Business Commons^™

Methods For Retaining And Monetizing Local Audiences Of An Online-Only News Organization, Lauren Rabaino

Journalism

Newspapers are at a crossroads in their existence. Traditionally, the printed giants were able to hold monopolies in their respective municipalities because the barrier to entry for printing was high and the operating costs were expensive. A study published in 1978 – a decade before the Internet came to fruition – reported that local newspaper monopolies existed in more than 97 percent of U.S. cities . But with the Web, that dynamic has vastly shifted. Widely accessible and affordable Web platforms eliminate both the barrier to entry and operating costs required to publish to a mass audience. As a result, …