly relevant to their wants and needs?

6 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 7 reshaping historical products, walking either then, uses human-centred design both as side of the line that separates innovation a research technique and as a way of un- from business as usual, to innovate without derstanding how innovators in news media introduction breaking what still brings value. Start-ups “If we want have (or could or should have) responded are providing a key layer of news and infor- to the challenges. Human-centred design mation – deepening the news ecology and everything to encourages innovators to focus on a sharp filling news gaps. definition of the question before they fall in stay the same, love with the answer or, in the case of jour- Why this report ? In the 25 years since Australian media ven- everything will nalism, before they assume that the answer tured online, our tentative learnings suggest that may have been correct within the that building a sustainable news media for the have to change” constraints of 20th century media remains future requires integrated innovation around the correct answer today. four factors: Lampedusa the leopard 1958 Within journalism, there’s often a caution n Journalism that understands its audi- about embracing so-called Silicon Valley ence’s needs and is able to engage it in a values; a concern, for example, that one two-way (and a broader social) relation- person’s audience focus is another’s ship and add value through being both corrupt pandering to what works (Foer useful and entertaining; 2018 p 149). But, as the author of The Content Trap, Bharat Anand, says, n A product that does the job that audi- innovators need to understand the game ences want it to do for them and that, being played before they can know how directly or indirectly, funds the journalism to win it (Anand 2016). In this game, of news media; then, human-centred design is more a The emerging media eco-system in This report is written with three audiences tool than a theory, a mindset that takes Australia and New Zealand, and in the in mind. The first is the community of news n Social distribution that both uses and time for a deep understanding of the broader Asia region, demonstrates an media innovators who are shaping the builds network power; and question or challenge and encourages exciting diversity, both in its journalism and media for the future, or people with the be- innovation based on centring the user. the products that make up that journalism. ginnings of ideas for innovation. These are n A business model that relies on diverse This has been described elsewhere The black and white world of 20th century You can the journalists and others navigating these revenues from advertisers, readers and as the soft operating system of Silicon analogue journalism has been replaced understand turbulent seas. some other mix, without being over-de- Valley innovation (Park 2019). by a vibrant interplay of colour. But what pendent on any one source. makes it work? How are traditional media the world Second are the institutions that are Bharat As a result this research is qualitative and navigating the transition? Why do some providing essential support for media in These are not stand-alone points to be theme-based, rather than quantitative. ventures succeed and others fail? How is after a transition: universities, philanthropists, ticked off. Successful news media innova- Anand says In-depth interviews with more than 70 the eco-system evolving? governments, not-for-profits, investors – tors think about each of these steps in a innovators practitioners and readings of their re- revolution. people who want to know how they can holistic way that integrates them by cen- al-time comments in blogs, speeches and To rephrase Clay Shirky in his 2009 blog post, But in the help make a difference by collaborating tring the audience. need to articles, have provided an understand- Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable with innovators. ing of how others have been defining (Shirky 2009): You can understand the world middle of it? Because news media innovation is in a understand the question – and how they’ve been before a revolution. You can understand the And then there’s everyone else: the news state of flux, it’s all but impossible to put the game being attempting to answer it. world after a revolution. But in the middle of it? All but media is central to a democratic society, as a a pin into just where we are, or where All but impossible! impossible! Fourth Estate. People who care about where we’re going. Innovation is a discovery, a played before As Shirky reminded us a decade ago, we society is heading, care about what’s happen- journey of exploration with news media understand the future with the tools of The stories of innovation only tell the journey ing with news media. often struggling to see too far ahead. This they can know the past. In news media this understand- up to this point where the news media (and its means ‘we need to consider methodolog- how to win it ing means that what is innovation from audiences) sit today. These stories aggregate Media – both traditional players and start- ical approaches that help us capture a the content trap one point of view is business as usual the knowledge of news media innovators into ups – are using innovative methodology field in flux, and that allow us insights into from another. But a holistic look over the first glimmerings of a wisdom that helps and design to adapt distribution, audience the process, not merely into the input and/ news media helps put each step – each understand what audiences want – and what building, business models and the pivot to or the output of such processes’ (Wage- success, each pivot, each failure -- in a they just might need – from the news media. reader revenues. The traditional players are mans and Witschge 2019). This report, broad innovation context.

8 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 9 # As a response to exogenous disruption, innovation is both of journalism in the revaluation of time, the re-imagination more constrained – i.e., more reliant on platforms and tools of community and the demand for relationships that can be CHAPTER 1 developed by others – and more free, at least of the trap trusted. Being confident in its values and mission, makes of the innovator’s dilemma – the industry will be disrupted innovation in news media a radically conservative project. As whatever choices the industry leaders make. However, the Lampedusa writes in The Leopard in response to that great dilemma in news media innovation is real. It’s easy for Silicon 19th century social and political disruption of nationalism: ‘If Valley evangelists to grandly admonish us to ‘Move fast and we want everything to stay the same, everything will have to break things’ (Zuckerberg quoted in Baer 2014). In news me- change’ (Lampedusa 1958). dia, the things that get broken – local newspapers, say – have a value beyond the commercial, a deep history Or to put Lampedusa into design thinking: and strong community role. how might we renew a journalism true to what do we mean by moonshot its values that delights and fulfills an es- Given the social and political significance of news sential need for our society? The answer is the flagship media, the innovator’s dilemma has been to build the to that question is a process, a journey. Innovation and disruption The internet disrupt- future while preserving as much of the values and podcast series by That process is the grand task of innova- (and even disruptive innova- ed the news media assets of the past as we can. Practically, this means experimental media tion as it is explored in this report. tion) describe processes of in three ways. It dis- asking: how might we innovate in news media without innovation? company Lawson change in industry and indus- rupted distribution by sacrificing the core, historic values of journalism’s Innovation across the sector is a collective try sectors – change that profoundly reshapes, perhaps enabling real-time circulation, eliminating capital-intensive truth-telling mission? And, how might we support the Media, founded by and iterative project, assuming an implied destroys, and recreates. Economist Joseph Schumpeter production processes (a printed newspaper, a broadcast advertising-driven mass product which still, 25-odd former ABC journalist collaborative understanding. Each indi- dubbed ‘creative destruction’ the driving force of capi- channel). It disrupted the business-to-business model years into this digital journey, provides the overwhelm- vidual idea, practice or change should be Kristofor Lawson. It talism (Schumpeter 1947). Management theorist Henry aggregating mass audiences for delivery to advertisers. ing majority of news media revenues? assessed for its contribution to the sector’s Mintzberg said businesses mistake disruption as a mo- And it disrupted the monopoly on content creation that, for was partly funded by often tentative reaching for its next footing, ment, not a process: change, he says, has always been news reporting and analysis, was effectively held by the News media have eagerly adopted the tools of dis- the Walkley Innova- rather than assessed for its own (probably with us and each generation – mistakenly – believes it professional craft of journalism. ruption to innovate. Newspapers were quick to move unknowable) impact. For example, the tion Fund 2017 and alone stands at the epicentre (Mintzberg 1994). online: within six months of Netscape launching the roll-out of large-scale donations strategies All these disruptions were more or less foresee- first commercialised browser in 1994, smh.com.au RMIT University’s was initiated by The Guardian and now is Much of this theoretical analysis of disruption able as the natural playing out of the internet. What began with Computers Online. Since then, journalists start-up accelerator being replicated by others. However, as treats innovation as the cause, rather than caught the industry by surprise was the greater and communicators have continued to embrace the each of these innovative practices jumps LaunchHUB. Moon- the driver of disruption. Disruption within a disruption – the fragmentation of attention in an opportunity to innovate news media: in distribution, in (or iterates) from company to company, it specific industry is driven by the shock of information-rich environment. The habits, wants product development, in business models and in the shot reports on big demands its own product/market assess- an invention, as suggested by Ralph Waldo and needs of news media audiences were journalism itself, both in reportorial research and in ideas for a tech-in- ment, that process of understanding your Emerson and his proverbial better mouse- thought to be well understood. The appoint- crafting the story. own problem to assess the solution’s fit, formed audience. trap. This underpins the foundational 1990s ment with the morning paper over breakfast or rather than a simple cut-and-paste repli- work on modern innovation by Clayton with the 6pm news over dinner was so solid, it This mix of opportunity and constraint often leads Each episode attracts cation. Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma (Chris- could, in a practical sense, be taken to the bank. to a Crocodile Dundee-style innovation competition: 10,000-15,000. tensen 1997). Corporations, he says, are torn Now the audience has atomised. Time has become ‘You call that innovation? THIS is innovation.’ Google Looking back, putting a paper on the web > SEE CASE STUDY between implementing the unknown moveable. Habits have become fluid. describes its thinking as 10x: ‘Put simply, true innova- in the 1990s using print deadlines looks a new at the expense of a profitable present. tion happens when you try to improve something by 10 PAGE 56 lot like 20th century business as usual. But Innovation in news media is better understood as the way times rather than by 10 per cent’ (Google Cloud 2014). at the time, it was a first tentative attempt In news media, this was true of the large disruptions driven an industry responds to the twin shocks of the internet: the to answer the question of how we would by linotypes in the late 19th century, radio in the 1920s and overflow of infinite information it brings crashing into the How would we begin to conceptualise this in the news media renew journalism. And it was embraced by many with excite- television in the 1950s. News media largely captured the hard limits of attention. It’s how the industry – and soci- today? What would a 10x news media even look like? What ment for the opportunities it offered. process and journalism thrived as a result. ety – responds once it realises that a nudge on the tiller of metric would you use to measure it? It’s a fascinating intellec- business as usual isn’t going to cut it any more. It’s how tual exercise – and a useful heuristic at the micro level – but The sector is rich in start-up and innovation talent, open to However, in the 21st century, news media is being disrupted innovators ask (pace Christensen 2016): ‘What’s the job to of limited practical use for a sector seeking to just be as fit for experimentation and adaptable to the constantly changing by exogenous forces outside its control and not open to be be done here? What do readers, listeners or viewers want purpose as it was 25 years ago. media landscape. Indeed, many have embraced change as captured, even by the titans that once dominated media. news media to do for them?’ the new normal. Significantly, it’s not about the money, or However, as everything changes outside journalism, the not just about the money. Innovators have a strong mission starting point for that sort of necessary ambition in news to create journalism as a service that informs and drives ‘You call that innovation? THIS is innovation’ media lies in radically reimagining the provenance and place change, that speaks directly to the needs of their community. 10 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 11 content, with some journalists (such as Matt News media companies largely sequestered Price and George Megalogenis at The Aus- # cycle one their web innovation, either through a skunk NEWSPICKS tralian) adding blogs to their output. In the UK, works lab, or separate administrative or The Guardian had earlier developed live-blog- CHAPTER 2 the digital legal structures. For example, Fairfax digital is a five-year-old Japa- ging. Starting as a tool for a text-based medium operations, under various names, was kept to cover football live, it grew into a significant nese socially networked separate from its metropolitan mastheads way of rethinking news for the 24-hour digital WHERE ARE WE NOW? first cycle until 2012 and often produced stand-alone news app built from the age and has been applied to cover almost all digital only titles such as The Brisbane Times ground up by creating breaking events. Early innovation in news media depended and WA Today (launched in 2007) and youth a community of young- on two breakthrough understandings of the site Vine (launched in 2008). News.com.au’s Within Fairfax, Margo Kingston launched a HOW DID WE GET HERE? web: first, that, as an emerging medium, the Sydney headquarters was initially housed er people (age 20–40) blog-style WebDiary in 2000 on The Sydney web required approaching it on its own terms, outside the company’s Surry Hills headquar- interested in business Morning Herald site, incorporating her own Today’s news media eco-system is more rather than as an online replication of print or ters. Management theory debates whether commentary with citizen journalism. By 2005, and tech, together with a diverse both in what it is and where audiences broadcast production and, second, that the innovation is best achieved through this sepa- its free-wheeling nature became too much for find it. On the one hand, it’s more national (less web is a social network of many to many, not ration (by protecting it against the dead hand strong commentary fea- the company and Kingston launched it as an local) and more globally integrated. On the the traditional one-to-many that underpinned of old-culture thinking) or through integration ture. It produces original independent structure, which continued until other, it provides more opportunities for diverse THE 20th century news media. in daily practice. about 2012. content and events as voices, more niches for different interests. AUSTRALIAN In a practical way, this meant putting stories Journalism on the web evolved by adopting well as aggregating con- Some blogs developed into media start-ups Start-ups are carving out a new space in is a national broadsheet on the web in a web-friendly (and subse- hypertexting to link to sources, early interactivi- tent. Its business model (such as MammaMia or The Roar). Others the media ecosystem, alongside publicly quently mobile) format as they became ty such as comments (including, at times, a re- were absorbed into traditional media as live newspaper, published is based on subscriptions owned media, such as ABC and SBS in available, rather than holding them back sponse within the comments by the journalist) digital content by Crikey or The Australian. Australia and Radio New Zealand. Evolving from Monday to Saturday to match, say, newspaper deadlines, in an and multi-media tools (such as video inserts or and branded content. Jericho himself ended up as an employed traditional media groupings are building each week since 1964, innovation known as ‘digital first’. It meant interactive artwork) (Deuze 2003). > SEE CASE STUDY journalist on The Guardian’s digital Australian national scale around two big groups – Nine reimagining journalism as a continuing edition. Melissa Sweet’s Croakey blog which with an audience of over PAGE 54 Entertainment, having absorbed the Fairfax conversation as the web matured into its Providing user access to source documents started as a link from Crikey’s web site ended mastheads and Stuff in New Zealand, and 1.4 million readers. It has networked self through what was known at and working notes would, it was argued, up spinning out into its own start-up. News Corp and Seven West Media who are a paid subscription-based the time as Web 2.0 (Dinucci 1998). This improve transparency. This culminated in the increasingly cooperating on content and demanded a fundamental change in the rela- launch of Wikileaks which provided all docu- New media were often seen through the eyes online service with an distribution. Global players are carving out a tionship between news media organisations ments in large data dumps (Fowler 2011). of the old. For example, when the NSW Labor local footprint, such as The Guardian, Buzz- audience of 2.3 million, and what Rosen characterised at the time as Council launched its self-funded Workers On- Feed, New York Times and VICE. plus a mobile app and ‘the people formerly known as the audience’ Outside traditional news media, writers were line in 1999 it was shaped, as founding editor (Rosen 2011). embracing the social web with the adoption of Peter Lewis wrote in his recent book Webto- Facebook messenger app These are common global patterns, although blogging, including through shared blogging pia (Lewis, 2019), with the early 20th century in Asia, there is less innovation in the bigger news service. Owned by The shift to digital first publishing within Aus- sites. This gave rise to ‘citizen journalism’ de- model of Labor Daily in mind. In its brief life traditional media houses (apart from a few News Corp Australia, the tralian commercial media was more a pro- fined by Rosen as: ‘When the people formerly from 2012-2014, the philanthropy-funded exciting outliers), but real innovation in new cess than a moment. From the earliest days known as the audience employ the press tools Global Mail grappled with the challenge editor is Christopher Dore, media ventures is often freeing up reporting of web publishing, commercial sites had a they have in their possession to inform one of web-delivered digital with its design as an despite restrictive national conditions. previously the editor of mix of digital first material and material that another’ (Rosen 2008). Often these were # online magazine. The Daily Telegraph. had been held back for print publication driven by journalists, academics, and stu- The innovation journey for news media has not so as to preserve the perceived inherent dents. The history of blogging in Australia 1 More enduring were two early digital only been smooth. Since the turn of the century, it news value in the print product. Over time, was written in real time by Greg Jericho publications: Crikey, a subscription-based has rolled through three overlapping cycles of the mix shifted back and forth depending (who had blogged as Grog’s Gamut), email newsletter launched in 2000 and the experimentation and learning. on corporate and masthead approaches. in his 2012 book The Rise of the Fifth media and marketing newsletter and events Finally, in 2012, Fairfax nailed its metropoli- Estate (Jericho 2012). company, Mumbrella, supported by advertis- tan mastheads to the digital first mast (ABC ing and sponsors, which launched in 2007. Today’s news media is less local and 2012). News Corp followed soon after. Both Although professional journalists more global, and yet – it opens to diverse sustain digital publishing schedules through found the citizen journalist con- In Australia and New Zea- a daily cycle based on perceptions of read- cept challenging, the format land, the public broadcasters voices, more niches and different interests er needs and demands. innovated journalistic came to be early innovators

12 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 13 in journalism content. Free from advertising about $NZ2.5 billion in New Zealand). Mary held by the platform. Programmatic ads are both most – of these referrals were coming constraints, organisations such as the ABC or Meeker’s Internet Trends (Meeker 2019) cheaper and shared across ad-supported web the from Facebook. Radio New Zealand have been able to exper- THE reports the online share increasing globally pages. (The ACCC inquiry includes a useful ex- iment in new approaches to journalism. For by about 20 per cent year on year. planation both of how this works in practice and spinoff According to the ACCC report, in 2017, over the ABC and SBS, this also involved launching guardian how it acts to capture advertising dollars within half still came from Google (28 per cent) or is an online journalism, new digital channels like News24 and NITV is the third largest Most of these online ads are now captured by the platforms’ own eco-system.) Facebook (23 per cent). and time-shifting streaming services iView and Google and Facebook. According to the final commentary and opinion English language news SBS On Demand. report of the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry, Meeker’s Trends estimate this takes 62 per magazine started by Dun- From the news media’s perspective, Facebook website in the world. about 61 per cent of this online ad spend in cent of display advertising globally, and grow- (and other social platforms like Twitter) have can Greive in 2014 with The Guardian Australia Australia is now captured by one or other of ing. The New Zealand IAB estimates about been about pulling readers into the publish- the products and services of these two giants 48 per cent of digital display spend goes to a focus on politics, pop er’s web page where they can be monetised cycle two launched in 2013 and (ACCC 2019). programmatic ads. culture and social issues. through advertising or converted to subscrib- by October 2014, had ers. For Google, this led to the near univer- The advertising A significant slice of this online spend As early as 2010, Meeker’s Trends gave It is organised around sal adoption of the tools of Search Engine reached a record peak supports search and classified advertisements a structural reasoning to this decline by sponsored verticals and Optimisation – the use of headings, words and of 2.1m Australian collapse & the – famously dubbed ‘rivers of gold’ by Rupert matching time spent on medium with ad spend, has recently launched a tags to bump stories up the search rankings, readers. It has success- Murdoch. In the internet world, these are look showing that newspapers then consumed 8 pitching media companies in a zero-sum com- successful membership fully transitioned to a up and discover plays, with no self-evident per cent of media users’ time, but received 27 petition with each other. Facebook punt basis for a relationship with news or related per cent of all advertising income. By last year, program. It has an urban contributor model with content. Although some media companies the figures for print papers had fallen to 3 per youth audience with an For Facebook, it meant maximising user These early trends were overwhelmed from donations from readers. retain full or partial ownership of classified cent of time and 8 per cent of ad spend. engagement with their page through likes, average reach of more about 2008 by two external shocks: the sudden The Guardian is part advertising platforms (Nine and Domain, News shares and comments to boost their links and continuing collapse of advertising rev- Corp and the REA Group) there is now only the The report of the ACCC inquiry into the plat- than 800,000 New Zea- up the News Feeds of people similar to their of the Guardian Media enues, particularly in newspapers, and the most tenuous link between classified income forms estimates that print revenues in Australia landers per month. existing users and so pulling them back to absorption of readers’ time by social media, Group, owned by the and news media. are now about 12 per cent of total ad spend. the publisher’s site. This strategy caught the particularly Facebook and, in news at least, Scott Trust. Profits are However, these print revenues of about $1.8 > SEE CASE STUDY publishers out when the NSW Supreme Court Twitter. Together with Google’s search these At the same time, display advertising (now about billion remain the major source of revenues for found that this approach made them liable reinvested in journalism PAGE 53 platforms replaced the traditional top-down a third of online ad spends or about $3.2 billion in the traditional mastheads. They are tied both for defamation of comments posted on their distribution of the media companies with a rather than passed on Australia) is increasingly mediated through pro- in content and in advertising to the aging of public Facebook page (Voller v Nationwide consumer-driven discovery. to owners or grammatic advertising – algorithmically allocated newspaper readers, with a recent page count News 2019). to consumers based on the user’s personal data of Saturday’s The Sydney Morning Herald show- shareholders. This shattered the hope that the traditional Online ad spend ing two-thirds of ads were discretionary In 2015, Facebook seemed to be cementing its news publishing model funded by advertising $ billions – inflation adjusted travel, largely targeted at retirees. positioning as the media distributor of choice that brought and kept readers in the single > SEE CASE STUDY 10 through Instant Articles, which allowed loading product for both news and ads would transition PAGE 57 The advertising collapse coincide with of links (and some ads) more quickly and from print to digital, from a newspaper to a url, from, the shift to social and mobile. This was a more efficiently. It promised say, The Sydney Morning Herald to smh.com.au. profound change, arguably greater than the even greater access to a arrival of the internet itself, as it disrupted Facebook audience that The slump in advertising support happened as- Australian advertising expenditure the shape of content and most importantly, was growing both in num- tonishingly quickly, particularly in newspapers, by media format and digital platform the relationship with the audience. bers and in time on the site. as the graph (right) illustrates: 18 5 16 The media companies looked to these The relationship between the 14 According to the latest reports from the 12 platforms to chase readers, to under- platforms and the publishers was Australian Communications and Media 10 stand what content people shared and always uneasy. On the one hand, in Authority (ACMA 2019) and the Interac- 8 why they shared it, so as to master the 2015, Google’s Accelerated Mobile tive Advertising Bureau, the proportion 6 formula for creating stories Pages (AMP) and Facebook’s Instant 4 of advertising dollars spent online is now 2 that would ‘go viral’. In 2008, Articles seemed to solve a problem for Advertising spend Advertising

