New Media Weekly Report
A curation of some interesting stories in Media and the Creator Economy
While the Creator Economy evolves, journalism continues to pivot online behind new business models of subscription based sales.
As the New York Times has proven, people really are willing to pay for high quality articles and information.
This is one of the reasons I decided to join Substack, actually. You won’t find me on the front page and few people will ever read this, in fact.
I am trying to figure how how the Newsletter economy works. So it would only behoove me to try to cover some of the New Media articles out there.
Since I’m so passionate about the Creator Economy and quite interested in how journalists and objective independent coverage of events will survive the Metaverse. Food for thought, at least for me!
AS M&A SOARS, THE MEDIA INDUSTRY IS EMBRACING IT
What's driving so much M&A activity in the media sector? 1. The need to scale audiences. 2. Desire to build up tech capabilities. 3. Easy access to borrowing money.
During the pandemic the surge in deals has hit every part of the media. Among news giants, The New York Times acquired sports title The Athletic for $550m while German publisher Axel Springer acquired US outlet Politico for £1bn.
THE NEWSLETTER RENAISSANCE IN MEDIA IN THE 2020S
More and more publishers are experimenting with regional pricing where they'll charge less for a digital subscription for people living in developing countries. How publishers are using newsletters to reach readers and attract subscribers internationally.
FORNITE MAKER PIVOTS TO THE CREATOR ECONOMY
On March 2, 2022, Epic Games announced that it was buying Bandcamp to develop an ecommerce-powered marketplace for creators. The move is the most recent example of businesses seeking to harness engagement in a new economy.
Epic Games is best known as the publisher of Fortnite, a battle royal video game available on several platforms. The company also makes the Unreal Engine, a real-time 3D creation tool.
Unreal has a community of “creators” who use the tool for video games and live broadcasts, among other uses.
Can gaming and music ecosystems of the Creator Economy converge in the Metaverse?
IS CROWDFUNDING THE FUTURE OF INDIE PUBLISHING?
There's an author who's crowdfunding his next four novels on Kickstarter and he's already raised $18 million. Not many writers enjoy a cult following but those who do can really do some impressive work.
Brandon Sanderson is a case in point, check out his Kickstarter page.
"Can writers be successful without publishers? Sure, and some have been! But it’s an immense amount of work, that some people aren’t competent to do and others don’t care to do."
ARE PLATFORMS THE NEW LANDLORDS IN THE METAVERSE?
Who will be the key enablers in the Creator Economy of the future? A fascinating article by the Times of India explores.
The decade-old creator economy is now being firmly established. The pandemic super-charged it.
AXIOS PROJECTS $100 MILLION
Axios projects that it'll generate $100 million this year. Axios has popularized short crisp coverage in bullet points and its audience has responded with a resounding “yes”. This article may have a Paywall.
NEW YORK TIMES INVESTING IN PERSONAL BRAND OF WRITERS
If the future of journalism is personality-driven, then The New York Times probably employs more high-profile personalities than just about any other outlet, and plenty of them want their chance to shine in the spotlight.
WILL DISNEY BECOME AN ADVERTISING GIANT?
With its content scale, Disney has the potential to quickly become an ad tech behemoth. The flagship streaming service of The Walt Disney Co. is adding a less-expensive ad-supported tier starting later this year, with plans to launch an international option in 2023. As Disney+ takes on Netflix, it could change ad-tech in streaming forever.
Advertisers will be able to reach a wider audience, and their storytellers will be able to share their incredible work with more fans and families.
FINANCIAL TIMES HITS 1 MILLION PAYING DIGITAL SUBSCRIBERS
The Financial Times's built a monster subscription business by publishing some of the world's best business journalism and then locking it behind an extremely hard paywall.
The FT is the second British title to top 1m digital subscribers accessing a paywall, although more than half of its subscribers are based outside the UK.
The Guardian reached the 1m milestone first at the end of November, although this figure was a combination of digital subscribers and recurring contributions from supporters under its free-to-all philosophy. The Guardian are really good at begging, I mean even better than Wikipedia!
Conclusion
So at least for the future of journalism, the subscription model seems to have saved their livelihood at least in part. New Models of advertising are also popping their head up. What subs have done is also create more of a cult of personality around writers, journalists and essayits behind these paid publications behind paywalls.
This supposed “Cult of Personality” of writers is also what has driven some of the early success of Creator Economy platforms like Substack.
I hope this was interesting for you!