Predstavljajte si redakcijo (samostojne in kakovostne) splošnoinformativne spletne strani, ki na mesec ‘pokuri’ 200.000 evrov. Veliko? Niti ne, 20 novinarjev in urednikov, 8 tehničnega, trženjskega in drugega ‘podpornega’ osebja, za 10 novinarskih plač avtorskih honorarjev in pogodbenih sodelavcev, dnevnice, potni stroški, stroški infrastrukture, prostorov, trženja, sekundarnih informacijskih virov …, pa smo tam. Potreben obisk? Trenutek, vzemimo prej še redakcijo, ki za ‘obratovanje’ porabi 100.000 evrov na mesec: lahko damo na pol zaposlene ali njihove plače, avtorske honorarje ali število zunanjih sodelavcev …, kar koli pač, ampak vsekakor na škodo vsebine. Potreben obisk? Pol manjši. Koliko? Dva milijona unique obiskovalcev mesečno v prvem, en milijon v drugem primeru, drugače rečeno, vsi Slovenci za 200.000 prihodkov v prvem, polovica za 100.000 prihodkov v drugem primeru. Pa jih ima ena najbolje obiskanih samostojnih splošnoinformativnih spletnih strani na svetu (Huffington Post) kakšnih 5 milijonov mesečno oziroma štirikrat manj od New York Timesa.

Samo štirikrat (približno), kajti glede na vsebino (in vloženi denar) bi morala biti razlika krepko višja. Vse skupaj pa daje slutiti, da dobre samostojne splošnoinformativne spletne strani (še dolgo?, nikoli?) ne bodo mogle biti rentabilne, hkrati pa, da ’sinergije’ med tiskom in spletom še zdaleč ni (zdaj? nikoli?) toliko, kot bi si to ‘iznajditelji’ novih poslovnih modelov, enotnih newsroomov (zvezdaste ali drugačne zasnove), časopisnih spletnih televizijskih studijev in podobnega želeli.

Nasprotno, meni stari francoski medijski maček, dolgoletni urednik Liberationa, član ekipe, ki je zasnovala brezplačnik 20 Minutes (v Španiji 20 Minutos) in sedaj urednik pri norveški nadnacionalni medijski skupini Schibsted Frédéric Filloux. Račun se preprosto ne izide, številke se ne ujemajo.

For today’s demonstration, we’ll assume many people are involved in print-related production such as sub-editing, graphics, layout, etc. Plus, we all now those newspapers newsrooms are not exactly hallmarks of productivity. In short, I am certain we can produce good quality general news coverage with one hundred full-time equivalent dedicated journalists. (For their opposite reasons, editors and bean-counters are going to yell at me, that’s a good sign). I’m including writers, reporters, editors, photo and graphics editors, part-time specialized free-lance and front page editors. Annual personnel costs: €6m. To this, let’s add an arbitrary $1m for technical and infrastructure costs, €2m for marketing and another €1m for administrative costs and misc. Total: €10m per year.
Question: how many unique visitors do you need to cover €830,000 every month? Well, based on an analysis of some news websites (plus couple of business plan on my hard disk), the average revenue par unique visitors per month appears to range from €0,10 to €0,25 (let’s forget the euro/dollar conversion for a moment, and assume both currencies have the same purchasing power in their respective countries). Let’s be conservative and stick with the lower number. No need for a calculator, then: Translated into Unique Visitors per Month, a €830,000 monthly burn rate requires a hefty 8.3 million UV per month to break-even (and I’m not even talking of remunerate the cost of capital, paying back the shareholders, and forget about arousing analysts).

Filoux je torej po drugi poti prišel do podobne ugotovitve kot pred dobrim letom dni Andreas Göldi in Henry Blodget.

One thing is sure already: news is no longer able to sustain itself. The game becomes finding “alternate subsidy” streams. In the old newspaper model, Sports section advertisers subsidized the political columnist, or the classified pages paid for our guy on the ground in Iraq. Now, Sports coverage has migrated to a sports-site (and even disseminated on sub-specialized outlets), and classifieds moved to a vast array of highly profitable sites. Politics content finds refuge on the Huffington Post or on Slate. (And the guy in Iraq can only be afforded by big news organization). In passing, this dissemination is a response to the question of separate sites/brands for specific target groups: the answers seems to be yes — as long as we can: a) take advantage of specialization to charge higher CPT and b) build a network of sites arranged to benefit from massive economies of scale (back-offices, tech, sales, administration).
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The boundaries between sectors will blur. It already happened in the universities where contract-based private grants co-exist with fundamental research — and to some extent subsidizes it. The same mechanism will occur in the news business. We might not like it, but we better get used to it. Within ten years from now we’ll see respected online news organizations drawing half of the revenue form business-to-business type of activities. The tricky challenge will be erecting unbreakable Chinese wall between activities. Something similar to what Wall Street firms do: investment banking are separated from trading activities, they are not to talk to each other. This will require strong enforcement of corporate governance aimed at the protection of editorial independence. It also implies decisive mindset changes in union and corporatist circles.

Kar problem ne-prednostnih nalog nove vladne koalicije pri urejanju medijske krajine z dnevnopolitičnih vprašanj o ne-zamenjavah v javnih medijskih hišah, ne-spremembah obeh medijskih zakonov in ne-ukinitvi pluralizacijskega sklada močno razširja in na tako velikem medijskem trgu, kakršen je slovenski, ‘vrača’ na samo izhodišče - obstaja razen politično in/ali kapitalsko instrumentalizirane sploh še kakšna medijska opcija?

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