Economics addresses how information is paid for: digital advertising markets and their concentration, subscription and membership revenue, state subsidy and public broadcasting budgets, philanthropic funding, and the collapse of local advertising. Analysis quantifies the shortfall in specific markets and examines which replacement models have measurable results.
Where funding for information comes from, from advertising markets and subscriptions to state subsidy, and what happens where it has disappeared.
Donor-funded journalism expanded as advertising collapsed, but concentration among a few foundations, short grant cycles and political scrutiny are the model's three structural weak points.
Khalid Okonkwo
The reported deals run from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, but the terms are confidential and the strategic trade — archives for cash — is being made without public scrutiny of the pricing.
Khalid Okonkwo
A local daily closed roughly every week or two through the mid-2020s by the standard trackers' count, and the mechanism is a fixed-cost structure that loses its revenue base one line at a time.
Khalid Okonkwo
From the Google News Initiative to Meta's expiring news deals, direct platform payments became a real but fragile revenue line — and the amounts are smaller than the lobbying suggests.
Gabriela Montoya
Churn, ARPU and conversion-to-paid discipline quarterly reporting at subscriber-driven outlets, and the metrics that flatter them — pageviews and newsletter signups — are not among them.
Gabriela Montoya