Puma Podcasts (Philippines)
Challenges
A large portion of your audience isn’t going to pay for news.
Solution
B2B consulting and publishing services as a revenue stream.
Puma Podcasts in the Philippines (a country with a lower level of willingness to pay for news) has done just that. Consulting was part of the business model from the start, Executive Editor Roby Alampay told IPI’s World Congress earlier this year. In his words, the team “over-capacitated and then sold that capacity” – producing podcasts for other media organizations, foundations and companies as well as offering training.
The other option is using your expertise in the topic and/or the audience you cover. This might be a B2B publication offering consulting to clients in their industry, or a niche media organization sharing their expertise and knowledge of their audience (of course, if using audience data for consulting, news media should be transparent with their audience and choose consulting client projects that are also in the audience’s interest).