Subscribe
for just...
plus
One of the emerging media trends is that many journalists are thinking about starting their own individual media companies, to create their own channels and get monetized directly.
I see this more and more on Twitter. Here, for instance, is just one of many examples...
Rossalyn Warren is a journalist who has written for the Guardian, VICE, NYT, and Washington Post. She is thinking perhaps there is another way to make a living, rather than selling articles on a freelance basis to existing media companies.
Throughout 2017, I have also received a lot of emails about this. The reason people ask me, is because I'm one of the people who actually made this work. Back in 2010, I started Baekdal Plus, my subscription based part of this site (which you are reading now), where I provide my readers with guidance, trends, and strategic insights about the media industry... for $9/month.
While I also do media consulting (mostly for very large, traditional media companies), Baekdal Plus alone is able to sustain me, and this is how I make my living.
So, in this article, I will give you my advice on creating a sustainable individual media company.
This article has several sections. We will talk about the business models and the financial perspective and all the challenges we have with that. And then we are going to talk about you, and the strategy of getting people to connect with you as an individual.
And this is not a quick read. This report is 46 pages long, because I wanted to give you a very in-depth perspective on this.
So, if you are thinking about creating your own media channel, grab yourself a cup of coffee, and let's get going.
One of the fundamental aspects of the media industry today is that we are seeing a split in how it is defined. In the old days, media was defined as local and national newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio, and the definition of each was pretty straight forward.
It was a format-first approach, where the format also defined your editorial focus. There was a distinctive editorial difference between being a newspaper reporter, a journalist working for a magazine, and someone creating shows for TV.
Today, the internet has completely eradicated this way of defining media. This is partly because the internet is format agnostic (it doesn't care whether something is text or video); partly because the distribution is frictionless (remember, a monthly magazine was monthly because of the distribution cost); and partly because the way way people behave online is very different.
Register to try out Baekdal Plus completely for free for one week.
Baekdal Plus is your premium destination for trends and analysis for the media industry. Every year you get 25 reports about the future media trends, business and editorial strategies, monetization analysis and insights about how to use analytics specifically for publishers.
As a subscriber, you also get full access to all the Plus reports (more than 200) published over the past 8 years, as well as the ability to share what you read.
Yes, of course, please write to plus@baekdal.com and I will send you a regular invoice that you can pay via your bank. I will need your company name, address and VAT number (if within the EU). Also, please note that due to this process being manual, this will be for an annual subscription only.
Yes, please write to plus@baekdal.com for details. But for 25-99 users: the price is 20% off the subscription price ($79/year per user), 100+ users is a fixed price at $5,000 (for all combined).
Yes, please head over to Baekdal Media to read about consulting where I can help you with strategy reviews, trend and strategy reports, and strategic guidance for you media company or a specific publication.
How do we define relevance? We look at what people are doing.
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Climate change coverage needs a different focus, otherwise we lose our audiences
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Solve one problem, to solve all of them.
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Churn is something you have to manage long before people even subscribe
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
When publishers want to engage with their audiences, are they really unengaging them instead?
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Only about 15% of the public pays for news, so how we do convert the remaining 85%?
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Founder, media analyst, author, and publisher. Follow on Twitter
"Thomas Baekdal is one of Scandinavia's most sought-after experts in the digitization of media companies. He has made himself known for his analysis of how digitization has changed the way we consume media."
Swedish business magazine, Resumé
plus
plus
plus
plus
plus
plus