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READERS ARE JOURNALISTS’ FINANCERS
During the last two years, half of the income of Interact Media, the company managing the Agora.md news portal, originates from media support funds, which makes company managers search for sustainable alternatives. “Our development plan implies reducing current dependence on grants and making sure we are ready to face various unforeseen situations, such as lack of grants, decreasing income from advertising, or losing customers due to bankruptcy, with our readers’ assistance. We have invited them to be the ones who finance the journalists. We intend to do that by using membership subscriptions in order to become an institution financed by our readers”, Irina Ghelbur, Interact Media Director, says.
Irina Ghelbur, director of Interact Media. Photo source: Agora video capture
AMBITIONS VS. OBSTACLES
According to her, in four years, the company administration intends to cover 30% of the budget from membership subscriptions. “Sometimes I get an impression it is too ambitious, but without such ambitions, we would expose ourselves to great danger – to become no longer sustainable and to have to silence a media institution which informs people on a daily basis.”
Interact Media Director confesses that launching membership subscriptions brought several challenges, from the lack of recurrent payment systems on the market at that moment to reduction of the website traffic by 2-3% compared to the same months in the previous year. According to Irina Ghelbur, many readers most likely understood they were supposed to pay in order to continue reading Agora.md materials, “which was not our intention at all. The difference between a content payment system and a membership subscription is that membership is a form of support for an institution which enables it to go on functioning and providing content available to everyone. For this, the institution offers its members various benefits.”
By the way, who are Agora.md subscribers? Irina Ghelbur replies that more than half of them are employed in the IT industry, and some of the supporters are Moldovans residing in the country or abroad, “There are people who understand the value of independent and fair journalism relevant to the democracy of this country.”
DONATIONS MAKING SENSE
Cu Sens is a media project officially registered in August 2019; in seven months, the editorial board was already publishing its first materials. Liuba Sevciuc, one of its founders, claims she is not sure whether the editorial board would have managed to launch and produce reports and investigations in such a short time without the readers’ support via donations: in fact, they offered the audience to become, together with them, “the country’s largest virtual newsroom.” “From the first money we collected, we purchased a video/photo camera and rented an office. That was what allowed us to start our activity,” the journalist recalls.
Photo source: Video capture Cu SENS
The newsroom has received unique or monthly donations from about 200 persons so far. The smallest donation was $ 2, and the largest one amounted to $ 5.000. Many of the project supporters are Moldovan citizens residing abroad. “Even in these difficult times, when many people have lost their jobs or their businesses, we still enjoy our donors’ support. They have continued providing financial support.”
Our supporters mostly donate for high-quality content. That is, we get donations only when we publish a certain topic, especially an investigation. We are glad people understand that information costs some money, and are willing to give a certain amount from their own pockets to us,” Liuba Sevciuc says.
PATRONS FOR ZIARUL DE GARDA
In the middle of the previous year, the administration of the investigation weekly newspaper Ziarul de Garda (ZdG) also chose to resort to alternative financing, more precisely, Patreon subscriptions, in spite of the fact that, according to its director Alina Radu, the publication was “among the last media institutions to use this platform.” She admits that she was initially skeptical about its success, believing that the market of eventual supporters was already “shared” between those who had occupied it earlier. “We did not have any significant expectations, but we did make a constant effort to inform our readers about that possibility to support us. It was all the more pleasant for us to notice that at least one new patron joined us every two days, and sometimes, several patrons appeared on the same day. Seven months after the account was launched, we were convinced that the method was worth trying, and we regret we did not launch it earlier,” Alina Radu says.
Anatolie Eșanu, ZdG investigative reporter. Photo source: ZdG
The newspaper’s 144 patrons donate approximately $ 1.000 a month. “It is a recurrent amount of money donated on a permanent, monthly basis; a transparent source of money; a financial source consisting of minor donations which cannot claim to control editorial policy. The donor community is very empathetic and interested in communication. It both helps us reach financial sustainability and assess consumer satisfaction: most patrons have joined us on Thursdays, when we launch a new investigation. It helps us realize that financing alternatives exist, all we have to do is make an effort to identify them, figure them out, and promote them,” Alina Radu explains.
The ZdG director considers that such platforms as Patreon “belong to the future.””We have become more confident of our own power and the power of the community. This is like a subscription to newspapers or magazines in the last century, but this type of recurrent payments is easier to use, more flexible, and simpler to handle,” the publication’s manager concludes.