over 50 per cent in Australia and 40 per adjusted – inflation $ billions 0 0 editors were reporting that the craft, making the mobile web better

cent in New Zealand. (As a general rule of 2017 about half of all unique page and faster for journalism. But publishers 2014 2015 2016 2018 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 thumb, ad spend in developed countries Facebook Google views in newspapers were already coming said that it truncated their design and is equivalent to about 1 per cent of GDP, Radio TV Outdoor & cinema Print media Online Classifieds Other from search. By 2015, many – for some, revenue options and the pact saw journalism SOURCE: ACCC DIGITAL PLATFORM INQUIRY FINAL REPORT PAGE 307 so about $AU15.6 billion in Australia and 14 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 15 subject to the whims of changing algo- launching Facebook Watch (with 55 tion – to access a news website. Often this rithms (ACCC 2019). per cent of ad revenue for the pro- involves some continued free access (a so- ducer) as a direct competitor to You- ACCESS called freemium model) for non-subscribers. The new environment brought opportuni- Tube in Australia. Both Sky News In 2013, the (now) Nine metropolitan papers ties to commercialise start-ups, using the and Nine have announced they are ALL moved to a freemium paywall. The Australian platform distribution to reach and en- using this service to distribute video Financial Review had long been behind a gage readers. Most famously, BuzzFeed news although the early indications AREAS harder paywall. Beginning that same year, launched in 2006, taking advantage of the Then, in mid- are that this is not attracting audi- News Corp started to move its mastheads be- scale virality brought for advertising and, 2017, Facebook ences to pay its own way. hind paywalls. In New Zealand, the National in 2011, added a comprehensive news Business Review was the first to adopt a pay- service. In Australia, Starts at 60 built its started to The search for global scale saw Australia wall, followed this year by the New Zealand media voice with a sophisticated under- become a significant test market and the Herald. Among start-ups, Crikey has had a standing of how to use the Facebook algo- turn off the launch of Australian footprints for The hard paywall from inception. rithm, as did The Spinoff in NZ. Similarly, Guardian in 2012, US start-ups such as New Matilda’s now editor Chris Graham tap – news Buzzfeed and Mashable in 2013 and 2014, In early 2016, The Guardian (including its Aus- the guardian says he was able to use Facebook to build and Huffington Post in 2015. tralian online edition) launched a ‘contributions awareness and subscriptions. was down- model’. In the three years since, the paper has has received Then, in mid-2017, Facebook started received financial support from about 650,000 Successful viral strategies required each graded in to turn off the tap. In two tweaks to the regular supporters, providing a small operat- financial individual story to be optimised for social Facebook algorithm – one in mid-2017 ing profit and making its Australian operation media, requiring significant investment in, the Facebook and, another, more high profile in Jan- self-sufficient with annual revenues of about support for example, social media and engage- News Feed in uary 2018 – news was downgraded in $16.6 million (Blackiston 2019). from about ment editors. Although this was practical the Facebook News Feed in lieu of posts for larger newsrooms, smaller start-ups lieu of posts from family and friends. Seven West Me- This monetisation requires recognition that struggled to compete. dia, for example, told the ACCC inquiry cycle three not all audiences are equal. As a rule of 650,000 from family that its referrals fell by 40 per cent. thumb, organisations say that perhaps 5 per Those Facebook years encouraged a cent of weekly audience will translate into supporters belief that social distribution through Face- and friends the readers paying subscribers. To encourage that transi- book (and perhaps other social media) For start-ups that had tion, an organisation has to encourage repeat providing would be the dominant mode of connection built their business first cycle contacts by reshaping news habits with digital annual between media and their audiences. products. Effectively, it encouraged media to off the algorithm revenues outsource audience development and en- Innovation in news media is turning to a third Monetising readers, viewers or listeners gagement to the giant platform’s algorithm. it was as though a cycle, one where the audience focus has to directly requires innovating around both the of about It meant that many media, particularly in light had gone out be increasingly niche and deeply engaged, product and audience engagement. Emerg- the traditional sector, delayed the work of and where the media looks to its readers, ing research suggests it requires compelling $16.6m understanding their audience – work that For start-ups that had built their business viewers and listeners to provide the income to journalistic content that they value in transac- has become essential in the new era. off the algorithm – often with encour- sustain journalism. It’s forcing a more diversi- tional terms and/or appeals to the audience’s agement from the platforms – it was as fied approach to revenues, including adver- In 2016, the media’s punt on social dis- though a light had gone out. Some are tising, reader revenues, events and anything tribution was deepened when Facebook still struggling, reacting with all the stag- else that might work. announced a ‘pivot to video’, encouraging es of grief, from anger to denial, and out news media to use the platform for video of necessity, acceptance. From an organisational point of view, this distribution. Traditional media had already has required a shift in innovation focus from invested in video as part of building their The ones that will survive are the ones an often tangential activity – interesting, but multimedia capability (and because of that can pivot and build a more direct happening to one side of the main work of the the unavoidable pre-roll advertising they relationship with an audience they can organisation – to a core activity that sits at the brought). However, the Facebook pivot monetise, or as with Starts at 60, switch centre of the most traditional of organisations. was largely unsuccessful in bringing read- to a transactional business such as their ers or viewers to the publishers’ pages. In travel agency to capture the full value of In money terms, this has involved requiring August 2018 Facebook announced it was the travel vertical. a payment – usually a continuing subscrip-

16 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 17 personal values (Tran Ha 2016). A recent scribers can access the content of The New cycle, in the business model. Now, innovators and hacking the practices of journalism to play report from the Harvard Business School indi- York Times and The Washington Post for less in news media are rethinking what an audience to the credulity of users so as to drive virality. cates that uniqueness of content (and scale) is than most Australian titles (Lenfest 2019). might be looking for outside the traditional starts There were (and are) two principal sources: critical to a successful paywall model (Chung sense of breaking urgency and testing models people in it for the money, seeking advertising et al 2019). Paywalls involve a trade-off between the ad- that invite the reader into the journalism pro- at 60 revenues through the platform’s ad exchanges, vertising revenues that come from mass (and cess to different degrees. is a digital community and state actors, such as the Russian Internet The Digital News Report Australia et al 2019 free) sites and subscriptions revenues. The Research Agency (Mueller 2019). for Australians over 60 (part of the global Reuters News Report) tentative nature of that trade-off is what drove If the point of journalism is to tell stories, to found that about 14 per cent of people who the transition through the freemium model with, provide the information and context that people years of age. Launched Although this played off a weakness of the access news online make some payment, for example, the Nine papers initially allowing want to hear, then the innovation response is in March 2013 by founder platforms, Trump’s adoption of the term fake usually through a subscription. According to a up to 30 free articles a month, which proved to conceptualise the story from the beginning news coupled with a perceived loss of trust Rebecca Wilson, it built 2018 ACMA survey, about 1.7 million people more than enough for all but the most heavy so that the story can be produced in (multiple) in media (Newman et al 2019) requiring an in Australia had paid for news online in the users. With so much access dependent on places where it can meet the audience it’s its community off news, industry and craft response. Innovation to previous 12 months (ACMA 2019). News Corp search, subscription take-up was also limited seeking – or to allow the audience to find it. information and blogging, confront fake news has been largely based in claims unaudited digital subscriptions of about by Google’s first click free policy which man- the US where it has included algorithmic and largely relying on Face- 517,300 across its mastheads (News Corp dated certain levels of free access for its users Driving this understanding into the craft’s 2019). Nine claims about 350,000 between as a condition of priority in its search rankings. sense of itself is, says the ABC’s Gaven Morris, book distribution. In 2017, it The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Google abandoned this policy in 2017. one of the key innovative changes. So a story pivoted to build a parallel (Nine, 2019). may be rolled out through news reports for 24 fully fledged travel agency, The Harvard study by Chung, Kim and Song hours over radio and the web, before being Paywalls involve a trade- found that at almost all levels among US delivered at length as, say, a Four Corners TV Travel at 60. Seven West papers, the implementation of paywalls meant feature, then followed up with a Q&A special, Media has invested in the mastheads were better off than they would retold in a different format for YouTube or off between the advertising the company through two have been without a paywall (2019). The and much of it then repackaged for an iView revenues from mass paywalls also rewarded scale – the bigger the audience. tranches in 2018 and 2019. (and free) sites and masthead, the better off it was. At the same time, journalism has had to re- > SEE CASE STUDY subscriptions revenues In the six years of paywalls in Australia, they spond to the emergence of fake news. Thanks PAGE 58 have been increasingly hardened with fewer to US President Donald Trump, the phrase Australian companies charge significantly more articles being accessible without a subscrip- has come to mean any news that contradicts process changes by the tech platforms, an than comparable metropolitan newspapers in tion. The innovation challenge is to build a the user’s world view. But its original usage – expansion of fact-checking and trust advocacy the United States, with annualised costs in product that engages an audience and also false reports designed with the look and feel and the beginnings of the use of artificial intel- early 2019 ranging from $178 a year for The attracts a revenue mix that is largely based on of journalism and news media organisations ligence to rank quality (including truthfulness) Sydney Morning Herald and The Age to $312 readers, viewers and listeners. – provides a direct challenge to public trust. of journalism. for the West Australian, $364 for the News As the US elections demonstrated, fake news Corp tabloids and $468 for The Australian, all The shift to a readers first focus is powering in- involved gaming the social media algorithms In Australia the primary response has been offset to some extent by start-up offers and novation within journalism itself. It’s the oppor- fact-checking. In 2013, Politifact launched annual discounts. The New Zealand Herald tunity of the craft of journalism to lead the news in Australia providing a service contract to offering rounds out at NZ$225. media industry in getting it right. In December traditional media, primarily the Seven Network, 2015, Neal Mann (Mann 2015) could write: The innovation we talk of in but could not find a long-term business model. These pricings seem more based on the news- The ABC launched a fact-checking unit that paper companies’ experiences as monopolies, The innovation we talk of in journalism isn’t journalism is ... really just has since moved to RMIT. This year, First Draft for whom prices are relatively inelastic than the kind of innovation designed to radically launched an Asia Pacific operation from Aus- for content providers in the highly competitive change the way consumers behave, it’s real- short term reactionary attempts tralia, with a broader brief on trust and truth. (and global) market for online news, particular- ly just short term reactionary attempts to try ly when a major competitor such as the ABC and deliver content to platforms the majority These three cycles of innovation in news provides news for free. of consumers already use. to try and deliver content media have created the framework in which innovators have been experimenting as they An examination by Lenfest in the US found that Too often, innovation in journalism means inno- to platforms the majority of search for sustainable journalism models that the median price for annual subscriptions in the vation in the aggregated product, or in distri- serve their audiences. US was about US$100 ($140). Australian sub- bution and delivery, or, particularly in this third consumers already use

18 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 19 The value of a story on the social web is This paper looks at some practical examples of All major news media use web alerts or notifi- assessed by how it cuts through, how it builds this innovation in the 5W1H context, recog- As the unit of cations to lift breaking news off their web page or leverages community or connections and nising that journalism in Australia and New production for and into the consumer’s field of vision, or from # how it engages with the audience, as much as Zealand is slower in trialing and implementing their app into mobile notifications, and then its historical assessments of usefulness (as innovation at the level of the story than news journalism, draw those consumers back to the web page. CHAPTER 3 Innovation citizen or consumer) and entertainment (read- media in other countries. innovation in Writing notifications that will engage the reader ability, the brio of the storytelling) (Wei 2019). is, says The Australian’s Stuart Fagg, a particu- in Without that connection, the opaque nature of reporting and lar skill (See also Owen 2017). craft practice can leave the audience unsure storytelling – THE of its relevant usefulness. The 2019 Australian How and When: The mix of data and AI has enabled the journalism Digital News Report revealed that only 25 per innovation in production of automated news – known cent of consumers agreed that the news they It can be fast... journalism – as robo-journalism – particularly of finan- read was relevant to their needs. About half cial reporting and sports. Although this is neither agreed nor disagreed In the disrupted world, journalism can be can best be common in the US, used by Bloomberg What’s the story? (Fisher et al 2019). understood as falling into two categories: fast understood at and Associated Press, the practice remains and slow (Le Masurier 2019). unusual in Australia and New Zealand. As the disruption of the audience has atom- In this context, the challenge for journalism the level of Information holders can also automate their ised news, each piece of journalism – each according to The Guardian Editor-in-Chief, Fast journalism is breaking news or news information to produce updates that bypass story – has to stand increasingly on its own Katherine Viner, is to give readers hope amidst and comment snippets that’s up to the journalists, such as the NSW Government’s and be judged by what it alone brings. As the endless negative news. ‘It’s an aim to contex- minute, presentable and consumable in, the story @NSWSharkSmart which live tweets shark unit of production for journalism, innovation in tualize the world and it’s a belief that we still say, Twitter’s 280 characters. It makes every movements based on tagging data. reporting and storytelling – innovation in jour- have the power to make the world a better journalist – and plenty of others – a news nalism – can best be understood at the level place.’ To do this, she says, journalism breaker. In Australia at least, Twitter is the The remaining mass voices monetise fast jour- of the story, with, as Buzzfeed editor-in-chief must ‘develop ideas not just critiques’. dominant journalism social platform, partic- nalism through advertising. Subscription-based Ben Smith says, the internet as the front page It demands ‘greater collaboration with ularly for political news where #auspol is, media monetise fast news distribution by (interview with Recode Media 2019). readers and with other partners and year after year, the most used hashtag. It’s habituating users to the news source and publishers too’. a tool by which journalists can talk with their demonstrating continued value of the product. The story may present as a breaking Tweet audiences, although the often open trolling They draw audiences to their websites where or a long-form podcast series or anything This requires a commitment to jour- and abuse (particularly of women journal- New they can aggregate them to advertisers or con- in between. It can be contained in a single nalism that is ‘meaningful’: ‘Readers ists) can act to limit its potential. vert to some form of regular subscribers. The report or spread out in multiple reports over now want to be nourished, not fattened Matilda Australian, for example, has a hard paywall multiple platforms. Through the story, jour- up with the junk food of click bait. Every- But as Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of on search, but allows one free story accessed is an online site of nalism turns information into knowledge by thing we publish must matter.’ BuzzFeed News, says, ‘the same social-me- through social media. Small independent sites fusing facts, data, analysis and understand- dia mechanisms that have poisoned the news, opinion and satire. Independent Australia and New Matilda rely on ing into a compelling narrative with words, #This requires thoughtful innovation across the conversation have also elevated a sophis- First launched by John Twitter as the major pull medium. It’s increas- sound and images. skills needed to tell the story. These can be ticated two-way policy conversation that ingly the tool for consumer crossover from the Menadue in 2004, it understood through the journalistic rubric of includes experts and actual people affected fast to the slow. News media innovation (particularly ‘5W1H’: What stories? How are they shaped by policies ... The internet has created has been managed by in start-up businesses) tends to and told? Where are they told (and to whom)? communities of expertise and sophistication Brisbane-based Chris be a means to a storytelling end, When are they told (fast or slow)? Who is around everything from how labor law treats Graham since 2014. It is launched for the drive to tell stories, doing the telling (and who are journalists telling transgender employees to carbon taxation ...Or... rather than as a pure device to make about)? And, most importantly, why? This is a to economic policy’. funded through crowd- money. This brings a passion and threshold question that should answer answer funded donations and it can be slow personal voice that is re-shaping news media for the audience why they would give it their Live blogging, now commonplace on breaking subscriptions without a writing. Yet, journalistic innovation can be easy attention. stories, was initially used by The Guardian to Slow journalism, or long-form or issues-based to miss as change occurs over time. Innova- provide rolling coverage of Canberra politics paywall. journalism is becoming the defining character- tions are readily replicable and can be quickly In a 2018 paper, the Centre for Media Transi- across the news day, integrating statements by istic of the current innovation cycle, driven less absorbed into normal practice. As Matt Carlson tion summarised the stage of academic and government and opposition, parliamentary ac- by the daily news cycle and by an attempt to writes, journalism is a ‘constructed and mallea- craft understanding of the changing nature of tions and press conferences with social media make sense of a complex world. It has become ble cultural practice and therefore an adaptable journalism in the face of the disruption of the commentary to provide a comprehensive live the heart of strategies to monetise reader one’ (Carlson 2017). internet (Wilding et al, 2018). feed of political news. revenues while continuing to provide oppor-

