Balancing Commerce and Conviction: Emerging Business Models for News Media

Conventional news media had a business model where readers or viewers’ attention was sold for advertising revenues. As internet giants commoditize, control and redirect attention in niche spaces like targeted advertising, the conventional business model came under challenge. Corporate cross-ownership and verticalization have been often sought after ways to ensure financial sustainability but have led to trust deficit and perceived or actual biases in editorial policies. New and independent media firms, which focus on editorial independence and are based on the internet, have the arduous task of evolving suitable business models in a competitive environment with high costs of entry and entrenched benefits for existing players. The chapter presents a novel review of the diverse business models that have been adopted by new and independent news media in India. The analysis finds the pervasiveness of the paywall or subscription-based models with some players experimenting with crowdfunding. There is extensive reliance on seed funding and support from philanthropies. Seventeen of the surveyed organizations were registered as private limited companies with a single firm operating as a nonprofit organization. The digital news media landscape in India presents specificity and definitive focus in terms of the practice of journalism and values of publishing, but there is a lack of innovative revenue models. Their relative qualities and performance in the changing landscape of news production, dissemination and consumption are identified to understand the direction of growth of new and independent media in India. The review aims to bridge the gap in the academic literature about the nuances within the monolith of news media business models.