MOLD-STREET PORTAL ON ECONOMY IN THE NICHE MEDIA MARKET
Mold-street.com, a portal specializing in economic issues, is another media institution which has implemented the subscription system shortly after it emerged on the media market. Aurel Stratan, program coordinator in charge of advertising and subscriptions, affirms that the moment for launching subscriptions “was not exactly right” because it happened when the Moldovan banks “stole the billion,” advertising income seemed to be in free fall, and purchases of information products via the Internet were not popular in the Republic of Moldova. “However, online shopping trends were increasing, the demand for quality economic information was obvious, and the founders were searching for new opportunities,” Aurel Stratan remarks.
Aurel Stratan, Mold-street.com program coordinator. Photo source: Aurel Stratan / Facebook
Thus, currently, the publication has subscriptions with validity terms of 30 days (2 Euros for individuals and 10 Euros for legal entities), 3 months (5 Euros and 15 Euros, respectively), 6 months (8 and 20 Euros), and one year (12 Euros and 40 Euros). The editorial board also sells articles “piece by piece”: any text from the Premium category can be purchased at a price of 9 lei. “We also left the transfer payment option active in order to provide a diversity of payment methods, which has ultimately resulted in a diversity of subscribers from virtually all the segments of the economy,” Mold-street.com coordinator affirms.
As the subscriptions are still developing, they account for less than 5% of the income. Most of those who buy information on Mold-street.com are readers from the Republic of Moldova, followed by consumers residing in Romania, USA, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy, “taxpayers who need trustworthy information about the economy and care how public money is spent.” The largest subscription income is provided by legal entities, including embassies, international organizations, or banks: they account for approximately 6% of total subscribers yet contribute over 80% of the income.
“The interest in business news and economic analysis is great, and Google and Gemius statistics demonstrate a growing number of young visitors, which makes us happy, as these are future specialists, enterprise managers, and business owners. If we stay in touch with the younger generation, the subscriber base (as well as the amount of advertising) will definitely grow. However, they need a mobile version of Mold-street.com with an adjusted mobile subscription system, especially due to the fact that over 70% of our readers visit it using smartphones and tablet PCs,” Aurel Stratan concludes.
IMPORTANCE OF THE 2% MECHANISM FOR MEDIA INSTITUTIONS
The percentage designation mechanism (the 2% law) is another mechanism for profit diversification, but also for educating the public when it comes to supporting the press, as Mariana Rata, TV8 news director, previously told Media Azi.
Mariana Rață (from the right) on TV8, together with the journalist Angela Gonța. Photo source: Facebook
“There is no doubt that percentage designation is efficient and useful. It is not just about the financial benefits (in fact, the contributions are modest). What is really valuable is education of society which makes it consciously contribute to supporting the press. When a citizen redirects 2% of taxes to TV8, this is an obvious sign that this person appreciates our work, understands that we need moral and financial support, and offers them to us,” Mariana Rata affirms.
ON PLANNING AND STRATEGIES
Corina Cepoi, Director of the Internews Representative Office in the Republic of Moldova, an organization which contributes to media development, affirms that media institutions need to experiment with more forms of media support and that editorial boards cannot stay away from market changes taking place in the world where they also need to develop.
“When the entire world keeps developing or moving forward you cannot stay behind with some old support mechanisms. The way of consuming press is also changing; the platforms where press materials are consumed are changing; hence, the way of supporting the press must also be changed. This is logical. Especially since, due to the current conditions, in some countries, advertising has significantly decreased and goes directly to social networks, Google Ads, and other global forms of collecting money from advertising. The press loses its support and needs to find a way to survive. The Cu Sens media project uses a special press platform, which is welcome. Patreon is a larger platform for supporting creative ideas. But other methods can be used: for instance, Ziarul de Garda uses online subscription. There is also the 2% mechanism. All of them are good, one has to experiment with them and try to make the press good not only in bringing the content, but also in connecting and establishing relations with the audience and being supported by this audience,” Corina Cepoi declares.
The Internews representative in Moldova considers that media institutions which implement new forms of monetization could obtain financial independence from readers only with a “correct” planning. “If you have no strategic plan on obtaining your financial resources, I do not see any chance of success. When there is an exact planning – starting from the mission of the press organization – the trajectory of the institution is clear. Without it, no mechanism for supporting the press by the audience can be implemented. Goals and objectives indicating target groups we have to rely upon must be mapped, as long as we consider that the press could be financially assisted only by its supporters. We have perfect examples in Central and Eastern European countries. Therefore, this is possible. We have to consider positive examples and follow them,” Corina Cepoi concludes.