20 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 21 tunities for advertising acceptable to targeted Writer-focused literary magazines are also ex- analysis, although it has not yet announced opportunity for storytellers to better reflect the consumers. It can mean the sort of long-form perimenting in news delivery in both traditional what product changes this may involve. diversity of Australian community and through weekend analyses of the politics of the week media (such as Meanjin) and more recent E-Tangata that reflection, broaden the perspective of that new players such as The Saturday Paper ventures (such as the Griffith Review). These These investigations are shifting the definition what’s sufficiently newsworthy. The most excit- is an online Sunday have made their hallmark and which are the provide formats for writers – journalists as well of newsworthiness, even within the fast news ing innovations in this space are in indigenous major content of traditional media such as as others – to experiment in long-form news sphere. Stories about domestic violence, youth magazine run by the reporting, such as the work of IndigenousX The Australian. It can be the 20,000 words of analysis and reporting, taking creative risks suicide, gender and sexuality, and mental Mana Trust, specialising (IndigenousX 2019). a Quarterly Essay or the 80,000 words of a that are less dependent on readership. Griffith illness break out of the slow news space into in Mãori and Pacific non-fiction book. Review provides book-length space to deeply broader newsworthy areas of continued repor- explore a given theme, relying on pitched story torial attention. At the same time, as the recent stories. Launched in Mobile has powered slow journalism innovation ideas from its Contributors’ Circle. analysis by the ACCC showed, reporting on late 2014, the website is How much: through podcasts, made possible by the inclu- traditional institutions such as local government not-for-profit and seeks sion of the podcast button in 2012, initially in The Walkley Magazine (which ceased its print and courts has declined, although given the does quality iOS and then on Android and other platforms. edition in 2018) tracked the disruption and in- heavy tracking of usage metrics in traditional audience supporter Podcasts filled a gap in the attention econo- novation and provided a vehicle for journalistic media, this would have been driven, in part, by donations to increase its my, found new audiences and developed an reflection on the craft that provided confidence audience demand (ACCC 2019). trump quantity? presence, and represent advertising revenue model. Melbourne-based for creative and reportorial innovation. Lawson Media, with its lead podcast Moonshot, Innovation is bringing valuable tools to gen- a more balanced view of Innovators find that not all stories are equal. has demonstrated the capacity to build a global erate big stories by unlocking information Mãori and Pacific peo- Quality (length, analysis, wit) seems to be business out of Australia on strong storytelling. often hidden in plain sight. Data journalism more attractive to readers than the quantity ple’s lives and issues in Within Australia the podcast market for Austra- What stories meshes journalistic and data skills to explain approach of traditional mass media. In a world lian content has been dominated by innovation (and, sometimes, match) large data sets. In the New Zealand media where just about everyone is fighting for a in traditional media, particularly the ABC and are being told? Australia, The Guardian and the ABC have landscape. share of the attention economy, journalism The Australian. established data teams. Rosie Williams’ largely that is relevant and useful turns out to be the The shift to a business model reliant on reader crowdfunded website ausgov.info makes winning play. It’s also journalism that is guided by telling revenues is demanding innovation in the sorts government data dumps accessible. So-called the stories of the big thematic issues of of stories that journalists produce, and in the open source journalism has relied on analysing At The Guardian, Viner has recently reported our time. Non-traditional journalism spaces subjects and people that we report on. patterns in social media to generate stories they that a reduction in the number of stories re- such as Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre are (see, for example, the work of Bellingcat) and sulted in more time spent on the page. After a providing space for experimentation, notably This has meant a greater focus on consid- the power of data (and collaboration through, reduced review of which stories were being rarely read with podcasting. Head of publishing, Sophie ered analysis, explanatory and investiga- for example, the International Consortium of (‘exactly what you’d expect them to be’), the Black said she didn’t expect the writ- tion-based journalism: stories that go beyond Investigative Journalism) has also been used their masthead cut its online content by 30 per cent er-driven program to morph into traditional reporting the actions of public institutions, to uncover stories in large document dumps, content by without any complaints from readers. ‘All that’s journalism but she wanted to capitalise on looking instead in depth at how broader, such as the Panama Papers. happened is that they’re reading more of the the calibre of people that come through the often social or environmental issues are good stories and the traffic has gone up. So, centre and capture some of the editorial playing out. The shift in focus means that The power of this journalism is evidenced by you know less is more’. threads and themes. stories that didn’t fit well into the daily news those who noted a pattern of new subscrip- 20% cycle now find their own home. tions off the back of strong stories, particularly and saw Similarly, Brazil’s O Globo recently changed Behind the Wire – a collaboration with The stories that unearthed new information and its online mix to fewer, longer stories – fewer Wheeler Centre – brought together tech tools, New York University’s Mitchell Stephens calls exposed hypocrisies. words, in fact – and found readers spent more community engagement and podcasting to this ‘wisdom journalism’, where journalism time with the masthead. Francisco Amaral, tell stories of people in detention, using 4,000 becomes an ideas business that replaces the Journalism is also being challenged by the 32% former executive editor at O Globo told the 30-second audio messages exchanged with low-value activity of simply reporting the news proliferation of fake news. Although this has more GEN summit this year that doing less journal- Melbourne journalist Michael Green. When it (Stephens 2014). largely required a response from the platforms ism better delivered results when they reduced won a 2018 Walkley Award, Green said: (particularly Facebook), journalism’s truth-tell- page views their content by 20 per cent and saw 32 per To add value by creating this in-depth con- ing mission means this cannot be ignored. cent more page views per article. I’m proud of working slowly, carefully and col- tent, Crikey has this year launched a 12-per- per laboratively — to try to tease out complexity son public inquiry unit, INQ, funded through Innovation is also driving a change in just who article In London, The Times has published 15 per and nuance in an issue and, also, to try to tell investment from former media owners is telling the story, in recognition that diversi- cent fewer stories on its online Home News those stories with heart (Courtney 2018). John B. Fairfax and Cameron O’Reilly. This ty among tellers is as important as diversity section after learning that news with no addi- will augment its long-term focus on news in the subject of the story. It’s providing an tional or exclusive content underperforms. ‘As

22 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 23 a result of publishing less content,’ filtered ‘directness, immediacy and intimacy’ comfortable’ process as their own expertise is Digiday UK reports, ‘dwell time in the section The why: social audience you feel like you are in a conversation with a connectedness challenged and their work might be corrected has increased: Readers of The Times smart- reporter (Arabian 2019). is a central in real time before the audience. But as editor phone app spent an average 28 minutes daily is about creation, Naoyoshi Goto said, if the journalist starts by on the Home News section, up 25 per cent not just consumption The Guardian is continuing its work on engag- feature of accepting ‘there is a lot I don’t know, then the year over year, according to the publisher’ ing its readers in story generation, despite the behaviour. comments can help us find new insights’. (Southern 2019). Media innovators say repeatedly that the key reluctance of some journalists. Says Viner: ‘My to success is loyalty and engagement that experience is that readers really want to help It’s something This is the model that underpins The Conver- Tortoise has made slow news central to its creates and feeds a habit for journalism. This you in positive creative ways. I wouldn’t say sation, an Australian start-up that has now membership model, which provides report- means different things to different media and we’re necessarily so great at capturing them that we take for been rolled out in other countries. The Con- ing against five defining issues powered by depending on practicality and degree of yet, that’s something we’re working on.’ granted, but it versation unlocks the expertise of Australian editorial member ‘thinkins’. Co-founder and comfort, the audience engagement activities universities and mediates it through digital publisher Katie Vanneck-Smith (president of can range from comments and sharing right There are deepening expectations of journal- turns out to journalism, using social media to optimise Dow Jones and behind the paywall launch at through to story idea generation and framing ism. This requires journalists to recognise that have huge discovery. The Times before Tortoise) says: ‘The interest- of issues, selection and involvement in the there will often be audience members who ing thing about slow news is that you need to reporting process. know more about a given subject than they do. implications.’ Other start-ups were built from or traded on be serious at planning ... in order to slow down The Guardian’s Lenore Taylor says that about the expertise that emerged from the blogging you need to plan far more than you usually However, it involves a fundamental shift in half the story ideas for their Wide Brown Land culture of the first decade of the 21st century, would in the newsroom’ (Granger 2019). news production models by creating chan- series came from a reader call-out. which provided a path for experts into media nels, tools and practices that actively seek as, for example, economist Greg Jericho into Tortoise publishes its thinking about news to integrate the expertise of the audience In an interview with Harvard’s Cold Call pod- The Guardian or psephologist William Bowe angles each day to its members which helps both in identifying and preparing stories, cast Bharat Anand said: ‘One of the important into Crikey, or through having blogs collected drive longer term planning and commissioning. providing information and context, and in traps is ... that somehow the answer to try to and attached to a start-up, as for example After getting feedback from members in a Beta deepening on-site and social debate. succeed in a digital world, where there’s prod- occurred at both Crikey and The Australian. that they were publishing too many stories, uct clutter, is to produce even better content ... they reduced the number. Audience engagement is one side of the That often turns out to be wrong (Kenny 2016). Similarly as ‘the front page of the internet’, same coin that is looking for reader revenues. Reddit has simplified the bulletin-board frame- In India, finance and tech newsletter The Ken But what the right audience engagement ‘It’s actually the connected product that sits work by enabling discussion around content, has taken this to its logical conclusion, deliv- if the journalist model involves or looks like is still being in the centre of a newspaper’s success, including content initiated by other media ering a single in-depth story of about 2,500 worked out. Hearken and GroundSource in financial success ... connectedness is a cen- organisations. words to its (paying) subscribers each day starts by the United States have both built platforms for tral feature of behaviour. It’s something that (see case study on page 55). accepting listening at scale and also articulate a strong we take for granted, but it turns out to have It doesn’t appear that any organisation in Aus- journalism and business case in support of huge implications.’ tralia or New Zealand has been able to mone- But who is the journalism for when stories are ‘there creating two-way channels. tise this free-range engagement other than as selected and written with an audience that is a lot I don’t Norway’s Schibsted media, says Anand, re- an indirect tool for driving audience (and sub- will pay in mind? Who is providing the kind of GoundSource pioneered the use of texting sponded to the travel disruption of the Icelan- scriber) growth. Some media with otherwise journalism that helps lower income groups, for know, then the to mass gather information and context dic ash cloud by creating an app that allowed hard paywalls will use it as a tool of connection example, navigate scarce housing, a welfare comments can from communities that help frame the people to share their own experiences, which to potential subscribers by allowing additional system or access gig-economy work. Sarah stories, and to take the pulse of commu- turned out to be the most popular response. (or more) access to social media links. Alvarez created Outlier Media in Detroit to help us find nities information needs. Hearken offers a ‘This comes back to this idea of connections ... fill information gaps such as housing and new insights’ technology platform but emphasises the It’s all about user connections, and how do you other local issues, which she reports on with change in processes and practices is more tap into it, recognize it, exploit it.’ Bharat Anand: ‘One of the actionable information and distributes to the of a cultural, mindset one. important traps is ... that people who need it via text. She calls it service An audience relationship that builds connec- journalism. GroundSource founder Andrew Haeg says tions, driven by social media, is essential to somehow the answer to try to the real power of texting is that it ‘provides open up media access to this sort of expertise. succeed in a digital world is ‘Watchdog reporting works better when there an incredible channel for developing and NewsPicks in Japan has built a new social are more watchdogs, and Outlier seeks to get cultivating loyalty and turning audiences into platform business model on the strength of to produce even better content residents better information so they can create fans and brand ambassadors by experienc- seeking and integrating commentary from ... That often turns out more accountability for themselves and their ing more direct connections’ with the news readers and experts into its journalism. For the communities,’ Alvarez says (Alvarez 2019). organisation and its journalists. With its un- journalists, this can sometimes be an ‘un- to be wrong

24 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 25 This is particularly true of news-oriented larly as founder Saffron Howden explained: organisations such as New Matilda, News- ‘We weren’t just creating a product. We were room, The Spinoff (although it had the benefit creating a new market.’ of launch sponsor partners) and Independent in Australia. It was initially true of Crikey.The ‘We underestimated the time it would take # Squiz was initially bootstrapped and recently to get to the point of sustainability,’ she said. CHAPTER 4 Innovation the raised its first round of investor funding. The company didn’t have the time or band- width to seek venture funding and so opted Pedestrian started in 2005 with a for a crowdfunding campaign. Still, despite hand-distributed DVD of the kind of personal founder investment, and mini-docs video content that, now some success with audience devel- Crinkling business model commonplace, wasn’t widely opment and crowdfunding, Crinkling on offer at the time. Founders reached the end of its runway News Chris Wirasinha and Oscar before reaching sustainability. was a hard-copy subscrip- Martin came to their start-up tion newspaper and digital Building a sustainable media business from the advertising industry Other media have been initiated b c publication for young now depends on finding ways to diversify and ‘always had the model with (or moved to) a start-up style by income streams by experimenting with How do you of free content in exchange for 2 public or not-for-profit institutions, such people aged seven to 14. innovative customer-focused advertising advertising’ and have ‘hustled’ for as universities, (e.g., The Conversation, It was founded in 2016 by models, pivoting to reader revenues and advertising in different forms since. Pedes- Griffith Review) and largely funded by that developing other sources of revenue, most get on (and off) trian was launched ‘the same year three guys institution. The New Daily was backed by the former Fairfax journalists commonly, events. in a garage were creating YouTube’, and not-for-profit superannuation sector as a com- Saffron Howden and Remi the runway? grew organically online and via social where mercial operation. Bianchi. Crinkling News Despite the talk around reader revenues, they began creating original video content for advertising income models continue to MySpace, reaching half a million views, and The eco-system lacks institutional drivers was written by adults dominate the thinking of many of the new Innovation requires funding to get from building their profile and traffic back to their and supporters of change that can provide with children contributing digital news media in Australia and New start-up to take-off where sustainable cash site. Social is ‘still the most fantastic distribution support and capital: the Walkley Foundation ‘junior reporter’ arti- Zealand. However, the sector is mov- flows support the business. News media platform,’ says Wirasinha. They were among was an early thought leader through its Fu- ing towards more diverse funding flows, start-ups in Australia and New Zealand the first to offer a full suite brand ture of Journalism project and Media cles, opinion pieces and increasingly relying on (and future-proofing) have typically been funded in one or more and content service and recently Incubator and Innovation Fund (now reviews. It operated until readers paying for content directly. of four ways: bootstrapped including from sold to Nine. closed), which provided small January 2018, eight months family and friends, grant funded, invest- seed and development grants, All sources of income rely on a strong re- ment, or built through support by public or This distinguishes the and the Federal Government’s after the funds raised in a lationship with the audience, whether it be not-for-profit institutions. Australian and New Zea- small publishers grants pro- crowdfunding campaign to seamlessly tie them with the advertiser land news start-ups from gram provides some limited to keep it going were through the medium to encourage readers Innovation teams in established compa- the US examples such as assistance for business devel- b b exhausted. to contribute directly; or to attract the audi- nies, on the other hand, start with know- BuzzFeed, Vox, Vice, or opment. Some universities have ence to participate in events. Each of these ing where their money is coming from. Mic, which were launched or 2 established structures to research > SEE CASE STUDY depends on innovation that centres a direct They are budgeted in either continuing or boosted with venture capi- and support change practitioners, PAGE 61 business-to-consumer (b2c) approach revolving structures and in some cases, tal, although as all four have such as the Centre for Media Transi- over the traditional advertising sales-based teams are built ad hoc within editorial discovered, this comes at a cost if it doesn’t tion at the University of Technology, Sydney business-to-business (b2b) approach, that departments. drive its own cash flows. and similar centres at University of Canberra, understands the challenges of attracting University of Melbourne and the Queensland the reader’s attention. In Australia and New Zealand, start-ups This lack of investment to provide runway University of Technology. The Public Interest have usually been bootstrapped by in Australia and New Zealand can limit a Journalism Initiative launched in 2019 to work Cash flow is what keeps many founders committed founders and are, initially, start-up’s ability to fund potential pivots or with the public and industry to find solutions up at night. Yet many start-ups either reliant on personal founder investment chase parallel opportunities and can even to help sustain public interest journalism. don’t have the time or the capacity to work (in time, if not cash), sometimes with prevent take-off. The lack of investment for through challenges in the kind of systemic friends and family seed funding, and the children’s newspaper start-up, Crinkling, Philanthropic support provided initial runway and detailed way necessary to build sustain- then relying on cash flow for their con- for example, meant it could not survive long for the now closed Global Mail and to sup- able revenue bases. tinuing operation. enough to build positive cash flows particu- port the launch of The Guardian Australia.

26 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 27 Australia also has its first major philanthropic solutions fit with their strategy and are baked in commitment of $100 million from the Judith across the business model, the distribution and Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas product design, as well as the journalism. which has announced its first round of grants, although this seems targeted at replacing the We don’t know At the same time, venture capital or private eq- layers of journalism resources newsrooms uity in Australia has largely avoided investment have lost, including the mentoring role of how many in media innovation, in part because of a lack senior journalists that were among the first to journalistic of knowledge of a small but admittedly complex depart the craft in the layoffs. sector, matched with a lack of a developed innovation market – of founders with the understanding The big social tech platforms have kicked of the opportunity seeking capital. The media in practical (and financial) support: Google ideas were sector would benefit from a better understand- has recently launched the News Lab and the snuffed out ing of what drives capital and assistance in Google News Initiative funding and training connecting to a range of funding options from for journalists. The Google News Initiative because the venture to philanthropy. offers support via a competitive grant process to fund news organisations to address de- journalist ideas were snuffed out because the journalist what price point and have a strategy to get fined challenges (its first, for reader revenues, didn’t know didn’t know what they didn’t know. Certainly, there. If it’s advertising supported, how many funded a range of organisations in Asia Pa- You need some of the smaller start-up media we met ads at what price? Or for crowdfunding which cific). Facebook has announced its intention what they could have benefited from a significant busi- you wish to raise $300,000 for example, how to fund journalism with $5 million in Australia business skills ness skills input. many people do you need to reach, what is and NZ and has launched an accelerator didn’t know the average contribution and how will you program for publishers focussing on reader Experience with the Walkley media innovation the increasing reach them? revenues, including revenues through the in the business fund and incubator over four years shows there Facebook platform. were many good ideas that just lacked busi- complexity of Opportunities for deep investment in the It’s no secret that journalism skills and busi- ness nous, a bias to action and the research ad tech means people who can boldly reinvent journalism Funding for start-ups has come from tradi- ness skills do not necessarily come neatly and design mindset that gets to product/market need to be created in Australia, and in the tional media as acquirers or relatively mature packaged together. And the idea of producing fit. Some developed these ideas through the that somewhere broader Asia-Pacific region. For inspiration, investors. In 2016, Junkee sold 85 per cent graduates with the range of skills and know- accelerator program. Some went off and found between one and and evidence of the investment, look to the to oOh! for $11.05 million; Starts at 60 sold a how to build sustainable journalism ventures them on their own or found an entrepreneurial Reuters Fellowships at Oxford or the offerings third to Seven West Media for $2.5 million in hasn’t yet made its way into the heart of the partner. Others faded due to this skills shortfall. two thirds of from Stanford, Harvard and the University of 2018 and a further tranche for $2.7 million in current journalism education offerings. advertising spend Michigan, which each offer up to year-long March 2019; Pedestrian sold 60 per cent to Kevin Brockland reviews investment opportuni- programs and space to learn, experiment and Nine in 2015 for $10 million and the remaining The journalistic background of most founders ties in the Asia-Pacific for the Media Develop- is being tackle wicked challenges, and importantly, 40 per cent for $39 million in 2018; Conver- and innovators means that the light bulb of ment Investment Fund. He says that for early swallowed develop the confidence for bold leadership. sant Media (The Roar) sold to HTE (for- inspiration quickly burns out unless the founder stage companies, they look at the strength of Similarly, the Sulzberger program at Colum- merly APN Media) in 2016 for $11.6 million. or innovator develops or sources an entrepre- the founding team and how they are building by the processes bia provides space for journalism leaders to Mumbrella, which was launched with a clear neurial mindset matched with the business off their strengths, and whether they have the of getting the ads work on solutions to complex problems. mission and understanding of how to serve its skills needed to operationalise the concept in a qualities to be able to build a business. How- audience ‘communities’ and built with an exit sustainable manner. ever, he says, it’s also important that they can in front of the Collaboration, networking, and space for strategy in mind, sold itself to the US events demonstrate good processes, can set targets, consumer experimentation that allows for failure and the and conference company Diversified Com- The sector would benefit (and would have milestones and KPIs, and during execution learning and sharing of lessons, is the defini- munications in December 2017 for an undis- benefited at the start) from techniques, tools they can measure and revise and deal in the tion of any eco-system. And universities and closed price when it had reached a turnover of and support to understand audience needs and level of detail needed as well as have the disci- journalism-specific foundations and institutes $7 million and profit of $1 million. engagement strategies and for product devel- pline around process to build a business. need to be developed and funded to play a opment as a solution, which could be provided leading role. There is much to be shared and Too often, founders have jumped in with their through industry or university bodies. He says management needs to understand learnt among news media organisations, and journalism relying on a ‘build it and they’ll the levers that move their business to have while collaboration between both traditional come’ approach to strategy and revenue There is a natural survivor bias in drawing operational focus. For example, if you are and emerging players is already strong in New streams. All would benefit from a design review conclusions from the current players. We building a subscription business you need Zealand, in Australia we need to take steps to process early in the start-up phase to ensure don’t know how many journalistic innovation to know what number you need to get to, at build confidence in collaboration.

