Innovative business models

Journalists normally don't worry about money. All they care about is content. However, producing strong content is expensive. In November 2015, DW Akademie hosted a workshop in South Africa on innovative business models. #mediadev asked the participants about their favorite strategies.

Matthew Buckland, Memeburn.com, South Africa

"My media outlet is one part media and one part digital agency and for us the most successful revenue stream is as an outsource services agency but this isn’t scalable. So my favorite business model is advertising because it is scalable and is what is producing the most revenue for our digital products."

Mike Daka, Breeze FM, Zambia

“Based on over 30 years of working in and with the community we follow a model that has the development in our hearts and business in our minds. Because we are based in a disadvantaged community we know that in our work we must focus on development and in order for us to be successful we need to help the people, businesses and institutions in the area grow and be successful.”

Harry Davies, HarareNews, Zimbabwe

“As a free sheet we rely predominantly on display advertising. However going forward we would like to develop more commercial revenue streams such as delivery service so readers wouldn’t be paying for the paper but for a subscription to have it delivered. We also want to catch not just the big companies with their display adverts but also the lower end of the market with classifieds.”

Brenda Leonard, Bushradio, South Africa

“I think for community media we need a hybrid model combining: subscriptions, grants and advertising. We try to generate our own income to be self sufficient. We also have fundraising events to also generate money for us.”

Levi Katire, Omaheke Radio, Namibia

“My favorite business model and the one we have chosen for our radio station is defined as multiplatform. We do not want to run a radio station in the traditional way of only focusing on sound, or content or journalism. We want to include IT and digital services under the umbrella of the radio station. We already operate an IT shop to not only provide the station with services but also funding.”

Charles Kerich, The Star, Kenya

“Advertising is my favorite business model, because in the newspaper industry content remains king, despite the growth of social media. The better the content you have, the more readers you have, the more you will attract quality advertising. So if you get a lot of advertising, it says a lot about what you are doing.”

Meilleur Murindabigwi, Media Group & IT Company (IGIHE), Rwanda

“The feasible business model for me is freemium. This is where you offer a big part or a certain amount of your services or product free of charge and then at a specific point you start charging money to those interested people. It works well and I believe it is something that can work for various businesses.”

Phelisa Nkomo, Media Development Diversity Agency (MDDA), South Africa

“For the community media sector in South Africa I am convinced that content development it vital to ensure a good revenue stream. The quality of content is directly correlated with the ability of media outlets to attract advertising. The content must be able to speak to the issues that the community is interested in and to make international news accessible and relevant at the local level.”

Mohamed Nanabhay, Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), South Africa

“I think you need a mix of revenue sources. So you aren’t relying overly on a particular revenue source, having a mix of advertising that comes in, perhaps conferencing services to supplement that and looking at some sort of sales model where you’re selling premium content or premium data. If you can get that revenue mix balanced one third each then I think it puts you in good shape.”

Ahmed Wetaka, Radio Network, Uganda

“We favor a combination of partnership and subscriptions. We get money from the people who are using our product, but we also get funding from partners with whom we do specific projects. Subscription guarantees our independence and partners bring us special interest stories that are often a win win for us and them as the listeners are interested in them.”