Research and reports

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about paid content

Does your news organization have a mobile application? Are you charging for it? What about online subscriptions? Is a metered paywall in your future? API and Borrell Associates are asking hundreds of news organizations about their current practices in generating reader-driven revenue from digital content. We’re asking key executives at daily newspaper companies in North America to complete an online survey about their approaches to issues like paid content, site registration and mobile applications.

Find out how your news organization can participate by calling API Associate Director Mary Glick at 703-715-3313. The survey will close August 24.

Results of the survey will be released at API’s seminar, Meters, Paywalls and Apps: Growing Revenue with Digital Content, Sept. 21-22, in Pomona, Calif.

API research and reports

Local Business Advertising Dollars. Our report spells hope for newspaper companies that take an “agency approach” to advertising sales. It provides results and analysis of two surveys conducted by ITZBelden in 2010 – one of newspaper sales managers and a second of small and medium-sized businesses in local newspaper markets. These local businesses have moved far beyond the traditional marketing mix, and media companies that offer a wide range of services, platforms, and products, coupled with a consultative sales approach, have the best chance of serving the needs of these businesses and attracting new revenue.

Price: $500 (U.S.) Call (503) 241-3650.

Bringing Science to the Sales Force. Newspaper organizations can increase revenues by as much as 15 percent by consistently targeting the best sales opportunities with the right type and amount of sales resource. This revelation is one of many identified in this API white paper. The free report, written in cooperation with global sales and marketing consulting firm ZS Associates, covers the why and how of Sales Resource Optimization, including: seven obstacles that inhibit newsmedia companies from optimizing sales resources, key questions for sales executives, essential drivers of a highly effective sales force, today's leading SRO approaches and tools, and why and how to build SRO capability.

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Paid Access Models: Practices and Profiles. Which business models work online? Should news organizations charge for content? What paid access approaches are successful? This must-have report from API and ITZBelden informs these critical decisions facing news executives. It provides actionable data, case studies and approaches for success in the transitioning landscape for news. The insight report provides sharp analysis of the opportunities and obstacles presented by “going paid” and guidelines to help publishers make critical decisions. It examines both replica “e-editions” and paid access Web sites.

Price: $500 (U.S.) Call (503) 241-3650.

Online Revenue Initiatives 2009. The idea of charging for access to digital content seems to gain momentum whenever another news organization announces it is taking steps to move from free to paid content online. Newspaper executives are eager to know what their peers in other organizations are doing. What are the current practices in generating revenue from digital content? What are the various pay models? Are they successful? API, working in partnership with ITZBelden, set out to answer these questions. Results of a nationwide online survey show that industry executives are exploring multiple options for increasing revenue in the short term.

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Creating an Industry-wide Classified Platform and Brand. Much of the current crises in newspaper revenue can be traced to the loss of the classified franchise to craigslist.com and other non-newspaper classified sites. Within crisis, however, there may be opportunity. Now more than ever before, newspapers throughout North America have the motivation and the circumstance to create a single classified platform to rival non-newspaper sites -- through better leveraging of technology; superior user experience; and a powerful, unified national brand. In May 2009, API produced this report, designed to address the challenges and opportunities of a unified classified platform, with a recommended agenda for action.

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Newsmedia Economic Action Plan. Paid content is one of the biggest debates within the newspaper industry. Rocked by declining print circulation and advertising, disruptive Internet technologies and competition from a variety of new players and industries, the traditional bedrock of American journalism stands at a precipice. Pay-for-content models have surfaced as the hope for saving the industry (or at least holding on) as the economics of the Internet, and the behaviors of its consumers, are evolving. In May 2009, API produced this report , designed to address that issue with a recommended agenda for action. This report offers models and recommendations for the migration of online content from free to paid.

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Newspaper Next: Blueprint for Transformation. Newspaper Next, API's groundbreaking research initiative, provides the industry with new business models, non-traditional ways to see opportunities that produce sustainable growth, and ways to reshape organizations for consistent innovation. Since the launch in September 2006, N² projects have explored and discovered strategic and practical guidance for an industry struggling to create a brighter future.

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Making the Leap Beyond Newspaper Companies. In February 2008, API released a follow-up to the 2006 Newspaper Next report, Blueprint for Transformation. It includes a broad new vision for what newspaper companies must become if they are to survive in today's heavily disrupted media landscape, 31 case studies of both new products developed and organizational change accomplished using Newspaper Next principles and methods, and a look at the most promising areas for maximizing online revenue.

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Newspaper Next Database Report. Databases are an indispensable tool in building digital audiences and developing new revenue streams. In this report, author Steve Buttry reviews the many ways databases can be employed to enhance news coverage and address critical consumer and business “jobs to be done.” Find out what organizational and technological decisions must be made as newspapers expand their digital database offerings.

$19.95

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All Eyes Forward. In 2004, API and American Society of Newspaper Editors joined forces to launch a $1 million, three-year project to help newsrooms improve their capacity to teach and learn the skills, topic knowledge and values they need to produce better journalism. The Learning Newsroom, was funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Over the period from 2004 to 2006, ten newsrooms were selected for partnerships as model Learning Newsrooms in this research venture. All Eyes Forward, byVickey Williams, the project's director, details the curriculum that gives journalists the tools to break away from old workplace structures. To download this book, go to www.learningnewsroom.org.

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