28 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 29 travel has been the basis for the pivot by Starts magazine content marketing play boosting In the era of paid referral links, many of at 60 to Travel at 60. However, founder Re- Adelaide city and supported by the city coun- our most respected news services have becca Wilson says it is insufficient to support cil and others. put journalists to work on a kind of infor- Advertising: a pure media start-up and she needed to build mation-concierge service for the consum- a fully fledged travel agency (Travel at 60) to Advertisers sometimes sponsor part or all er class (Backlund, 2019). the good, the bad properly benefit from the opportunities. of the product. In Mumbrella, for example, a sponsorship arrangement can cover both The challenge now for many media is get- Start-ups say that there is a welcome willing- events and newsletter and web display ad- ting the business model right with volume and the ugly ness by advertisers themselves to give the vertising. The Design Files has a direct spon- versus quality. Commonplace metrics new products a go. However, the advertising sor relationship with Dulux among others, focus on unique audiences that miss the The industry has spent nearly 20 years trying buyers prefer to place at scale and to bypass and other sponsor arrangements point and challenge for media organisa- to make the advertising model work for online the small start-up players. Some of the smaller that include events and awards. tions that are concerned with media. It’s been a struggle of reinvention, of re- players say they have found that the consolida- engagement metrics such as imagining both what the media and advertising tion of ownership of traditional media into two In New Zealand, both The SpinOff time spent on site and return are and can be, as both are being transformed or three key players has accelerated this trend. and Newsroom have sponsors visits. For businesses that by digital disruption. supporting particular verticals continue to rely on custom Native advertising is promotional material that or areas of coverage. For advertising for the bulk of Understanding the new advertising-journalism is paid for by advertisers and appears native to example, The SpinOff book revenue now, but are invest- relationship means understanding that the ad- the surrounding editorial content. The US In- section is sponsored by ing in their biggest source of vertising relationship must itself be innovative, teractive Advertising Bureau has identified six Auckland and Wellington future growth to come from not simply an online replication of 20th century ways in which native advertising can appear on book stores Unity Books. reader revenues, this is a mass distribution. a site including paid search units, recommen- particular challenge. dation widgets and promoted listings, as well With the spread of Insta- Both start-ups and traditional media in Aus- as the more traditional content (IAB 2015). gram, influencers are used tralia and New Zealand use some or all of the to promote products and Turning readers following advertising income models to build or Although this has been characterised as services. This is still limited sustain their products in a way that can sustain ‘camouflaging church as state’ (Conill 2016) in news media, although Lizzy Marvelly uses into subscribers, The Squiz their niche. news media in Australia operate within ethical her personal brand on Instagram to promote is a free Australian guidelines such as those of the Australian Villainesse. The Design Files also uses its In- donors, partners – Programmatic advertising delivers the bulk Press Council. Email newsletters The Squiz, stagram presence to promote partners while weekday morning email of display advertising that appears online, in- Quartz and Crikey have provided vehicles for Lucy Feagins has an ambassadorial role. it will change more newsletter and companion cluding for online news sites. This mainly native content. eight-minute podcast. It benefits publishers operating at scale, However, advertisers – and ad buyers – seek than you think such as general news sites like news. Buzzfeed innovated with a model of native scale. Aside from some direct relationships, was launched in March com.au or, in the start-up space, New viral advertising through social media, initially such as those nurtured by The SpinOff or Within the pivot to diversified revenue 2017 by Claire Kimball, Daily. While this also contributes to a in the US and subsequently in Australia. The Design Files or that between the indus- streams, the big media houses and many of PR specialist and Tony diverse revenue mix for subscriber-first me- Mamamia built a revenue strategy around try superannuation funds and New Daily, the smaller media are moving to or deep- dia, it is decreasing in value, although the social media packages, producing content for advertisers are likely to opt for large tradi- ening their reliance on reader revenues, Abbott’s former press space on sites is relatively constant. campaigns on their site and amplified tional players or the tech platforms. As the particularly subscriptions (sometimes shaped secretary. By the second on Twitter. ACCC digital platforms report highlighted, the and marketed as ‘memberships’) and/or half of 2019 it had more Directly booked display depends on di- increasing complexity of ad tech means that crowdfunded donations. rect relationships, often through sales Content marketing involves providing somewhere between one and two thirds of than 35,000 email subscrib- staff, either with the advertiser or with editorial content to fill out an advertiser’s advertising spend is being swallowed by the But there’s a price that comes with reader ers and daily open rates of the intermediary ad-buying agencies. site or to support an advertiser’s strategy. processes of getting the ads in front of the revenues. Journalists and stories hidden be- 50 per cent each day and In both start-up and traditional media, this is consumer. hind paywalls can largely vanish from public Advertising for discretionary travel re- provided through content studios attached debate, reducing the fourth estate influence more than 4000 podcast mains a major supporter of media. A re- to the core products. Junkee, Pedestri- A focus on bespoke advertising like native of media. It also has the potential to create listeners. cent count demonstrated it account- an and The Guardian all work their own content for particular communities or niches an information inequality that restricts much ed for about two-thirds of the ads internal brand and content studios. Junkee can drive journalism to abandon low-income of the news market to those who can afford > SEE CASE STUDY in the Nine metro newspaper print Media publishes AWOL for Qantas and City- communities. As Harry Backlund, founder of to pay. PAGE 59 weekend editions. Discretionary Mag got its start in Adelaide as a quarterly the Chicago-based city bureau says:

30 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 31 While there is growing consensus on the Similarly, Australia’s literary magazines – porate subscription model is also a feature of need to develop reader revenue streams, including Meanjin, Griffith Review and Over- the planned new subscription content platform it’s less clear what that best reader revenue land – can increasingly be characterised as from former Hearst chief content officer Joanna model might look like, and, for the organ- forums for long-form journalism. They provide National Coles. She told The Information’s Women in isations that currently lack one, the best a mix of digital content for print subscribers or Business Tech, Media and Finance conference in New SUBSCRIBE way to make the pivot and develop the digital-only subscriber access to the otherwise York in June 2019, the new media venture business model. printed content. They generally see themselves Review would focus on connecting working women as writer-driven publications and rely on this across the US. Early moves involve discus- Subscriptions: The most successful sub- community to subscribe, with incentives like is a weekly, national sions with corporations for company subscrip- scriber models have been the traditional me- first call for story proposals by Griffith Review tions. She is confident that people will pay for Junkee Auckland-based newspa- dia with The Australian, Nine and News Corp to its ‘writers circle’ subscribers. quality information, and is more concerned Media Whether through subscriptions, donations or papers between them having about 850,000 per and online publica- about the potential of excluding people who is an Australian digital memberships, news media relying on reader subscribers – although this is about half the Start-ups in New Zealand have a contrast- tion. Businessman and can’t afford it. revenues need to deeply understand their level of pre-internet print circulation. ing approach where paywalls have been media company that pro- publisher Barry Colman audiences and what might motivate them all but nonexistent outside finance news Donations: The use of crowdfunded donations duces the pop culture title to pay for journalism by subscribing. Most Next to other common subscription ser- (particularly the National Business Review, acquired the masthead as a variation of the subscription model has Junkee filled with original commonly, people subscribe when they think vices Spotify and Netflix, paying for news in which has recently pivoted from a free ad- from John Fairfax in been highlighted by the success of The Guard- the news source has authority in the areas Australia looks expensive. Some are finding vertising model to a hard paywall, prioritising ian which has encouraged others to explore content aimed at an audi- the 1980s, and lead the they care about and has values that aligns ways to increase the (perceived) value of its service to readers over advertisers), a donation process. Both start-ups and some ence aged 18 to 29 years. with the reader. their subscriptions with events, or for The although the New Zealand Herald has NBR for 24 years before bigger media are including it as part of a mixed Formerly known as Sound Australian, access to The Wall Street Journal. launched a paywall this year. passing control to CEO revenue model, usually for specific asks. Building this relationship with their readers re- Some are also looking at bundling packages Alliance, it was originally Todd Scott in 2012. The quires understanding how journalism is found for family subscriptions, or at least a second The biggest challenge in a subscriptions Some more established media are turning founded in 2000 by Matt and consumed. How do people land on the subscription. model is retaining paying subscribers. One publication’s website has to Patreon or – particularly in New Zealand Callander, Libby Clark and site? What are they looking for? How do you challenge is finding ways and developing a paywall model, with – the Wellington-based start-up PressPatron. convert that casual visit to a subscription? Very few start-ups are able to build a sub- products that surface wider content to readers. These provide a structure for both processing Andre Lackmann, who an average of more than And then how do you deepen the relation- scription model as they lack the scale to build For retention this is particularly important to (hopefully) repeat donations — particularly for were later joined by Neil ship to loyalty? What functional relationship direct sale to consumers with the layer of make sure that readers are engaging with, 100,000 unique users, specific causes such as investigative reporting Ackland and Tim Duggan reflects that loyalty (e.g., membership)? complexity, cost of customer acquisition and and valuing, your journalism. almost 200,000 weekly — and for structured campaigns. relationship management, and the challenge who launched Junkee in page impressions, and As American Press Institute research has of discovery for new titles or mastheads. Other strategies to minimise the churn rate, the New Zealand-based PressPatron is a media March 2013. Junkee aver- found, the foundations of the relationship fall The exception is in business/finance/tech number of subscribers that fail to renew, are approximately 34,000 monetisation platform operating in the US, ages more than 1.3 million into three categories (Ha 2017): media where the start-ups Eureka Report in centred on developing a relationship with read- email subscribers. In Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, Australia, National Business Review in New ers and keeping them engaged through events, which aims to streamline the payment and unique browsers and a 2015 NBR launched an 1 The traditionally transactional Zealand and The Ken in India were all able podcasts, email newsletters and notifications. sign-up process including monthly, annual and monthly Facebook reach of paying for value to build subscriber business models off the With all the effort of gaining subscribers, if online radio platform and one-time payments under a ‘pay-what-you- nearly 3.5 million, with 75 value of the content. they fail to engage with a media’s content the in early 2017 it launched want’ patronage model, facilitating member- 2 Engagement investment will most likely be lost. ships, donations, subscriptions and crowdfund- per cent of audience com- a video service, both of aligned values build loyalty and community Australia’s most mature digital start-up, ing campaigns. The platform integrates natively ing via mobile device. In Crikey, has always been primarily subscrip- There is a developing understanding of the which can be streamed within media websites and offers a one-click 2016, oOh!media bought 85 3 Elusive engagers tion-funded. It does not release its numbers scope and potential limits of a paywall and from the website. checkout process for payments. view journalism as a commodity (thought to be somewhere in the teen-thou- resulting innovation within the subscriptions per cent of Junkee Media sands) and has recently increased its model. For The Ken, it started with the under- PressPatron also provides publishers with for $11.05 million. The more successful reader-driven or- annual cost to $210. The smaller Indepen- standing ‘that we needed to separate the roles detailed insights into the stories that generate ganisations invest in building this under- dent Australia (thought to have somewhere of subscribers from that of payers’. the highest levels of support, and also offers > SEE CASE STUDY standing and in a continuing engagement around 2,000) charges $120 a year. The campaign strategy services to assist publish- PAGE 62 with their audience. In turn, their jour- print stable of Schwartz Media – The The Ken now offers corporates, college and ers with best practices for their marketing and nalism is shaped by this understanding. Monthly magazine, The Saturday Paper institutional-wide subscriptions and recently promotion. Reader revenues means a new metric, and Quarterly Essay – have digital access, launched its ‘most ambitious and radical pay- one that values community and quality largely tied to subscription to the print wall innovation’, patron-funded subscriptions. The company says its clients who follow best over reach and clicks. product. practices can convert between one and five Separating payers from readers with a cor- of their monthly unique audience into paying 32 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 33 and civic-minded organisations’ understanding organisations which has, at times, char- so as to build loyalty and also deliver on of the need to support journalism. acterised its subscribers as members. revenue strategy and secure members/ Although there appears to be a growing en- PressPatron donations. Memberships: Memberships seek to mesh gagement between Crikey and its readers, more transactional subscriptions with the this still seems more a marketing tag-line is a media monetisation purer values affinity of donations, using the reflecting a sense of shared values than a platform designed specif- power of engagement to generate continu- practical engagement. However, Crikey has ically for media organi- Diversifying ing payment. It requires the most profound received a grant from ACMA to develop its rethinking of the relationship between jour- engagement platform and it is possible that sations and journalists. nalism and the reader, viewer or listener. this relationship will change. It specialises in turning revenues readers, listeners and This makes it a difficult model for traditional Whether building reader revenues through Almost all media are seeking to diversify their commercial players. Some publishers have at- membership, subscriptions or donations, a viewers into paying sup- revenues by looking beyond advertising and tempted to create a purely transactional mem- conversion strategy is based on progres- porters, by streamlining reader revenues to find additional sources. bership program through added benefits. This sive stages in a funnel: research, expose the payment and sign-up seems to have been the model that Buzzfeed and attract, engage and deepen, convert, The most common is to build parallel had in mind when it announced its membership and sustain. process. PressPatron businesses, usually content studios that in late 2018. processes monthly, annu- provide an additional cash flow to the news Successful news media recognise that au- al and one-time payments products, although they will often gener- The more thoughtful work involves re- dience engagement and audience revenue ate native advertising for inclusion in the thinking how you bring readers into the are two sides of the same coin, and embed under a ‘pay-what-you- organisations’ digital channels. process of journalism that might involve the engagement of the reader in day-to- want’ patronage model, contributions beyond money. Beyond day thinking about product design and facilitating memberships, In some ways, the most interesting exam- contributing revenues, many successful output. ple was Buzzfeed, which started the other membership programs outside Australia donations, subscrip- way around. First came the sort of content supporters. About 46 per cent opt for monthly and New Zealand have readers contribut- Here, loyalty is the key: Emily Goligoski, tions and crowdfunding studio, using social media to generate virality payments (at an average of NZ$12), 9 per cent ing in different ways, from cleaning data, formerly with the Membership Puzzle Proj- campaigns. The platform around brands and campaigns. Its newsroom opt for annual (at an average of NZ$82) and volunteering at events, to joining the edi- ect, told the 2019 International Journalism came later, partly as a tool to lure audiences about 45 per cent opt for one-time payments Crikey torial meetings at ‘thinkins’ with UK-based Festival in Perugia that the email subscrib- integrates natively within in traditional ways. (at an average of NZ$51) (see, for example, Tortoise. It perhaps requires the biggest ers who regularly open and click through media websites and of- produces a daily email The Spinoff case study). newsroom cultural change as it redefines – ‘super readers’ – are the best indication fers a one-click checkout Events are a second significant source newsletter focusing the relationship with the audience and the of success. To boost this requires thinking of diversifying revenues while engaging process for payments. None of the start-ups outside of those tied to on politics, media and power position of the journalist. There are about the product in a cross-functional way, subscribers. The most successful start- universities have what the Australian Tax Office well-thought out and proven products such up in the space has been Mumbrella – so calls Deductible Gift Recipient status – that is, finance. Owned by as Hearken and Ground Source that help successful that it ended up selling itself to donations to them are not tax-deductible for Private Media Pty Ltd, it facilitate this two-way relationship with the a US events company. Similarly, the private the donor. It is unlikely that any of them would is circulated to a paying audience and guidelines for engagement equity and venture capital-backed events have the bandwidth to work through the regula- journalism that start with the audience. business built around Singapore-based tory approval process required to achieve this subscriber base. It was Deal Street Asia contributed to its value status. (The exception is the Walkley Founda- founded by Stephen There are interesting experiments, like the and sale to Nikkei in 2019. tion which achieved tax deductible status in Mayne in 2000 and pur- work of the Wheeler Centre or the crowd- 2016.) funded environmental editorial position at Some are exploring transactions as an income chased by PMP in 2005. The Guardian, where contributions included source. The most successful has been Starts While there is a growing community of donors In 2019 it launched an story ideas and expertise as well as money. at 60 with its travel agency, Travel at 60. in Australia who are stepping up to support investigative journalism The ABC’s Four Corners story on aged care journalism it remains a challenge to educate crowdsourced story direction and content for We can expect to see more experimentation and recruit donors. This contrasts with the US unit, INQ. its double episode in 2018, that also turned out on sustainable business models as both where NewsMatch was a national gift-match- to be its most popular for the year. However, start-ups and traditional media have been ing campaign that motivated non-journalistic none of these were on the scale that has been looking for project-based contributions from community foundations to support non-profit developing in the US and Europe. government, tech platforms, NGOs and news and expanded the base of community In Australia, Crikey is one of the few start-up philanthropists.

34 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 35 Reaching and building an engaged audi- After the damaging experience of entrusting ence online has become one of the biggest Reaching your audience, over and the reader relationship to Facebook, most # challenges for news media as discovery over: the trials of the algorithm publishers turned (or returned) to email as a CHAPTER 5 has largely replaced distribution, shifting tool to own their relationship with their read- Innovation power to the audience, primarily through ers. While email lists don’t bring the same and the power of email EMAIL the mediation of the big platforms’ algo- scale of audience engagement as the virality Email servers accept, in rithms. News media cannot rely either on News media now use a broad spectrum of of social (and are more work to compile), au- forward, deliver, and store traditional recognition of brands or a build- tools to engage their audience, from socially diences are more loyal and the lists drive more messages. Neither party distribution it-and-they-will-come approach. distributed media, to email lists and push revenue (Owens 2019). is required to be online notifications, in efforts to draw them to their simultaneously The social web has transformed distribution, sites where they can earn revenue from Almost all media are investing in building replacing it with shares, likes and algorith- them. For social media, the Face- their own email newsletter sub- the design mic discovery. As a result, media have to book News Feed is the most scriber lists. Even those with files optimise themselves for discovery through important, and for search, it’s paywalls understand that a serendipity, through influencer and peer Google. However, the tweaks direct line to the reader is a is an Australian design recommendation, and through algorithm. Facebook made in 2017 and social crucial early step in build- blog founded in 2008 by News media track what is trending 2018 to prioritise family and ing a relationship with a across platforms through tools such as friends have forced a rethink potential subscriber, and Melbourne stylist Lucy media NewsWhip or Chartbeat to determine about alternative social are creating products Feagins. It now has an au- what is engaging news consumers. channels, a more diversified pull for a wider audience at dience of more than 180,000 use of distribution, brand pro- the top of the funnel. The Platform for users to The enthusiastic launch of iPad and motion to build organic growth South China Morning Post upload photos and videos. monthly website users, and related tablet editions was the last and the re-emergence of email as sees signing up for a newsletter These can be edited and attracts more than 330,000 significant innovation built on a primary tool. as a ‘loyalty trigger’, which informs organised with tags and loca- Instagram followers, top-down distribution. For how they develop new products that move tion information and matched some publications, like the For Melbourne-based The Design Files, the people to sign up. with stories in text 130,000 Facebook follow- SMH, The Age and The Facebook shift was part of the disruption that ers and 260,000 Pinterest Guardian tablets offered pushed them towards a more diversified and Lauren Indvik, chief editor of the recently followers. It also has a an early opportunity to apply a lucrative business model. Unusually they launched Vogue Business told the Global subscription model to e-delivery. This get around 30 per cent organic traffic direct Editors Network Summit in Athens in June weekly column in Domain approach foundered on the rocks of to the web site. Pinterest is their main social 2019 that email is the best way to test magazine. search and the social web, built on draw, bringing about 10 per cent of and launch a new news product, > SEE CASE STUDY reader-driven discovery. traffic, followed by Instagram. as it requires only a small staff PAGE 52 and getting feedback is as In the social world, distribution is facilitated Villainesse has used short easy as asking for a reply A microblogging and through pull, rather than push. The algo- videos on Instagram to traditional to the email. But she warns social networking service – rithms facilitate personalised discovery – target its young female de- while it is ‘great for loyalty the ‘SMS of the Internet’. usually on a story-by-story basis – through mographic. Others are more media and engagement’, it can’t More than 321 million content-based filtering (‘here’s something ambivalent, saying that Ins- be found by search, share monthly active users similar to something you liked’) or collabo- tagram is more a publication push is limited, and subscriptions rative filtering (‘here’s something that peo- channel in its own right than will need a website to regis- ple similar to you liked’) or a mix of the two. an engagement platform. ter and pay.

