For a long time the traditional business model of newspapers was financing through advertisement. Circulation and subscription only covered 15-25% of the overall budget. This is how they survived through the 20th century. In this interesting post ‘Winners and losers of the subscription frenzy‘ Frederic Filloux shares how this is changing dramatically with a substantial rise in the share of subscription revenue, in particular through internet.
In this article we can see in the specific example of the Seattle Times how both the current political landscape (requiring access to serious journalism) and the progressive trimming of the number of free articles visible through the paywall has dramatically increased the number and value of subscriptions. Up to the point where circulation revenue now makes more than 50% of the total revenue, and this transformation happened in about 10 years.
Of course the local advertisement market once fully benefiting newspapers has been taken over by the main online players that can provide a much more precise advertisement coverage.
With any revolution some newspapers have made it and some others haven’t; some countries are more advanced than others; and in general the support of industry moguls is also a great support to the finances of press companies (such as Jeff Bezos for the Washington Post). Still the new business model seems to be quite well defined now, and the new business model for the press established.
