News Innovation » Aspen Institute

FOCAS: Live from Aspen

Damian Ghigliotty — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:06:50 +0000

The CUNY New Business Models for News Project, funded by the Knight Foundation, is presenting its work at the Aspen Institute’s Forum on Communication and Society today. (You can read about our project here and dig into the new models here.)

Below is Jeff Jarvis’ presentation, which he made using new software from Prezi. Just click within the screen and advance to the next slide.

Click here to see the presentation in full-screen.

The Models: Hyperlocals & the Framework

Matthew Sollars — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:48:30 +0000

This set of spreadsheets incorporates two models: hyperlocal and the sales, support, and technology framework that we believe is necessary to optimize businesses in the ecosystem. We believe an organization that enables advertising networks and other services to support the local news ecosystem is both a sustainable business and will make individual hyperlocal news organizations more profitable. We divided a sample metro market of 5 million people into many smaller markets (20k, 35k, and 60k) to reflect the towns and neighborhoods that comprise a large metropolitan market. Note: all models assume the local daily newspaper has gone away.

View the Framework/Hyperlocal business model as a Google Document here. (To make changes to this document, simply click File>>Create a copy or File>>Export.)

Or, download it as an Excel file here.

Highlights & Assumptions:

Operating income (EBITDA) for the framework, year three: $1.3 million.
Operating income for hyperlocal businesses, year three: Large, $66k; medium, $32k; small, $26k.
In this new ecosystem, we envision a mature market of 5 million people supporting 99 small, medium and large blogs.
Hyperlocal news organizations are viable without the framework, but are more profitable with the ability to sell ads across a wider network.
Likewise, the framework can scale to other cities and become more profitable. For ease of projecting, we’ve limited that company to one metro market.

Click here to see the other models. (The New Business Models for News Project has been funded by the Knight Foundation.)

The Models: New News Organization

Matthew Sollars — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:43:14 +0000

This model envisions a new, metro-wide news organization serving a market of five million people that operates on a smaller scale and performs a wide variety of tasks. It will produce original unique beat and investigative reporting and it will also work collaboratively with the other members of the ecosystem and its readers to add value. Advertising will remain the key business driver, but to maximize profits the new organization will diversify its revenues. Note: all models assume the local daily newspaper has gone away.

View the New News Organization model as a Google Document here. (To make changes to this document, simply click File>>Create a copy or File>>Export.)

Or, download it as an Excel file here.

Highlights & Assumptions:

By year three, operating profit (EBITDA) of $9.8 million.
Revenue breakdown, year three: Advertising $11.7 million, other services $8.6 million.
Editorial staff starts at 26 and grows to 47 by year three.
Audience, year three: 3 million.
Page views per month per user, 12; CPM, $12 base.

Click here to see the other models. (The New Business Models for News Project has been funded by the Knight Foundation.)

The Models: Not-for-Profit News

Matthew Sollars — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:37:29 +0000

A number of promising not-for-profit news organizations, providing both national and local coverage, have launched recently. We want to show the level of resources that might be available in a given market to augment local news gathering efforts. Researching the available charitable money in a market, we picked a hypothetical bottom line of $3 million and built one possible organization to augment journalism in the market. Note: all models assume the local daily newspaper has gone away.

View the Not-for-Profit business model as a Google Document here. (To make changes to this document, simply click File>>Create a copy or File>>Export.)

Or, download it as an Excel file here.

Click here to see the other models. (The New Business Models for News Project has been funded by the Knight Foundation.)