In an information oversupply environment, Independent Australia has used For some, such as Crikey and curated newsletters have been an innova- Twitter as its primary social distribution New Daily, email has long been their pre- A site for visual discovery, tion to help readers sift through the mass tool, particularly through #auspol links, and ferred distribution. In fact, Crikey’s primary collection, and storage tool. and make sense of the world. For many, distributes links through email. For Mamamia, product remains their email newsletter, Available in 27 languages trusted email curators have replaced web Twitter powered its early growth and provided containing all content. Crikey, The Squiz and 291 million active users browsing and social as the news interface the social amplification for its content market- and The Design Files each work an email of choice. ing campaigns. list of about 35,000 active users.

36 news media innov ation 2020 news media innovation 2020 37 Pedestrian, with more than 100,000 email sub- vertising industry’s national focus. There is some scribers, was an early email innovator moving organic traffic – for example, Starts at 60 says 8 Time-shifting has powered to daily emails at a time when the accepted per cent of its traffic comes from New Zealand. wisdom among news media was weekly emails the attention economy. People were better for a readership that didn’t want to YouTube allows users to One of the few with a global audience is the are no longer beholden to be bothered every day. upload, view, rate, share, podcast Moonshot, launched by Lawson Me- add to playlists, report, dia, covering technology and start-ups. Found- 20th century production Clare Kimball, who started The Squiz with comment on videos, and er Kris Lawson was initially funded through a a launch list of 900 two years ago and now subscribe to other users Walkley Foundation grant and family support. and delivery times boasts more than 30,000 subscribers, says: Podcasts have a natural global distribution and ‘For me as a news consumer, the newsletters market and unlike pure digital, their ad rates So podcasts can be shaped into commute that stood out were those that had a voice. are significantly higher outside Australia, and times for example, or, as Medium does, the It had to cut through the clutter and feel like particularly for US audiences (see case study). reader can be alerted to the likely time length it was somebody updating you. Newspaper of a pending read, while others are looking at emails miss the mark because they’re generic One regional offering is The Mekong Review, a providing stories in different formats from the cut-and-paste jobs, not a note to someone. Facebook Watch is literary journal for and about South East long read to takeaways. They are just news and a bunch of links.’ a video-on-demand Asia published by Minh Bui Jones from Syd- service. Original video ney. It circulates in Australia and South East Time-shifting has been powering the attention Publishers relying on subscriptions are content is produced for Asia as a high quality quarterly newspaper economy. People are no longer beholden to the tools asking how to get a higher rate of conver- the company by part- print product sold in bookstores and also avail- industry’s 20th century production processes and such as sion from readers to payers and how to get ners, who earn 55% of able online, and is supported by donations, delivery times. It’s a disruption that has particu- subscribers to visit more often. advertising revenue subscriptions and print sales. larly hit free-to-air television as viewers embrace NewsWhip streaming services such as Netflix or Stan, also or Some publishers seek to manage the churn demonstrating the appetite for binge-worthy con- Chartbeat of paid subscriptions and the challenge of tent in audio and video. track keeping subscribers engaged by using AI to the new what is understand readers’ preferences and pull up a The ABC was an early innovator in time-shifting, daily trending range of content they might engage with. particularly for news, launching its streaming across is a free online news service iView in 2008, long before it was com- The Times newspaper in the UK found, with mercially viable. It used its HD channel to launch platforms a US$1.2 million grant from Google, that by website owned by a 24-hour news channel in 2010. It has been a using AI to personalise the content of their Industry Super Hold- leader in podcasting. email newsletters as well as delivering them ings, with close to 2.5 at the time individual subscribers would most The ABC’s Director News, Analysis and Investi- likely open them, they were able to reduce million readers, and gations, Gaven Morris, says: ‘My theory is that churn rate by 49 per cent. ‘[The newsletter] approximately 440,000 on-demand video news that is never out of date created habits among the lowest engaged subscribers to its daily is going to be the big emerging trend. No-one is groups which are the hardest groups for doing it at the moment. It completely changes what us to retain,’ said Mike Migliore, head of cus- email newsletter. It you do with a television news product.’ tomer value at the newspaper (Tobitt 2019). was co-founded in People want it 2013 by current edi- On-demand will be powered by machine learning Some try to build audience through promo- when they want it to give you stories you want over the time span tion via other organisations. New Daily works torial director Bruce you want them, much like Spotify does with music. through industry super funds and other mem- Guthrie (former editor Living in the attention economy – where bership groups to build its email distribution. of The Herald Sun and information abundance has replaced scarci- YouTube and its emerging competitor Face- Crinkling worked through schools and school ty – gives consumers the freedom to deter- book Watch are being used to produce some community groups to build subscriptions to The Age) and Chair- mine what they want and when they want it. news programs supported by advertising its print newspaper. man Garry Weaven, This requires news media to better under- with a split between the platform and the Director of Industry stand how much time people have, when producer. For example, Sky is producing a Few have been able to build audiences outside they have it, and their preferences at different best-of-commentary half hour program for Australia or New Zealand, inhibited by the ad- Super Holdings. times of the day. Facebook Watch.

38 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 39 It’s understanding that media organisations Innovative organisations think deeply need to create news products and experiences about how to ensure the product’s value of enough value that people will want to pay for Liminal proposition meets the audience needs, or become loyal to the product. and where building audience loyalty and # Magazine engagement are the desired outcomes, CHAPTER 6 Design thinking for product starts with the cus- ensuring that the product is designed in Innovation is an online publi- tomer and their needs, and looks to build on a way that triggers loyalty actions. It may the synergies to be found between those cus- cation profiling the mean some continuing commitment to an tomer needs and core business capabilities, artistic achievements email newsletter, a YouTube program or a understanding the unique value of journalism continuing donation or subscription. It may of Asian-Australians IN PRODUCT and what it can do better than anyone else. mean some pop-up such as one off pod- g y through photography casts (perhaps the ultimate pop-up right t e a Developing products that both serve an and long form inter- now) or newsletters to deal with news r audience and deliver on broader corporate issues and events. views. Published every t needs has guided Crikey in its quest to deep- DEVELOPMENT s en individual engagement with the launch of Monday, it was founded Many organisations, particularly larger the morning Crikey Worm in 2017. The ABC by Leah Jing McIntosh media, have designated product man- Audio Studio is charged with using podcasts agers or teams to research, design and to boost representation to find new audiences or fill out existing ones, steer products to market (Southern 2019). If the business model is about building This way you can test your ideas or products says manager Kellie Riordan. She sees of Asian-Australians in Still, for many traditional media particu- diverse revenue streams with the audience and get valuable feedback before you have podcasts as the ideal tool to bring (or keep) the media. It launched in larly, culture is where the major change at the centre, innovation in product is about invested in them. women in their 30s and 40s engaged with is happening, in conceptualising their late 2016 and is based in designing news products that people need the ABC. audience beyond an amorphous group to and want, will seek out and will pay for. It is a relatively new way of understanding Melbourne, partly funded defining new measures of success. innovation in journalism. Historically, ‘the e r y As former Fairfax product manager Jess Ross i v by a VicArts grant. The ‘product’ is the stage that brings together product’ was determined by the relatively l who steered product for Fairfax through the e the strategy of the journalism, the distribution inflexible and capital intensive production d critical years of digital transition says, knowing and the business model with the audience in demands of print, or the linear nature of these synergies ‘will determine your key strat- How do you mind and matches it to the target market – radio or television broadcasting. Now, egy about where to play and how to win’. You hopefully meeting previously unserved – or it’s central to the innovation process. It’s then need to ensure you have the fundamental operationalise underserved – needs or wants. In innovation where an organisation brings together both core capabilities for product development that terms, the product can be understood as technically and strategically the wants/ will allow you to compete well. combining a set of features with user-centred needs of the audience, the mission and for many a hunch? design (or UX) to produce a specific value values of the company, and the business For Fairfax that was about putting in place a traditional media proposition (Olsen 2015). interests of the organisation. robust, flexible publishing infrastructure that Product innovation in news media, par- allowed journalists and newsrooms to not only particularly, ticularly in the start-up space, tends to be Successful innovation requires the product The innovation lies in understanding the create, edit and promote stories quickly and culture is where launched off an idea or a vision of a gap in to meet the needs of the market it is target- need for and central role of product thinking, easily wherever they were, but also to experi- the market – almost a light-bulb moment ing, in what innovators describe as ‘prod- and allocating scarce resources to it. Its in- ment, ‘to be able to create new story formats or the major change – and then goes looking for an audience. e n c e uct-market fit’ (Griffin 2017). In news media novation also lies in the ‘radical collaboration’ d i spin up a new website or newsletter without it is happening, in It’s been more like Mintzberg’s ‘emer- (and in this report) ‘the product’ is analysed of diverse disciplines drawn from beyond u taking months and months’. gent strategy’ than the Harvard business a as the vehicle into which the journalism is journalism to business, UX, data, sales, conceptualising school’s analytical strategic approach. In packaged and through which it is commu- marketing, strategy, research and design. It’s Ross says in the past these were very slow, their audience some cases this means that, rather than nicated and consumed – whether it be a about understanding audience bahaviours expensive, inefficient pieces of infrastructure starting with a deep understanding of an newsletter, website, newsbot or Twitter feed. as much as their desires and needs, and that acted as an ‘innovation tax. You literally beyond an audience and its needs, the product has building product experiences designed to cannot experiment in the way you need to be been conceptualised first and reshaped Usually, start-ups are encouraged to get to make the process of reaching the content able to. Those tests that you need to run, they amorphous group through implementation or after launch. market – and to test the needs of the market as easy and frictionless as possible, while need to cost you in the hundreds, maybe a to defining – with a minimum viable product; that is, with also directing the audience to the desired thousand dollars, not hundreds of thousands of Usually, the founder in start-up news media the most cost-effective and simplest product outcome, such as subscribing, commenting, dollars’ in the way that legacy media organisa- new measures comes from a journalistic or related communi- that is viable for the market being targeted. sharing or donating. tions did. of success cations background. Innovation teams in tra-

40 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 41 ditional media tend to be more broadly based, critique website Newslaundry, or former In- drawing on journalism, technology and product p t i dian Express editor and NDTV host Shekhar Among the factors used to develop target c e o n development skills. r Gupta at The Print. Everything audiences are: e p (well, almost everything) Of course, the light-bulb moments and in- Successful organisations usually document Demographics, usually by age group, with sights are not uninformed. Successful found- the hunch with a business plan or, at least, Starts at 60 targeting over 60s, Junkee ers are smart and driven people. The internal a concept note. Rebecca Wilson at Starts and Pedestrian targeting millennials (with innovation teams are committed to building at 60 says she sat down and wrote out her is niche both also developing products to reach for the future. These recognitions of a gap business plan a matter of months after start- Private Gen Z). Villainesse is aimed at millennial or gaps usually come with a strong hunch of ing journalistic experiments inspired by her The search for product-market fit in news Media (and younger) women; how they can leverage that insight. light-bulb recognition that there were few if media – particularly start-up news media – any media voices speaking to her parents’ means they are increasingly focused on a is an independent digital Political orientation, with The Australian leading Among the most sophisticated pre-launch generation. This plan continues to guide her. specific audience or niche. Media products with a centre-right voice, or The Sydney Morn- media company with a research in Australia was done by Junkee (see i t y ‘Everything we’ve done was in there,’ need to be shaped with their audience in ing Herald and The Age seeking an ‘indepen- a l case study), which went looking for the white e she says. mind to deliver revenues. These can be a portfolio of specialist dent always’ constituency, or The Guardian r space in a charting of smart-dumb and gener- single target or seek to link groups together. news sites whose pub- targeting a more progressive grouping;

al-niche axes. The Spinoff in New Zealand started with However, the size of the market in Australia lications include Crikey a concept note for a content marketing play (and, even more so in New Zealand) means Work and career, with Moonshot aimed Starts at 60 launched with a deep sense of developed by founder Duncan Grieve. Rather there are significant constraints on the down (subscription-based), at people working in middle and project its audience embedded in their name: how to than a map, this acted as a concept for unroll- side for start-up media: too small a niche SmartCompany, Start- management in technology companies, speak to the over 60s, understanding the kind ing the start-up over time, with each vertical means you struggle to build revenues, as and Mumbrella targeting people in media, upSmart, The Manda- of information they need at their different seeking its own sponsor. It pivoted in June to a some news sites have found. marketing and advertising; life stages and providing a forum for its more diversified revenue mix with the launch of rin and Crikey’s new audience to share. Founder Rebecca its membership offering. For traditional media the challenge is to be investigative journalism Indigeneity (and people interested in Wilson saw the gap – there was nothing that both big enough to retain mass, and small indigenous issues), such as IndigenousX extension INQ. Eric made this age group ‘look and feel sexy’. Lucy Feagins at The Design Files says she enough to build a community relationship or e-Tangata; ‘retrofitted’ her business model over the or feel. The successful ones adopt a bold Beecher is Chairman In some cases the start-up is built specifically original product, originally with direct-sale approach, using the depth and breadth of of Private Media and Gender, as with long-standing start-up off the personal brand of the founder, such as advertising before pivoting as the money fell their coverage to build new products like Mamamia targeting a broad range of wom- Editor-in-Chief of Crikey New Zealand’s site for young feminists, Vil- out of programmatic advertising and as social podcasts, blogs and savvy investigations. en’s interests, as do new entrants launched lainesse, which is wrapped up in the personal media opened up greater opportunities to They use the mass scale of the web, but INQ. Private Media also by Helen McCabe with Nine, Future brand of Lizzie Marvelly. Some others were Mamamia monetise. are also able to feel small and intimate by operates a business to built out of blogs, building the brand of the site using the formats like almost-personalised business audience and the brand of the journalist hand-in-hand, is an opinion and life- Consistency of brand and offering is also emails, events and podcast avenues that such as Mia Freedman and her eponymous style website targeted at important in sustaining – and monetising – the allow them to speak directly to their read- engagement agency site Mamamia or The Design Files’ Lucy start-up’s narrative. women. It was created in ers, and allow their readers to get to know called Bureau. Feagins. the people behind the mastheads, to build 2007 by magazine editor Pedestrian, for example, credits its success to relationships and communities. In the Asia-Pacific, India stands out for the Mia Freedman. Origi- its unity of mission and brand. In 2014, Junkee strength of start-ups focussed on hard news renamed its parent company from Sound Alli- nally a blog, it is now a The New York Times perhaps does this that are filling a credibility and trust gap left by ance to Junkee Media in keeping with the hero best, particularly with its Australian news- the mainstream media that is perceived to be full digital platform for brand. The Australian notes its print and online letter produced by its local team, set up in pro-establishment and pro-corporate inter- women’s news, lifestyle versions never diverged, not in content and not 2017. It is typical of The Times’ attempts ests. These have been built in part around the even in typeface. content and opinion, to build on the breadth of its coverage to brands and reputations of their founders who build a more intimate relationship with its are senior journalists and former editors from with written, video and These differing trajectories indicate that in suc- audience, using verticals and new products traditional media, such as former Hindu editor podcast content, for an cessful start-ups, the plan will evolve over time (e.g., modern love, simple living, cooking, Siddharth Varadarajan and Siddharth Bhatia both as the outside world changes (specifically average of approximately health), podcasts and email newsletters at The Wire, or Naresh Fernandes (previously as it becomes more social and mobile) and that also target new audiences. It’s now editor-in-chief of Time Out) at The Scroll or 4 million unique users. as the demands and needs of the audience experimenting with AI to deliver even more Madhu Trehan at the crowd-sourced media change or become better understood. personalised email newsletters.

42 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 43 Woman and Primer founded by ex-Marie owned by two national chains, which have engineering to reduce costs. The sector is lifestyle – the beats of local news. Claire editors Anna Saunders and Felicity been carving cost savings out of the sector in the end point of that process with the an- Stories are typically 400 words and in- Robinson. The Squiz newsletter (see case through centralisation. Over the past five nounced closures in New Zealand by Stuff clude contextual information and com- study), and the Indian Broadsheet, are years, they have been the most affected by the in 2018 and a drip-by-drip wind back of local ments that reflect on the broad national largely read by women. Indonesia-based flight of advertising to Facebook and Google. titles in Australia. trends. According to co-founder and editor feminist webmagazine Magdalene has Gary Rogers, about 80 per cent of the also had success in this niche. This centralisation in masthead chains The handful of independent local media, Newsroom stories are published unchanged online. has meant most have had neither the caught up in the day to day production pro- In print, it is about 50 per cent with local is a New Zea- However it defines its niche, the or- freedom nor the resources to inno- cess chasing costs and revenues, struggle reporters adding more local comment and ganisation needs to build a strong vate from a grass roots level, with to get the time and intellectual bandwidth to land-based online news calls to action. and engaged relationship, to turn a deep understanding of the wants innovate. In 2018, the Federal Government publication focusing on that sector into an audience, and needs of their own particular announced a special program of grants ‘We are providing data journalism on a politics, current affairs connected to the product. local audience. It’s made local for independent local media. ACMA, which massive scale that is beyond the scope of solutions to the challenge of local administers the grants, found that this lack and social issues. most hard-pressed local newsrooms, and I Not all niches are equal. Some news harder to justify and sustain. of innovation potential meant the sector Founded by co-editors hope, shining a light on statistics that inform bring more passion. Some are The long-term financial clout of the lacked even the ability to take advantage of readers what is really happening in their Tim Murphy and Mark more engaged. Some have great- chains has also kept other would-be the grants’ structure. And yet, local media area,’ says Rogers. er financial resources. Some are local publishers from launching new is perhaps best placed to develop the kind Jennings in March 2017 just bigger than others. This tells us experiments in these spaces. of deep relationship with its audience that and aiming for a ‘New In Japan, Asahi Shimbun Assistant that it is not enough to identify and en- could sustain small but relevant newsrooms, Managing Editor Takeshi Fujitani says the Zealand version of The gage an unserved or poorly served niche. Throughout the English-speaking me- as noted in the Centre for Media Transition’s paper similarly sorts data by prefecture to Mumbrella credits its success in part to the dia world, digital news media has failed to report on regional news media (Fray & Guardian’, its initial provide targeted stories for local editions capacity of its audience (via its employers) scale local. Not enough local advertising is Giotis 2019). funding came from cor- of their paper. to pay for events and products, demonstrat- looking to align with local news. It’s not certain porate and education ing how important it is to find a niche that what the scale point is: when a locality is large The only regional start-up of any scale A US initiative is Detroit-based can sustain a media business. enough (in population, in news consumers, in and longevity is Adelaide’s InDaily. It’s a partners including the The Outlier launched by Sarah Alvarez wealth) to sustain local news media, without relatively successful model that relies mostly University of Auckland in 2016, which uses a bot to individualise This is great for communities and niches being too large to be considered a unified on advertising and sponsorship to report on texts as a means of informing its generally and Victoria University that can afford to pay for their journalism. CityMag community. business, politics and city life in Adelaide. poor community about the housing crisis They are better served than ever. But as is a quarterly print It’s been able to build a relationship with its of Wellington. It is (Alvarez 2019). Stanford media economist James Hamilton and weekly digital In 2019, The New York Times executive readers so that when it launched a dona- also funded by private said recently: ‘There’s no Wirecutter for the editor Dean Baquet warned the International tions strategy via PressPatron it was able If, as societies, Australia and New Zealand donations through au- poor’ (Owen 2019). magazine for the local News Media Association World Congress of to raise significant enough revenue that it is believe local news matters to communi- Adelaide community. the coming death of local media: now looking into deepening this strategy. dience supporters. The ties, then it will require active intervention CityMag was estab- public site is based in through the key innovation supporters: The greatest crisis in American journal- One attempt to get around the constraints of governments, tech platforms, universities, Auckland and the paid lished in 2013 in by ism is the death of local news … Their local scale has been a London-based start-up, philanthropists. It is unlikely to survive The local niche subscription service is Joshua Fanning and economic model is gone … most local Urbs, which exploits big open data sets, often outside the ABC by simple reliance on the Through the 20th century ‘local’ was what Farrin Foster, with a newspapers in America are going to die in organised by geography, for local stories by based in Wellington. market to sort it out. news media did best. The infrastructure of the next five years. combining journalism with natural language team of Adelaide jour- 20th century media – newspapers, radio and generation to generate localised stories. Urbs The value in local and regional media television – was built off local structures and nalists, photographers, In Australia and New Zealand, ‘local’ is used Media launched in 2015 to leverage open data is community. It will be interesting to optimised for local news. It was reinforced designers and artists. to mean suburban or community media and into public interest journalism. Unlike robo-jour- see if the fortunes of local media can be by regulation which, until the 1990s, required regional papers (a narrower definition than in nalism which takes data into a repeating improved if the larger groups decide to radio and television to produce local news for It was acquired by Sol- the USA). In broadcasting, only the ABC sus- format, the company sorts nationally available divest some assets and local ownership their direct communities (Dwyer et al 2005). stice Media in 2018. tains a broad local network (regional, but not data into regional components for each indi- encouraged. They will need assistance It was reinforced by ownership structures, suburban) covering most of Australia, although vidual story. Now with an editorial team of six and support to develop the tools, know- with regional papers usually owned by a this is under funding pressure. (one editor and five reporters), it has produced how and mindset to understand and en- local business family. about 180,000 local news stories in the past gage local audiences and to develop the In the traditional chains, innovation is still 12 months covering health, crime, transport, journalism products that can deliver on Now, most local and regional papers are often at the level of business process education, housing, social policy, environment, both engagement and reader revenues.

