Media Revenue Streams

Sr Patricia Michelle Mathias fsp

Media Revenue Streams is a term used to denote the various means through which a given media entity earns its income or monetary gains. A definition provided by the Corporate Financial Institute on its websites states that Revenue streams means the varied sources from which income is generated “by a business from the sale of its goods or provision of services”.

Technology has grown leaps and bounds. The growth has also brought into existence newer means of garnering revenue across Media platforms.

Media Revenue Streams primarily include but may or may not be restricted to-

•  Advertisement Revenue
• Paid News
•  Licensing and Copyrights
• Syndication of content
• Subscription Revenue- User-Paid Services or Memberships and Free Subscribership
• Paywalls
• Event hosting
• Offering Services

Advertisement- A huge chunk of Media’s Revenue primarily comes from Advertisements. For instance- A newspaper can never generate an income when it is being sold at a meagre price. The major source of income that provides for the functioning of a newspaper and the subsidies prices are Ads that are printed in the newspaper. Commercial Radio and Television also garner income primarily through Ad Revenue. Internet Advertising has increased drastically in the current scenario, especially due to the Covid-19 situation. YouTube albeit a free platform also garners a huge chunk of its revenue from advertisements.

Paid News- PR Firms for varied Political Parties or Corporate products are often on the look out for promotion of their activities, goods and services and have contributed to the growth of Paid News services. Albeit the fact that there are cases, where Paid news is considered unethical as it is an extension of sales, Paid News exists and garners income.

Licensing for a fee and Copyrights- Articles, Content and Books can be licensed for monetary charges. For instance- An author can navigate copyright charges for the content of a Book for a charge to a Film Production firm. A News agency can collect a fee for licensing an article or through Subscriptions.

Syndication of Content- Content syndication is often done to garner subscribership by posting one’s content on another popular platform with a link to the original. While there could be a risk or fear of losing the finances to another group, in some cases however, the original author has gained more subscribers. Even in Broadcast Syndication income can be generated. For instance, a show or a song can be leased to multiple channels or Radio stations to generate income across the nation or across countries which can turn economically beneficial.

Subscription Revenue- Subscription Revenue is Revenue garnered by paying for a particular media service like a Newspaper, Channel or OTT content. This can be of two types-

·              User-Paid Services or Memberships- Jens Barland (2013) says that “a user-paid service is where the revenue stream is the user’s payment for access to the digital service”. I pay for a particular App and use its services. OTT platforms and many Newspapers also invite memberships and paid services to full access of their entire content.

·           Free Subscribership- On YouTube, the terminology has a slightly different perspective. YouTube permits an individual to monetise his or her content only after reaching a 1000 (free) subscribers with 4000 hours of viewership. A large number of Subscribers draws in large viewership which further leads to garnering an Income. Many production houses like T-Series in India, garner massive revenues through YouTube Platforms. Many YouTube influencers too have raked in huge incomes through massive subscribers consuming their content.  

Paywalls- Digitisation has its pros and cons. Most people prefer free content. Hence, many media businesses have come up with the concept of Paywalls. Paywall is “a system in which access to all or part of a website is restricted to paid subscribers (dictionary.com)”. While one does get free content, erecting a Paywall by a media platform, leads to customers getting some content and not the whole content. Paywall also turns into income generation as only Paid subscribers get an access to the complete content on a media platform.

Event hosting- Many Business firms today host events to garner funds through tickets and Sponsorship.

Offering Services- Media channels sometimes offer certain services for a charge. This could include, certain Apps, that might charge when you use them for certain consultations. For instances, those related to health. While the App itself might be Free. The charges occur only due to Significant usage of the same. Newspapers also charge for space provided in their newspapers for Obituaries or Matrimonial Ad services.

 

These are some of the Media Revenue garnering streams.

 

REFERENCES

Barland Jens, 2013, Innovation of New Revenue Streams in Digital Media, Nordicom Review 34 Special Issue, pp. 99-112, http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2624754

Dictionary.com, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/paywall, Retrieved on January 4, 2021

Revenue Streams, Corporate Finance Institute, Retrieved on January 4, 2021, https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/accounting/revenue-streams/