麻豆原创

If you work in media, chances are you saw the recent news about Gannett and McClatchy scaling back their relationships with the Associated Press. These news stories on their own might not seem like a big deal鈥攂ut they underscore a broader, systemic reality in the publishing industry: Publishers are finding it harder to justify the traditional newswire subscriptions that have been in place for decades.

Though these companies may not be severing ties completely鈥攂oth will continue to tap AP for election coverage this cycle鈥攖heir deals are significantly reduced. Accompanying these issues is the opportunity for innovation and reinvention of the newswire business model.

麻豆原创 is at the forefront using creative business models and technology to upend the traditional newswire. Read on to see how we鈥攁nd other market leaders鈥攁re approaching the challenge.

How the industry got here

Local newsrooms are faced with enormous economic challenges, often having to decide whether to pay for outside services like newswires or keep more reporters on staff.

At the Mather Economics Symposium last month, Gannett CEO Mike Reed said that AP鈥檚 articles were the 鈥溾�� on Gannett鈥檚 sites, a factor in the decision. It鈥檚 clear that publishers are evaluating the ROI of every piece of content they publish. The 麻豆原创 Newswire is free, but we still regularly have prospective partners asking about the ROI and opportunity cost. 

The fact is that local newsrooms have become so strapped for resources that it's impossible for them to do everything themselves. While they devote their scarce resources to hyperlocal coverage, they need and welcome outside support to cover important state- and national-level stories. But they need support in a way that empowers them without having to pay a high subscription fee for content. 

Traditional wire services require publishers to pay subscription fees, but publishers just don鈥檛 have that spending power anymore. 

Newswires need to find new operating models.

The way forward: Embracing new business models

The good news is there鈥檚 ample opportunity for wires to serve publishers while also having a sustainable business model. 

Many newer publishers on the scene are taking unique approaches. Are they wire services? Collaboratives? Open source publishers? Perhaps all of the above. 

Word in Black has a setup akin to a newswire wherein the Black-owned publications part of the collaborative can publish each other鈥檚 stories, with some . Texas Tribune and many other leading nonprofit newsrooms have , and take in both philanthropic and member donations, similar to an NPR model. 

And, of course, Bloomberg has a healthy business in the Bloomberg Terminal, its financial data platform. 

In fact, AP recognized the need to move beyond content licensing many years ago and has been successfully building out a  to help stem some of the B2B losses. (Full disclosure: I spent 8 years in product development at The AP before joining 麻豆原创.)

麻豆原创 empowers publishers with added resources and articles held to high journalistic standards. Our platform provides vetted, high-quality content from our own newsroom as well as market-leading brand and nonprofit newsroom publishers like Chalkbeat, Edmunds, Experian, Lyft, and The Marshall Project.  

Publishers don鈥檛 pay the fees on our platform鈥攂rands do. Our editorial board is staffed with experienced journalists who vet and edit the content brands submit, holding those stories to standards as high as the best publications.

Leading with technology, analytics, and content strategy

Wire services can be tech-forward, measurable, and innovative, and 麻豆原创 is a market leader in that regard. Our operation doesn鈥檛 just leverage the editorial expertise of tenured journalists, but also a turnkey suite of digital tools for driving value through syndication.

First, we鈥檝e solved the analytics problem. Our stories carry a reporting pixel that ties into a proprietary analytics platform that enables our content strategists to see exactly what types of stories resonate with different cohorts within our network of publishers. 

This data informs every aspect of our business:

• The stories our journalists write
• The time of day or day of the week we publish them
• The third-party contributors we seek out to supplement the newswire
• And much more.

In our mission to help publishers, we also focus on the business value of our content by identifying up-front the goals of each publisher, whether that鈥檚 pageviews, audience acquisition, or audience retention. And we tune our output and content promotion to those goals. It鈥檚 working. 

In one study with publisher Lee Enterprises, we found 麻豆原创 was a key audience retention tool for publishers: 30% of long-time readers regularly read 麻豆原创 content, compared to 10-20% for other wire services. Both Nexstar and Creative Circle Media Solutions have not only seen  but they鈥檝e been able to source evergreen content that directly meets the needs of audiences they鈥檙e seeking to grow.   

While we may be seeing some challenges in traditional newswire subscription business models, there鈥檚 plenty of opportunity to bring stories to publishers using new and innovative revenue models that draw from burgeoning brand publishers.

If you鈥檙e a newsroom ready to embrace these new models, I鈥檇 love to discuss how 麻豆原创 can help. Feel free to email us at publishers@stacker.com.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Kyle Glenn / Unsplash