44 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 45 told 4th Estate, journalists need to work behind a paywall, the company is shifting to an news bundle is made particularly challenging hard on the entry point for the audience, integrated online strategy and prioritising quali- by the presence of the ABC which has the how they find their way into a story. ‘What’s ty over reach, driven by its paywall approach. scale and funding to provide a more thought- interesting, what makes it worthwhile? Say- A possible approach of the newly merged ful news service without needing to worry There’s still ing “A study released today” is like death in Nine-Fairfax might be to position the Nine site about maximising clicks to generate revenue. digital journalism.’ They focus on real time as a free site going head to head with As much of news This also enables it to resource in depth mass in the mix metrics, which stories people are coming to news.com.au, and to further re-align the mast- production shifts (through, for example, Four Corners), to set minute to minute, looking at search and so- heads’ sites with the papers’ more targeted behind pay-walls, the agenda both through the quality of its re- cial reports to see what people are reading. values of quality, in-depth journalism. porting and through its ability to boost its stories Within this landscape, there remains a It’s about insights. There is only ‘a thin layer there is a real across its platforms and to adapt its news for market for traditional mass news for mass between you and the audience, you can urbs For commercial free-to-air broadcasters, the risk of creating target audiences (e.g., Triple J for under 25s). audiences. These mass products are the almost touch them’ (Fray 2019). produced network digital news offers the same generic a news divide closest there is to ‘business as usual’ prod- coverage as a sort of content-marketing play The endurance of mass market news remains ucts in the ecosystem, producing online the In Australia, there are four organisations to draw viewers to the (advertising-supported) between the a key social and democratic imperative. sort of product that sustained newspapers that continue to deliver particular types of 180,000 broadcast. news rich and As much of news production shifts behind or broadcast news. This means spot news: news that are aimed at maximising audience news poor paywalls, there is a real risk of creating a weather, celebrities and entertainment, to drive income through general (usually In the start-up area, the New Daily is at- news divide between the news rich and news crime and personal tragedy, sport, politics programmatic) advertising. In New Zealand, local tempting to occupy this generic news space, alongside the poor alongside the economic divide. The as the horse race (who’s up, who’s down), there are two or three. although it has a leaning to superannuation economic divide more this paid-for news is targeted at its rela- etc. High on details and drama. Low on news and personal finance, as a content marketing tively well-off audience, the less that audience analysis and deep reporting. They remain a The major voices in this space come from resource for its sponsoring organisations will be exposed to the diversity of real world critical part of the eco-system, providing a the traditional companies, and rely in part among the industry superannuation funds. issues and challenges, as well as possible free layer of information. on the volume of material prepared by their stories For commercial organisations, the generic solutions. parent. The most dominant are news.com.au In the commercial sector, these endure in Australia and stuff.co.nz in New Zealand, in 12 months as general advertising plays. In the online both of which remain as a free source of this covering world, this means maximising clicks to relatively commodified information. maximise usually programmatic (including health, crime, programmatic native) advertising revenues. In the case of News Corp this allows them to transport, It’s less about driving reader revenues horizontally integrate their news voices, with through engagement. the free-to-consumers news.com.au filling the education, mass space, and the mastheads being put But the journalism has had to adapt. As behind paywalls where they are being shaped housing, editor-in-chief of news.com.au Kate de Brito as more niche products. social policy,

The general news environment, sites of the old Fairfax lifestyle - company are branded to their mastheads – the beats of smh.com.au and theage.com.au. The local news company decided early in the internet age to position these websites further down-market from their print papers in a journalistic sense to attract the sort of mass audience a free site required. However, now that most content is

46 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 47 attention, has been bad – not just for the indus- ognises the expectations of our audience in try (or the journalists who lost their jobs) but for the social digital age for news media to build a vibrant media in a democratic society. community, connect them and empower them to find solutions to the changing challenges in That’s why innovation in news media has always their lives. Strengthening innovation in journal- been about balancing the need to move fast with ism across these three planes requires sharing the imperative of stabilising the existing news and learning through best practices; keeping media infrastructure. The new isn’t being written the audience in the design process; production on a blank page. It’s emerging on palimpsest with multiple channels in mind; and greater that’s already been written over and over. understanding, support and advice from tech platforms including through intermediaries such The job of innovators in news media is to bring as universities and philanthropic institutions. It speed to the process, push down on the accel- VICE needs experimentation with scalable journal- erator, drag the industry and the craft from the is a global youth media ist-focused technologies such as deepnews.ai. past into an admittedly uncertain future, keep Journalism schools in universities need help to brand that launched in Can- what is valuable, be open to reviewing every- reimagine journalism education, both for now thing you thought essential. ada in 1994, and grew to and for the future. # be one of the world’s most CHAPTER 7 lucrative multiplatform Positioning media start-ups. Business of It was recently valued and reach at US$5.7 billion the business Challenges ahead Identifying audience and understanding audi- ($7.2 billion), financed in Innovators in news media need access to busi- ence needs has to be more deeply embedded part by contributions ness knowledge and understanding that can in the innovation practices of the industry as be built within the constraints of the inherent and some tentative solutions from private equity, too many still operate on a ‘build it and they’ll shortage of bandwidth, capacity, and the re- come’ approach. This involves a deeper knowl- 21st Century Fox, HBO and sources needed to focus on business building. edge base on how to build and scale audi- Disney. Known for ences, how to reach them, engage them (and There’s an urgent need for a training its provocative and edgy This report seeks to step off the treadmill the future builders, demonstrating the collective promote to them) and how to identify otherwise program for so-called journo-preneurs and of constant change and the stream of new nature of innovation. missed opportunities. video content, Vice innovators on leadership, innovation and en- challenges, responses and experiments, to launched in Australia trepreneurship to focus on fundamentals, understand more deeply what and how broader “ Perhaps the most important block is the mind- This could include annual (or more fre- such as need-finding, problem/solution and 2008 in 2003 and partnered with societal changes are impacting media transi- set and culture of the innovator – open to un- quent) innovator workshops to bring together product-market fit, prototyping and product tion. There is much experimentation and the Move fast derstanding the past and present in new ways entrepreneurs and/or innovators to work on SBS to broadcast design, audience engagement, revenue external conditions are constantly changing. and comfortable with change as a constant a particular challenge or idea; an audience VICELAND channel. strategies and opportunities, financial man- and break companion. lab to work with media start-ups directly on agement, marketing and sales. This could The report is a work in progress. In the midst of things identifying and understanding audience needs/ include a purpose-designed bootcamp for a revolution, it can be nothing more. While the Famously, the founding mantra of Facebook wants and data and strategies to monetise current and emerging journalists to devel- report has outlined the three cycles of innova- was ‘move fast and break things’. In 2015, opportunities and product development; and op needed business skills. For journalism tion, we can’t be certain just where we are in the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg an- promote opportunities for start-up expan- schools there is an urgent need to deepen this revolution, what the endpoint is, nor how 2015 nounced a rhetorical pivot to ‘move fast with sion, particularly to off-shore audiences. their understanding of the depth, detail and much more of this journey there is to come. stable infrastructure’. Not as catchy, but scale of the change and challenges for the Move fast relevant for innovators in news media. industry and use this to reimagine their As much as it is a work in progress, it attempts with stable course offerings for journalists and media to bring together the blocks the industry is All the ‘breaking’ that’s happened in the indus- Journalism: makers to produce graduates who have the using to rebuild media. Many of these have infrastructure try, all those job losses and masthead closures Journalism today depends on optimising its skills, mindset and leadership capacity to be come from earlier experiments that might have resulting from the exogenous disruption of the traditional utility and entertainment alongside both responsive in a changing environment failed but have left vital learnings and clues for internet and the consequent fragmentation of its connectedness in the social web. It rec- and to lead the change. 48 news media innovation 2020” news media innovation 2020 49 Diversifying revenues Key to the business of the business is diversi- fying funding through building greater under- standing of the potential of the different models of advertising, reader revenues and the range of possible alternate sources, ensuring the model fits the mission.

This could include evangelising the impor- tance of media start-ups to create news me- dia-focused accelerators, showcase them, encourage deal flow and interest and build an angel network of media believers; bringing to- gether potential philanthropic institutes to cre- ate a targeted grants program for existing start-ups to address a specific challenge and/ media in the centre of that economy. In an era demonstrate how that strategy is playing out in or to seed runway for new start-ups; building a the fall and rise of content abundance, a major economic con- the local eco-system matching fund for PressPatron-style donations straint is the time that the audience has amid to existing media; and building a coalition of the myriad pulls for attention. We’re now deep into the third cycle of this inno- media donors and investors to help build the of news media vation, a cycle that demands readers, viewers case for broader investment. These are disruptions to the core value of and listeners be put first in news media thinking. Innovation both in start-up and in traditional journalism and the business of media, and For many news media it’s also a crucial moment It could mean helping news outlets reach media is creating an opportunity for news demand that innovation is also a core business when their actions will determine their survival sustainability by lowering operating costs, media to climb out of the slough of disruption into a response. We need to reinvent journalism from and success, and that demands an understand- particularly for publishing and business infra- new, exciting and diverse media world. Around an audience perspective and this demands that ing that disruption, and innovation are not some- structure; providing shared resources and the world – and in Australia and New Zealand we develop a deep understanding of where the thing to the side, or a part of the business, but at services for creating and managing initiatives – innovators are seizing this opportunity. value is in what we do. the heart of the business itself. It is the audience such as membership campaigns; share best that is disrupting news media, and innovators practices for developing reader revenue Too often, critics focus on the effects of dis- That’s why, as this report tracks, innovation in need to understand how it has fragmented, how streams; networking start-ups to engage with ruption, on what we can see – the collapse of news media has shifted from a ‘nice to have’ expectations and behaviours have completely advertisers seeking placements at scale. newspaper revenues as advertising flies to the component of the news business to the very changed, as well as the way in which it values tech platforms, or the fall in linear television centre of how news is thought about, created and journalism. viewing as viewers use streaming to time-shift consumed. It has to be front-of-mind for everyone their consumption. But it’s not just the business in the business of news. This cycle brings its own challenges, with Building out model. It’s not just the technology. These are increased competition for both time and money. the outcomes, not the cause. Innovation works to rebuild journalism when When the competition is for attention, the com- the eco-system it is centred on a deep understanding of the au- petitors are less other news outlets than they are There is now a growing understanding that dience, on the people who value and engage all the other demands on time and attention (and The eco-system depends on a network that change is the new normal – that the forces with the journalism on offer to engage through subscription dollars) from social media to streamed encourages understanding and learning from that drive disruption are here to stay. There shares, likes, comments – and payments. An entertainment. success and failure of others, providing access has been a fundamental shift in the nature innovation strategy requires a holistic approach to expertise, coaching, mentoring and commu- of the audience and the challenge now is to to rethinking this understanding – in the con- Yet it’s a cycle where everyone within news me- nity support. This could include a (perhaps vir- understand its expectations, its behaviours and tent, in the distribution, in the business model dia benefits from sharing what they’re learning, tual) community-based co-work space spe- where it sees value. and in the products that package them up. to work together to build deep news habits in the cifically for media start-ups, a coaching service new eco-system for the 21st century and to carve and a mentor network to support new media This can be understood within the shift to the The examples in this report – the stories of those out a role for the democratic practice of journal- ventures and innovators. attention economy and the positioning of the who are engaged in the innovation journey – ism in the internet age.

50 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 51 T U D Y T U D Y S S E E The membership program took six S S A A months of planning and prep work: pro-

C # C gramming to accept monthly continuing 1 #2 payments, design and artwork, getting The the the book ready. ‘We really sweated the copy and the message of the member- ship landing page because we wanted to emphasis that this wasn’t a paywall Design Spinoff and would not change the experience of The Spinoff, but would allow us to do Investing in a more and open up a two-way conver- membership program sport and books and we also opened the sation where members could speak to, Files politics and media section,’ says Grieve. inform and contribute,’ says Grieve. New Zealand’s online media brand, ‘We just opened them and hoped that The culture of the brand The Spinoff, is marking its fifth anniver- sponsors would come – which turned By launch, he says, ‘I was pleased that it sary as a self-proclaimed ‘smart, funny, out to be wrong.’ felt like we had figured out the proposi- Thinking of new ways to deepen provocative’ site with a sophisticated tion that made sense for us.’ corporate relationships that create membership program to help keep the As a result the company has been value for both sides has under- site’s content free to access. bootstrapped. Growth has depended About 1,000 people signed up in the pinned The Design Files’ pivot away on cash flow, both through the site and first week. Although there was no from a traditional advertising-based there was good news: ‘They did want In terms of brands strategy, Feagins Launched by founder Duncan Greive through white-labelled content, including minimum payment (members can pay business model to build a more to still work with us. They said: “We says: ‘It’s our job to look at that brand in 2014, the Auckland-based organi- video, produced for other companies. as little as $1), the average contribution sustainable business focusing on want to work with you, but we don’t and think about how to integrate that sation now claims an average monthly It now has about 20 staff, including 15 is about NZ$100 a year. Grieve says Australian design. want to advertise.” We heard that over into our content in a way that our read- unique audience of about 800,000 journalists producing content. the company is continuing to pick up and over again.’ ers will accept. (about one in six New Zealand resi- members every day and is on track for a Founder Lucy Feagins says that ad- dents) and a daily organic social reach However, the site has avoided straight target of about 2,000 people by the end vertising directly contracted by brands That provided an opportunity to pivot to ‘We’re in a unique position in some of about 100,000. Their site boasts: ‘Our advertising. ‘Our audience is very resis- of this year, on the way to a tripling of was once the main source of the site’s meeting the brands’ marketing needs ways because we’re a publisher than audience is young, urban, and earn- tant to advertising,’ says Greive. ‘We’re current membership income. Although income, although it was never making in place of advertising, unlocking more can sell content but we’re also in the ing, and they love what we do.’ aggressively anti-advertising, so no The Spinoff is based in Auckland, the substantial money from that source. budget from those brands through influencer game. I have a bit of a programmatic, no CPM. About half our membership growth has largely come native content, co-hosted events and profile and sometimes brands want me Grieve says: ‘I was working as a freelance audience have ad blockers.’ (And only from outside, particularly Wellington ‘We were lucky in that we were never being a brand ambassador. ‘Now,’ and there’s a cost attached to me being journalist and I was always interested in 60 per cent have linear television.) which has contributed about 25 per cent, over-reliant on advertising but what we Feagins says, ‘many spend more on us part of the campaign.’ For example, the commercial side because all the mag- He says the scale advantages the traditional although it is only 10 per cent of the did start to find about five years ago doing those things than they did doing she says, she’s been an ambassador azines I’d written for had gone defunct and companies have ‘are deteriorating by the country’s population. was that advertising – even the mini- straight advertising.’ for Dulux Paint, who are a long-stand- I thought “that’s annoying”.’ day and at the end, we’re going to win’. mal we were getting – was just declin- ing advertiser. The company has launched its first ing,’ Feagins says. That decline was The Design Files was started by Fe- The Spinoff was originally launched The Spinoff has been taking donations membership based product – a pop-up the shift by ad buyers to programmatic agins in 2008 as a blog for the design There’s a value, she says, when the as a site for talking about television, through the New Zealand start-up Press newsroom to cover local government advertising, which acted to disadvan- industry, evolving incrementally to founder is in the business every day: supported by New Zealand’s SVOD sup- Patron (since July 2017) and has been elections around New Zealand. The tage start-up players. where it is now with a team of nine, in- ‘Everyone here can see me working.’ plier Lightbox, although, says, Greive, thinking for some time about a more struc- challenge is to respond to members, cluding designers, event organisers and ‘through television, you could talk about tured program. As a result, in May this without, Greive says, being edited by Programmatic advertising produces writers. Its major outlet is the website, But The Design Files brand has to politics or sport’. year it launched a membership program members. It conducts monthly surveys less income than direct deals because which attracts about 180,000 unique come first: ‘We have a culture around based on a member-chosen level of con- of readers to identify interests and then of downward pressures on price and visitors each month, supported by an our brand that is very strong. We are It has now expanded to offer content tribution, either monthly or annually. considers how or whether it can bring because of the proportion of ad spend email list of about 30,000. very protective of that culture. That’s grouped around 10 verticals – still an appropriate standpoint to the subject. clipped by the platforms and ad where engagement comes. We protect including television, but also across Apart from some swag (tote bag, an- Major topics so far have been climate exchanges on the way through. Most of its traffic is organic – people it because the outcome of that is that politics, sport and culture. Usually, nual book), the membership offering is change, followed by national politics. It looking for the site. The major social our audience are very engaged – they’ll each vertical has its own sponsor – for network and values based, highlighting is currently road-testing climate change Feagins says that the industry brands media referrals come from Pinterest, al- let us know when we drop the ball. example, the books vertical is support- ‘opportunities to tell us what topics you’d coverage with the aim of developing an she was working with didn’t want to though most of those are from overseas That’s the magic and that’s what keeps ed by the Unity Books stores. ‘We got like us to cover’ and ‘undying gratitude ongoing unique coverage that doesn’t spend their money in that way. But and so can’t be monetised. us on track and holds us accountable.’ sponsorship for parenting coverage, and love’. duplicate what others are doing. 52 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 5353 T U D Y via video. Branded content provides that dominates many media comments T U D Y S S E another revenue stream. sections. E S S A A

C # As a social network media service NewsPicks also challenged the idea of C 3 focusing on business and technology what Japanese news consumers were #4 The news and information, it uses a timeline interested in. By focusing on niche in- similar to Facebook’s News Feed or a dustries, new businesses and entrepre- NewsPicks Twitter stream based on shared infor- neurs, the company has built a young mation and comment. and loyal following. In Japan, where print media is still strong (the largest Ken Commentary as a key part In growing the app the company ‘invest- paper still has a circulation of 8 million), Innovation in ‘It took us well over a year to under- ing services) by letting subscribers add of journalism (Japan) ed heavily in the commentary system’. the younger generation generally didn’t stand that we needed to separate their partners to their subscription at no This meant focusing a lot of early engage with the mainstream media. paywalls (India) the roles of subscribers from that additional cost. The five-year-old Japanese news app energy on identifying and attracting ‘Until NewsPicks there was no place for of payers,’ says Dharmakumar. As NewsPicks demonstrates that news can high quality ‘newspickers’ and expert young people to know and share news.’ Bangalore-based The Ken grasped a result, the company introduced a The organisation also encourages use the power of comments to drive a commenters. that paywalls require their own continu- corporate subscription that eliminated sharing to increase reach. In any month, social media platform that appeals to a ing innovation. Off-the-shelf products the paywall for all (or some) of their a subscriber can share access for up millennial audience who are prepared to based on the learnings of larger employees. Six months later, it inno- to five individual stories. The Ken then pay for what they get. traditional businesses weren’t going vated its paywall again for colleges, hopes that the quality of the offering will to support the start-up’s high quality through campus-wide subscriptions, convert them into a subscriber. NewsPicks curates news and also tech-business news offering. with students and faculty members publishes its own multimedia content, as the subscribers, and educational Separating payers from readers with a which it then curates through a network The product and journalism The Ken institutions the payers. group subscription model is now being of experts and peers to encourage en- offers is already innovative: it publish- explored by other start-ups and tradition- gagement. Its business model is based on es only one original long-form article This year, it launched patron subscrip- al media. It’s a feature of the planned subscriptions, branded content and events. (about 2,500 words) each weekday tions, its ‘most ambitious and radical new subscription content platform from for paying subscribers, supported by a paywall innovation’, where any person, former Hearst chief content officer Joan- The news app was built from the ground free email newsletter to introduce that company or brand can fund annual na Coles. She told the The Information’s up by starting with the desired com- article. Its in-depth narrative style is a subscriptions of between $50 and $250, Women in Tech, Media and Finance munity – younger people interested in key differentiator in the Indian market that The Ken will double by matching. Ac- conference in New York in June 2019 business and tech who bring strong which is dominated by highly commod- cording to The Ken, patrons can choose that the planned new venture would points of view that enhance and create Finding the right commenters for each NewsPicks has also experimented with itised news. who these subscriptions should go to from focus on connecting working women value through the commentary. story and providing advance access is and developed new formats for story- ‘their alma maters, bootstrapped start- across the US. now part of its weekly news planning. telling to attract and entrench this new The value in this differentiation is re- ups in their sector, young employees or NewsPicks enables users to follow This adds value to the original offering audience. The platform was initially text- flected directly in the pricing: at US$50 specialist professionals. Or they can leave Early moves involve discussions with and interact with influential and peer as additional information and per- based. It now supports video streaming, a year, it’s relatively high for the region. that to us to figure out and solve’. corporations for company subscriptions. curators, who share its selections of spectives are provided by experts and graphic storytelling and weekly in-house (The Hindu digital subscription, for ex- She is confident that people will pay for news and analysis. This allows the user business people on top of the original talk shows. It values the design team as ample is US$30.) In October it used its third anniversary quality information, and is more con- to curate a personalised business news journalism. For journalists, this can be important partners and creates strong to launch what is effectively a household cerned about the potential of excluding service. uncomfortable, particularly if an expert visual journalism and infographics for Its approach is based on a clear-eyed subscription (the model used by stream- people who can’t afford it. is correcting a story, but if the journalist explainers as well as using Manga assessment of what paywalls are: ‘Pay- It has more than 4 million member starts by accepting ‘there is a lot I don’t visuals. walls are a business model. Paywalls ar- subscribers who can access and know, then the comments can help us en’t barriers,’ says co-founder and CEO comment on curated content for free; find new insights’. Naoyoshi Goto is convinced that young Rohin Dharmakumar. Understanding it 100,000 subscribers, predominantly in people will pay for content, and they as a business model led to a realisation the 20- to 40-year age group, paying The commenting system is central to have proven with NewsPicks that they that the reader/subscriber and the payer US$15 per month to access and en- the attraction of the model to the audi- will pay for quality content. But he ac- need not be the same person. gage with original content; 5,000 pre- ence NewsPicks wants. It is disciplined, knowledges quality content on its own mium subscribers paying US$50 per allowing each commenter to comment may not be enough: it needs a smart Like most paywalled news media, The month who can also access the more once only on each story. It bars tagging system that provides a social media Ken initially only offered individual sub- than 100 events per year either live or of other people, avoiding the negativity layer of curation and commentary. scriptions. 54 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 55 T U D Y S E global audience, Moonshot saw the company can grow step by step based S by two senior journalists who understood In three years, more than 1 million opportunity to charge ads at US rates, on its income. Still, Lawson notes, ‘The A ‘the readers’ relationships with The people have supported The Guardian fi- T U D Y C S normally about US$37or $50. sale of Gimlet Media at $230 million is Guardian and in political campaigning’. nancially, with more than 650,000 paying E Lawson # S fantastic for podcasting. It adds legiti- The They put together a team of journalists, regularly. Most (55 per cent) revenues A 6

C The company was launched with support macy to the field.’ If anything, he says, it UX researchers, designers, data ana- are now digital, and more than half come #5 Media from the Walkley Innovation Fund in will turn out to be a cheap price. lysts, engineers, marketing and product from readers over advertisers, with only March 2017, then built with support managers. 8 per cent from print advertising. from RMIT University’s Activator Launch- ‘What worries me most as a start-up Guardian HUB, and bootstrapped with financial company is cash flow, and being able to They tested messaging to identify the The editor of the digital-only The Guard-

Moonshot support from family and friends. sustain it, so we can build a real busi- Creating a mainstream most effective tool. Viner (who was ian Australia, Lenore Taylor, says that as ness around it. We need to keep the also founding editor of The Guardian a result of the campaign, the Australian Building an Its first podcast reached 100 downloads show relevant and keep the audience donations model Australia in 2013) says: ‘Independence business is self-sustaining and has been international audience (‘pretty dispiriting,’ says Lawson) but the engaged so that the advertising keeps The Guardian has stood out as a is a very powerful message all around able to diversify its journalism. company persisted. In July that year, it coming in. model for innovation in the media, the world, but it’s particularly powerful featured in Pocket Cast. By its fifth epi- often in counter-intuitive ways, zig- in Australia where 70 per cent of the The membership/contributions model, The first podcast series from Lawson sode in August, the advertising started to ‘In the end, quality in podcasting is ging when others zag. Right now, it is media is owned by Rupert Murdoch and she says, ‘frees you up to do the most Media – Moonshot – has already come in. Now, Apple is using Moonshot in about a combination [of] the depth of innovating reader revenues through so they, obviously, value independence important journalism’ because you are suggested it has the potential to a global campaign for the Apple Watch. the storytelling and the quality of the reader-based donations. Although particularly in Australia.’ not having to create products for ad- become one of the few Australian crowdfunding has long vertisers. More importantly, media start-ups to carve out a global been a feature of digital engaging readers transforms audience. The podcast discusses the creativity on the internet, the journalism. biggest ideas in tech – such as moving The Guardian was the first to Mars or quantum computing – and to imagine into practice its ‘You need to find ways to talks to the people who are making potential in funding a global hear from people rather than that happen, wherever they are. media player. talking about them,’ Taylor says. In Australia, this has Its audience – more than 800,000 By 2015, most mastheads included call-outs to readers downloads or about 10,000 to 15,000 (and all metropolitan and for both donations and story an episode – tends to work in tech, national mastheads in Aus- ideas for environmental engineering and design, often at the tralia) were implementing issues under ‘The Wide middle or higher levels of their compa- subscriber-based paywalls Brown Land’ project. Taylor nies. This puts Moonshot in the top 5 of increasing hardness to confront says the company raised more than it per cent of the over 750,000 shows in the continued decline in advertising The research found that although expected (about $150,000) and that half Apple Podcasts. revenues. Although The Guardian had pre-existing members (about 12,000 the story ideas came from its readers. experimented with digital subscriptions registered from an earlier events-based ‘If you are going for real scale, you are in its tablet product, it was philosophi- program) liked getting something tan- Engaging readers has also helped with not going to get that in the Australian cally committed to remaining free on the gible for their contribution, there were journalistic innovation in data, such as the market,’ CEO and Founder Kristofor web. Yet it faced the same crisis. also many who would prefer to simply ‘Killing Time’ project, developing ‘a massa- Lawson says. ‘We are well placed in support The Guardian’s journalism at a cre map of Australia’s frontier wars’. this region. We have the talent in this By May 2018, the company had built audio production. You can have a really The Guardian News and Media Edi- level and frequency they could dictate country. If we focus on the global audi- sufficient revenues with about 70 per fantastic investigation but if the audio is tor-in-chief Kath Viner says: ‘In the UK, and they could afford. The Guardian demonstrates both ence, we can get scale.’ cent from ads on the podcast and 30 terrible, it can be a turn-off for listeners. the idea of a media organisation asking the work that it takes and the finan- per cent from providing content and We want our listeners to recognise its readers for direct contributions was The ask for donations had to be struc- cial value of engaging readers. It’s a Already about 50 per cent of Moon- audio services. Lawson had left his job the work that goes into making our unheard of at the time. And I’ll be honest tured within the values of the organi- model that’s being picked up around shot listeners are in the US. But at the ABC a year earlier to focus on podcasts a reality and that only shines with you, it really did not have much sation – and of their readers. As chief the world. Viner says: ‘Everyone has being in Australia shapes the pod- building a sustainable business. through when the show sounds as support inside The Guardian or outside strategy officer James Down said in taken a leaf out of our book. We’ve cast’s content, as it tries to interview good as the journalism that went into it. to begin with.’ ‘But,’ she says, ‘the readers February, The Guardian had ‘to build a seen everyone using our language people outside the US and from the As a business that has been built with understood it.’ more meaningful set of relations with our and that’s great because we did all the Asia-Pacific region to bring a global support from family and friends and ‘Audiences recognise quality,’ readers to play a larger role in their lives hard work. That’s great. Very happy to perspective to the issues. Serving a a handful of innovation grants, the Lawson says. The company invested in a new unit led and to improve our journalism.’ help the industry.’ 56 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 57 T U D Y S Starts at 60 grew in the Facebook and native content. Wilson describes it E focused on what the audience wants, formed’ in a way that takes a lot of care S boom to build an audience in its first as a premium digital environment, with A rather than trying to replicate old media. and respect for our audience, means

stage. ‘We rode the algorithm and really mainly direct booked and premium C we’re not only developing a sustainable T U D Y S Starts engaged the over-60s online,’ says programmatic advertising, and little to # ‘For me as a news consumer, the business (or at least we hope we are), E S 8 Wilson. By mid-2017, 85 per cent of no open marketplace activity, due to The newsletters that stood out were those but it’s a meaningful venture for us to put A

C the traffic to its website came through the demand for the site’s advertising. that had a voice,’ she says. ‘It had to cut our blood, sweat and tears into.’ #7 Facebook. ‘The advertising model is limited, as through the clutter and feel like it was at 60 we all know, by the need to have scale somebody updating you. Newspaper Kimball bootstrapped the launch and Serving a boomer audience When Facebook announced its shift to to service the advertising agency mar- Squiz emails miss the mark because they’re focused on growing The Squiz audi- prioritise family and friends in January 2018, ket,’ Wilson says. generic, cut-and-paste jobs, not a note ence for the first year before looking for the company had already pivoted to its Building an engaged audience to someone. They are just news and a revenue from sponsorship matched with ‘As a media company, we own the own channels and reduced its Facebook With sold-out advertising in recent bunch of links.’ native advertising. It now draws from the platform for speaking to the baby boomer audience share to about 45 per cent. months, the business is gradually ‘Women are great sharers,’ says Claire Commonwealth Bank, Woolworths, Fu- market and can build products and ‘We always had email,’ says Wilson, shaping its native model around the Kimball, founder of the daily curated Instead, the content in The Squiz is built ture Women, Qantas, The Growth Fac- partner with solutions that over-60s can ‘but before mid-2017 we never focused retirement life stages, and has built news digest, The Squiz. That’s the around three principles: ‘Be authentic. ulty and Four Pillars Gin. These partner- benefit from,’ says Starts at 60 CEO and on it because we liked Facebook. But first-party retirement life stage-related social secret that lies behind the growth Be regular. Be predictable.’ Within that ships and advertising are the company’s founder Rebecca Wilson. Based on that there came a time when there was no consumer datasets to overlay on adver- in the email newsletter’s distribution framework, she builds a social compo- only income stream, although the team understanding, the company is attempting more growth in Australia for us in Face- tising, content amplification and social from an initial mailing list of about 900 nent to content with a weekly interview is thinking about what non-advertising to pull off an audacious pivot by launching book, so we had to build wider audience media activity. government and communication exec- with a subscriber called ‘Three Minute income might look like. a fully fledged online travel agency to sit share and depth with our audience. utives when it launched in March 2017 Squiz with …’ alongside its media offering. That’s just the reality of media today.’ Recognising the potential in the travel to the 30,000-odd inboxes The podcast has brought a new market for over 60s (‘about 80 per cent and 12,000 regular podcast audience. ‘By and large it’s a of discretionary travel’, Wilson esti- listeners it reaches today – different audience to the email mates) Wilson launched the parallel three-quarters of them women gang. Our view is we need to company Travel at 60 in 2017 as a – with a 45 per cent open rate. be where our audience is, and lead-gen marketplace before shifting it a 6am morning podcast with in 2018 to an online travel agency. In those two years, Kimball an opinion-free look across the has been up at 3.30 each news was a no-brainer for us.’ ‘Retirees are regular travellers and morning to curate The Squiz as a daily there are some very unique ways we email newsletter, along with a short pod- The Squiz was based on identifying a In late 2018, The Squiz gained runway can bring them unique propositions ... cast that delivers a digest of news you gap: ‘There is certainly a hole — from status when its first round of investor As a product, retail and media company need to know to start the day, without, a marketing perspective anyway — for funding, led by ex-News Corp executive we can bring the consumer a better she says, political spin. reaching high-income, professional wom- Peter Tonagh, raised almost $500,000. As Wilson launched the media side of the Now the company sends out more than deal, and bring it to them quickly, while en who are short of time,’ Kimball says. a result, Kimball now pays herself a salary business in March 2013 as she watched 10 million emails a month on a twice-daily other larger companies are less able She saw an opportunity to build an and has expanded her team to include her parents turn 60 and start to look timetable, and has a powerful Google traf- to bring great deals to market at speed audience that was looking for infor- To drive distribution, she seeks sub- two team members focused on commer- around for how to reference their retire- fic base coming directly to its ‘reinventing due to their limited digital audiences mation without spin. ‘With The Squiz, scriber volunteers, or ‘Squizheads’. cial growth and subscriber engagement. ment in media. retirement’ evergreen and news articles, and traditional marketing approach. we’ve worked on our balance and tone Once their sharing leads to at least five while still engaging across Facebook, It really helps to work with our own to make it factual, not punishing,’ she additional subscribers, they are thanked And for the future? ‘There is a very ‘In my job as a marketing consultant, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. media platform and have the trust of our says. ‘You’re not going to feel outraged. for their support. Going forward, the plan downcast sentiment about the future I was recommending that corporates community. It allows us to go full stack We don’t shout at people at 6am. In the is to engage them further with unique of media, but I didn’t come from any should be looking at the boomer The audience come for a mix of the between product and the consumer.’ 18 months since we’ve published, we’ve content and offers. of that,’ Kimball says. ‘We didn’t beat market, at the scale and economics journalistic content targeted at the age had two complaints.’ ourselves up because we were a start- of the market as it shifted. Every- group (the company now employs 11 In 2016, Seven West Media bought a ‘We were always only interested in de- up. We didn’t think, “This is the future of one wants a millennial audience journalists plus freelances out of their third of the business for $2.5 million. Kimball comes from a news consumer veloping long-term relationships with our news and it’s going to be awesome.” – but they have no money and no 28 staff) and professionally edited Three years later, it followed on in a rather than a journalism background email and podcast subscribers – and like ‘I prefer us to be reader-focused. The real propensity to make significant user-generated content from about 430 round of $2.7 million. Travel at 60 is – she worked in corporate and po- any relationship it takes time and consis- Squiz’s carved a space for itself. We purchases. All the money is tied over-60 bloggers. working closely with the Seven busi- litical communications, including for tency to build trust,’ Kimball says. don’t have any legacy issues to wor- up in the boomer market, yet few ness in media campaigns that Wilson former prime minister Tony Abbott. It’s ry about.’ remains confident in the media companies treat them with the The media business is free to access, says ‘have been very successful’ in been useful to not have a journalism ‘By showing up every weekday and idea: ‘We didn’t fail because the product respect they deserve.’ and runs on advertising, sponsored expanding the marketplace. background, she says, because she’s delivering our ‘shortcut to being in- didn’t work.’ 58 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 59 T U D Y He says the big drivers are Facebook, navigating the end of schedule broad- S Crinkling used print, says Howden The product was bootstrapped out of E T U D Y Google and Apple News. (‘Apple has casting. The ABC was an early innova- S because it’s better for children to read the time and savings of Howden and S A E been amazing as an audience for us. tor, launching its streaming service iView C first in print. (‘You can’t click out of the her co-founder Remi Bianchi. The pair S A We get 2 million uniques from Apple in 2008, long before it was commercially product and it means less screen time.’) worked seven days a week for two

C # ABC to our content.’) The corporation has viable. It used its HD channel to launch 10 And, it turned out, kids liked the tactile years. The time spent on building both #9 launched a Messenger news bot and a 24-hour news channel in 2010 and it experience. the product and the market meant they A charter is experimenting with YouTube and has been a leader in podcasting. had no time (or internal bandwidth) to voice-activation. The product’s business model was built seek out investors to provide runway. to innovate Now, Morris says, ‘we’re getting to the Crinkling around subscriptions (at $4.50 an is- Although, it likes to draw users into the point that what drives a behaviour is lessons from bootstrapping a sue). Initially, this was families (and, they ‘We didn’t go into it blindly,’ says How- As a public broadcaster, the ABC is free ABC’s website to explore other options on-demand and personalised. It’s a found, clusters of families built through den. ‘But no-one would have backed a from the constraints of business pres- (‘The Messenger bot has been great for greater challenge than anything that start-up while building a market word of mouth). This grew into schools print newspaper for children unless they sures, but it is not free from the impera- that,’ says Morris), it doesn’t have the has come before. Earlier changes were Crinkling – a paper aimed at school stu- taking group subscriptions, although, had seen it. We had to produce it first. tive to innovate in news media. In part, brand – or monetisation – imperative incremental but our newsrooms are dents from age 7 to 14 – had the unique here, Crinkling faced institutional lag, It would be much easier now to talk this is because innovation is a specific that commercial players do. structured in the same way they’ve al- challenge of building both the product with schools, having once made a deci- about investment and funding because ABC Charter responsibility, but more ways been. and the market, without runway funding sion, then needing to factor the cost into we’ve already done the work to show a important is the imperative to reach and This enables the ABC to innovate to get it off the ground. It demonstrates the following year’s budget. national newspaper for young people engage new audiences. around social platforms more as push ‘When you move from a clock-driven both the potential and the limitations of actually works.’ distribution tools to get their content out organisation to one that’s on-demand, it bootstrapping a start-up that relies on By the time it closed in January 2018, This means the ABC is innovating to new audiences than as tools to pull changes fundamentally how you put a founder passion. Crinkling had either individual or institu- As costs mounted, the company around the type of journalism it pro- users into the core site. newsroom together. A lot of broadcast- launched a crowdfunding campaign duces, the way it is distributed and the ers haven’t grasped that yet.’ which raised about $200,000. It learned products it creates. The ABC has long-standing, one big lesson from the experience: committed audiences. About Broadcast platforms are still ‘Unless you ask for money, people don’t According to the ABC’s Director News, a million people still sit down huge, still massive com- know you need it.’ Analysis and Investigations, Gaven Mor- and watch the 7pm news, pared to online, he says, ris, the journalism challenge is to shape although, like most linear and it’s not clear where the Getting known was a challenge. ‘We stories from the beginning with different broadcasting, it’s an aging tipping point is. ‘My theory didn’t spend a cent on marketing,’ How- means of distribution – and conse- audience that’s down a third is that on-demand video den says. ‘But we got a lot of organic quent different audiences – in mind. from its peak. news programs that are never media coverage.’ Subscription spikes out of date are going to be the came off the back of this coverage. Morris calls this the ABC’s responsibility Morris says the organisation needs to big emerging trend. No one is doing it to provide ‘an equal digital life’. be thinking about the future experience: brilliantly at the moment. It completely The company was aiming to diversi- ‘When Four Corners does a good story ‘Thinking about what people want from changes what you do with a television fy revenues to include ‘subscriptions then it should have a life for all platforms. news. What are their habits? How can news product.’ through households and schools, media We should be able to take that story and we meet them there?’ The idea was bold with a clear sense tional subscriptions in one in 10 Austra- literacy programs and resources, and make it just as compelling on a different On-demand will be powered by machine of product-market fit: a national print- lian schools, reaching about 250,000 some child-appropriate advertising’. platform for under 40s,’ Morris says. One way is public collaborative journalism learning to give you stories you want ed newspaper that reported the big readers during term. This requires innovating around the sto- such as the two part Four Corners series over the time span you want them, much news and current affairs in a style Howden is critical of the Australian news rytelling, based on preserving the ABC’s in 2018 on aged care. A call-out to viewers like Spotify does with music. appropriate for the target market and The costs were in producing relevant industry saying big picture thinking isn’t traditional sense of what’s news. generated 3,000 pieces of feedback, that engaged the young audience in high-quality content, as just about every- coming from within. Support for Crinkling which informed a rich and deep look at the In terms of collaboration on big innova- content. thing needed to be written from scratch, came not from the media companies ‘We didn’t need to change our editorial challenges of the sector. tion he says: ‘What good is it to us, as a says Howden. Even material from the but, instead, from places like Facebook values for younger audiences, we just tiny ABC, looking 10 years out? ‘Essentially we were running this as a wires or subscription services needed to and Google, and the Museum of Austra- needed to find where younger audiences Another is ‘More in investigation. More social venture. We did it because we be rewritten to be relevant and appropri- lian Democracy. wanted to consume it – this is the big in explanation. Less in telling them stuff ‘Our philosophy is: we can’t worry about believed in it,’ says co-founder Saffron ate for the audience. lesson from the digital age,’ Morris says. that happens today. Explain to me. Give what the commercial payoff is so let’s Howden. Looking back, Howden recognises that ‘The young audiences are out there on me the meaning around this story that try to innovate and see what we learn The printing cost was negligible and the the Crinkling founders needed deeper these platforms looking for these sourc- helps me understand.’ and maybe working with the platforms The result of the idea was a weekly postage costs for distribution were built pockets or real financial runway. But she es of information. These are people who helps make them work out what makes newspaper, with 48 issues a year with into subscription. ‘High quality content is remains confident in the idea: ‘We didn’t never use the ABC for anything else.’ The greatest innovation challenge is it commercially viable.’ junior editor and journalist programs. costly.’ fail because the product didn’t work.’ 60 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 61 T U D Y D S T U Y E S S E A S A C

C #11 Junkee # Do the research 12

The founding principle of Junkee is ‘do the research’. Its co-founders started with Indaily a market analysis charting existing media non-traditional methods to tell stories.’ Australians under 40 years old. The products across multiple axes, including Filling a local journalism gap event generates tickets sales and ‘smart to dumb’ and ‘niche to mainstream’. ‘We have a passionate community of sponsorship and provides stories. The In the white space of smart millennial de- Adelaide’s InDaily has arguably become readers. We can have a story on indige- 40 South Australians are profiled in the mand, the company launched its millenni- the most successful local start-up in nous incarceration and a dry economist lead-up to the event and become de-fac- al-focused website Junkee in 2013. Australian journalism through seeing — writing for us. They can sit side by side to InDaily ambassadors. since. We renamed the entire compa- AWOL, a mobile-first travel title in partner- and trying to fill — a gap in the market because people expect it to be challeng- Publisher Tim Duggan says ‘Choose a ny Junkee Media in 2014. We knew it ship with Qantas. for independent journalism, and building ing. They demand it be independent.’ Last year, the company launched a do- community you can authentically speak was the future.’ an engaged audience and diversified nations strategy using the portal Press to and find the gap that exists in the Junkee’s social distribution remains revenue stream to support it. The daily email is now sent to 45,000 Patron. Potential donors are called to market. Once you start speaking to an The learnings from this research have dependent on Facebook – still the source addresses, almost all of them local. action by an editor’s email appeal sent audience every single day you have shaped the company’s content around of around 50 per cent of audience refer- Solstice Media launched the Indepen- every three months on average. These to continually tweak your strategy, two four-letter acronyms: FOMO (fear of rals – and it has a close relationship with dent Weekly in print in 2004. InDaily InDaily is primarily advertising funded, usually emphasise the independent because the readers you talked to five missing out) and FONK (fear of not know- social media giant. Junkee was one of five began as a parallel website and email with a mix of directly booked ads and journalism on offer. years ago may have changed.’ ing) with recapping explainers telling the Australian publishers to receive funding two years later and in 2010, the print sponsored content. ‘Our audience is audience what it needs to know. from Facebook to create news content product closed, leaving the company very South Australian-based,’ says Donations have developed into a The Junkee co-founders matched the exclusively for Facebook Watch. to hone its focus as a pure online news Washington ‘We can say to our advertis- significant and growing funding stream, market analysis with a deep audience In 2017, the research showed a need to organisation. ers that every click they get is valuable accounting for about eight percent of dive to make sure they had a clear adapt for the next generation. ‘The hunch Junkee has also experimented with – it’s not just random eyeballs.’ revenue. Solstice Media is now working understanding of wants and needs. we had was that Gen Z, roughly 16- to Messenger chatbots – a Punkee bot that It has a staff of seven journalists and two with the Facebook Accelerator program They have continued to do that year- 24-year-olds, were very different to their sends subscribers the latest television sales staff. Its editor is David Washington. The publisher abandoned programmat- to further develop this revenue stream. on-year and have now surveyed almost millennial older brothers and sisters,’ Dug- recap videos scored a 95 per cent open In 2018 Solstice Media acquired local con- ic advertising after the lack of control 30,000 Australian millennials to deliver gan says. ‘We needed to speak to them in rate – and is looking at voice activations tent publications, City Mag and SA Life. raised reputational risks for its relation- InDaily continues to innovate around what they believe is the most significant their own way, or our audience would only such as Alexa. ship with readers. It has since sought journalism products, including a podcast (nine-year) longitudinal set of data about grow older in age.’ From that insight came ‘We are filling the broadsheet shaped to diversify revenues, with events and series during the 2018 state election, the generation. the parallel media brand, Punkee that fo- In 2016, 85 per cent of the company was space in the market,’ says Washington. reader donations. a weekly email on food and travel, The cuses on a younger audience with shorter, bought by oOh!media, Australia’s largest ‘It’s what people want – what our re- Forager, and a special festivals highlight ‘We wanted to treat the audience like they sillier meme-based content. outdoor advertising company, for $11.05 search and our gut tells us people want.’ InDaily’s audience and revenue strategy email during the February-March festi- had brains,’ says Duggan, who co-found- million, bringing help in areas such as le- includes organising two key events: the vals season. ed Junkee with CEO Neil Ackland as one Duggan does not believe Junkee’s cur- gal, human resources and removing cash Through its ownership of Adelaide’s South Australian Business Index and of the websites that were originally part rent content can be monetised through flow pressures, while leaving it indepen- only daily paper, The Advertiser, and ‘40 under 40’. Solstice Media Managing Director Paul of music publisher, Sound Alliance. ‘We subscriptions (‘that horse has bolted’). dent. The company now employs about its community newspaper chain, News Hamra is clear about what innovation launched it as a semi-side project, without Rather Junkee Media’s model focuses on 60 staff across the products. Corp had an effective monopoly over The index tracks the top 100 companies is needed: ‘You have to invest in the realising the potential of the audience, and sponsorship and advertising, particularly local commercial news content until the in South Australia, generating intelligence journalism.’ With the move to digital, this then suddenly it blew up.’ native advertising targeted at the millennial ‘We’ll always be digital-first and maintain Independent Weekly arrived. and analysis for the business communi- is even more important, he says. generation. About half of its media reve- that start-up essence. The mentality is to ty and engaging them in a major lunch ‘A few months [after our launch] Tony nue comes from native advertising, with be agile, be quick to try new things, experi- ‘Our audience is happy to be challenged,’ event. The index brings in revenue from The result is a unique local digital Abbott became the prime minister and the balance from display and events. ment, fail fast and just be really curious,’ Washington says. ‘We don’t have to tickets and sponsors while the analytics offering. Washington says: ‘I don’t think we saw that a lot of young Austra- Duggan says. have an ideological position to have the provide in-depth business journalism. there’s another digital only news website lians felt passionate about that,’ says Junkee Media also runs a content arm, support of our readers. In that way, our in a capital city in Australia that provides Duggan. ‘We harnessed that power and Junkee Studio, which develops native and ‘Because when you lose that curiosity, you approach is traditional, even though The second major event, launched in a traditional news offering like we do on Junkee has been highly engaged ever white-label content for clients, such as lose what makes you, you.’ we are digital-only and sometimes use 2018, highlights 40 prominent South a daily basis.’

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Role at Publishers’, Digiday, 12 December, Australia, 2 May, www.businessinsider. 3bbe2 c-cb07d9. uct-Market Fit’, Andreessen Horowitz, 18 Rosen, J. 2011, ‘The People Formerly digiday.com/media/product-manager-pivot- February, https://a16z.com/2017/02/18/12- Mintzberg, H. 2013, The Rise and Fall of com.au/mark-zuckerberg-on-facebooks- Deuze, M. 2003, ‘The Web and Its Journal- Known as the Audience’, HuffPost, 25 al-role-publishers/. 64 news media innovation 2020 news media innovation 2020 65 Rebecca Wilson / CEO / Starts at 60 / Brent Edwards / Acting Political Australia / Dec 2018 and Sep 2019 Editor / National Business Review / New Zealand / December 2018 Chris Wirasinha / Co-founder / Pedestrian Group / Australia / Duncan Greive / Founder and Man- Feb 2019 aging editor / Spinoff / New Zealand interviewees / Dec 2018 and July 2019 Name / Position / Organisation / Country / Interview Date Astrid Maier / Editor in Chief / XING News / Germany / April and Sep 19 Bernard Hickey / Managing Editor / Newsroom Pro / New Zealand / Malcolm Ong / Head of Product / Dec 2018 n Ways in which citizens and media interact Chantal Abouchar / Founder and Chris Graham / Editor / New Matilda / South China Morning Post / Hong CEO / The Studio / Australia / Australia / Nov 2018 Kong / Mar 2019 Mark Jennings / Co-founder, Co-ed- and how regulatory and ethical frame- Oct 2018 itor / Newsroom NZ / New Zealand Nicholas Gray / Managing Director Ross Settles / Adjunct Professor works might adapt for this environment / Dec 2018 ABOUT THE Monica Attard OAM / Founding editor / The Australian / Australia / Mar / Journalism and Media Studies (this includes issues of digital privacy); in chief / Global Mail / Australia / 2019 Centre, University of Hong Kong / Lizzie Marvelly / Founder and editor Mar 2019 Mark Gustowski / CEO / QUT Hong Kong / Feb 2019 / Villainesse / New Zealand / Dec 2019 n The ingredients of a competitive commer- Sophie Black / Head of Publishing Creative Enterprise Australia / Beula Anthony / Manager / Radio / The Wheeler Centre / Australia / Australia / Nov 2018 Active / India / Oct 2019 Glen Scanlon / Former Head of News Centre cial media sector, built on sustainable Feb 2018 and Digital / Radio New Zealand Paul Hamra / Managing Director / Sidharth Bhatia / Co-founder and business models and informed by the (RNZ) / New Zealand / Dec 2018 Tim Burrowes / Founder and content Solstice Media / Australia / Editor / The Wire / India / May 2019 experience of other disrupted industries; director / Mumbrella / Australia / Oct 2018 and June 2019 Todd Scott / Publisher / National Pinky Chandran / Co-founder / Radio Feb 2018 Business Review / New Zealand / David Higgins / Head of Marketing / Active / India / Oct 2019 for Media n Andrea Carson / Associate Professor Pendal Group / Australia / Oct 2019 Dec 2018 The development of a diverse media / La Trobe University / Australia / Rohin Dharmakumar / Co-founder / environment that embraces local, Saffron Howden / Co-founder and Pattrick Smellie / Co-founder / Oct 20018 The Ken / India / Mar 2019 editor / Crinkling News / Australia / BusinessDesk / New Zealand / international and transnational issues / Founder and Philippe Ceulen / Programs and Oct 2018 and Aug 2019 Vasanthi Hariprakash Dec 2018 Editor / Pickle Jar / India / April/ Transition and debate; and Engagement Manager, Head of Stephen Hutcheon / Supervising Pro- Paul Thompson / CEO & Edi- Programs / QUT Creative Enterpris- Oct 2019 ducer / ABC / Australia / Mar 2019 tor-in-chief / Radio New Zealand / es, Collider Accelerator / Australia Meera K / Co-founder and editor / New Zealand / December 2019 The Centre for Media Transition is an n Contemporary formulations of the / Nov 2019 Leah Jing McIntosh / Founder / Lim- Citizen Matters / India / Oct 2019 inal Magazine / Australia / Oct 2018 Jenny Velasco-Chua / Head of Part- applied research unit based at the Uni- public interest informed by established Bronwen Clune / Digital Director / Praveen Krishnan / Head of Product / nerships & Communities / Rappler / versity of Technology Sydney. We work and enduring principles such as account- LaunchVic / Australia / Oct 2018 Minh Bui Jones / Editor/Publisher / The Ken / India / May 2019 Philippines / May 2019 Mekong Review / Australia / Feb across disciplines to explore and develop ability and the public’s right to know. Tamsin Creed / General Manager / 2019 Manisha Pandey / Executive Editor / Maria Ressa / CEO & Executive Private Media / Australia / Dec 2018 Newslaundry / India / Oct 2019 Editor / Rappler / Philippines / responses to: the ongoing movements Claire Kimball / Founder / The Squiz / Simon Crerar / Former Editor-in-chief March 2019 in practice and regulation caused by The CMT’s published works include Australia / Oct 2018 and July 2019 Shobha SV / Journalist / Co Media and General Manager / BuzzFeed Lab / India / Oct 2019 Carla Su Yap-Sy / Chief Revenue digital disruption; the role of journalism reports on digital defamation and trust Australia / Australia / July 2019 Jason Lavigne / CEO and Co-founder Officer / Rappler / Philippines / Rajesh Tahil / COO Scroll / Founder / Mamamia Media Group / Australia March 2019 in enhancing democracy in Australia and in news media and it has current proj- Andrew Dodd / Director / Centre for / Scroll, India / Audiomatic / India / / Mar 2019 the region; and the business models and ects on industry self-regulation, privacy, Advancing Journalism, University of May 2019 Boon Ping Chua / CEO / SPH Ven- Melbourne / Australia / Oct 2018 Kristofer Lawson / Founder Co-Host tures / Singapore / May 2019 practices that support a diverse and pros- news verification, foreign reporting, / Lawson Media Moonshot Podcast Siddharth Varadarajan / Co-founder David Donovan / Founder and Man- perous news media industry. innovation and press freedom. The / Australia / Oct 18, Feb and Sep 19 and Editor / The Wire / India / Oct Dilrukshi Handunetti / Founder aging Editor / Independent Australia 2019 and executive director / Centre for CMT has consulted for the Australian / Australia / Nov 2019 Helen McCabe / Founder & Managing Investigative Reporting / Sri Lanka Director / Future Women / Australia Devi Asmarani / Co-founder and Edi- The Centre for Media Transition (CMT) is Competition and Consumer Commis- Nick Drewe / Founder / Publishthis. / May 2019 / Mar 2019 tor-in-Chief / Magdalene / Indonesia email / Australia / Oct 2018 / May 2019 Joey Chung / Co-founder & CEO / an interdisciplinary initiative of the Faculty sion and the Australian Communica- Kylie Merritt / Founder and Managing Tim Duggan / Publisher and The News Lens / Taiwan / Oct 2019 of Arts and Social Sciences and the Facul- tions and Media Authority and is the Director / Ausbiztv / Australia / Feb Naoyoshi Goto / Technology & Busi- Co-Founder / Junkee Media / Aus- 2019 ness Editor / Newspicks / Japan / Chiranuch Premchaiporn / ty of Law. It was launched in July 2017. host of the Asia-Pacific bureau of First tralia / Oct 2018 and Mar 2019 April and May 2019 Co-founder / Prachatai / Thailand / Gaven Morris / Director / ABC News / Draft News. Stuart Fagg / General Manager - May 2019 Australia / Mar 2019 Sasa Vucinic / Co-founder, Managing It sits at the intersection of media, tech- Digital / The Australian / Australia / Partner / North Base Media / Korea Kathryn Geels / Director, Engaged Mar 2019 Luke Pearson / Founder and Director / May 2019 Journalism Accelerator / European nology, regulation and business. Working The Centre hosts public events, confer- / IndigenousX / Australia / Mar 2019 Centre for Journalism / UK / April Joshua Fanning / Publisher / CityMag Kevin Brockland / Senior Investment with industry, the academy and other ences and forums on a regular basis. 2019 / Australia / Dec 2018 and April 2019 Kellie Riordan / Manager / ABC Audio Officer / Media Development Invest- stakeholders, the CMT explores: Details of events and the CMT’s work Studios / Australia / Nov 2018 ment Fund Malaysia / May 2019 Lucy Feagins / Founder & editor / Nathalie Alvaray / Manager, local digital news / Univision / USA / can be found at our website at http://bit. The Design Files / Australia / Oct Jess Ross / Former Chief Product Of- Prateek Pradhan / Founder and Edi- April 2019 n 2018 and Aug 2019 ficer / Australian Metro Publishing, tor-in-Chief / Baahrakhari / Nepal / The changing nature of journalistic ly/2Nr44Hs. You can sign up to our regular Fairfax / Australia / Sep 2019 May 2019 practice; newsletter at http://bit.ly/2lXvs6D. Farrin Foster / Founding editor / City Emily Goligoski / Former Research Director / Membership Puzzle Standard / Australia / Dec 2018 James Saunders / Chief Operating Alex Clarke / Founder / Press Patron Project / USA / May 2019 Officer / IndigenousX / Australia / / New Zealand / Dec 2018 and Aug Peter Fray / Co-director / UTS Centre May and June 2019 for Media Transition / Australia / 2019 Anita Zielina / Director of Innovation and Leadership / Graduate School Oct 2018 Lenore Taylor / Editor / The Guardian Clare Curran / MP (Former minister of Journalism, CUNY / USA / Australia / Australia / Mar 2019 for communications) / New Zealand Josh Gardiner / Former Director of Oct 2019 Communications (Asia Pacific) / David Washington / Editor / InDaily / Parliament / New Zealand / VICE / Australia / Oct 2018 Australia / Dec 2018 and April 2019 Dec 2018

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