News
Digital TransitionMedia InnovationMedia sustainability

The Outlook: Its all about recurring revenue

IPI's Innovation Team

We know, generating revenue is hard – but having good products will help

The Outlook: Its all about recurring revenue

This text comes from IPI’s newsletter The Outlook. Click here to sign up to receive future editions directly to your inbox.

ℹ️ Before we start, this is a reminder for our open call for the Transition Accelerator programme. If you work in a media organization in Europe, this is a great learning and funding opportunity.
📮In this week’s newsletter, we share insights from a couple of news organizations in Brazil that have been doing a nice job developing products to generate recurring revenue, hire a bunch of people and draw a straight line towards financial sustainability. Also, we are now welcoming application for consultants to collaborate with us.

This newsletter is brought to you by IPI’s Innovation Projects Manager, Sergio Spagnuolo, from his annual trip to the Abraji’s 19th International Congress of Investigative Journalism, which took place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, from 11 to 13 July.

Get the machine going

…or keep trying

Small and mid-sized news organizations face a lot of hard challenges when developing products, like lack of funding, a competitive media landscape and tough scalability. But they also have some advantages on their side, like faster decision-making and the ability to pivot from the originally planned course if needed. Unencumbered by red tape, those initiatives can focus on getting the revenue machine going with very few internal obstacles.

Jota, a legal news organization in Brazil founded in 2014, has found ways to make those advantages work nicely, creating a very tight product development cycle that has led the company into profitability. It now generates some US$5.5 million in recurring revenue per year.

“Some products take you to places very different from the newsroom and reporting and this can be used to find ways to generate recurring revenue that can support your journalism and your entire business”, said Paty Gomes, Jota’s product director, during Abraji’s 19th International Congress of Investigative Journalism, one of the biggest journalism festivals in Latin America, held in Sao Paulo in July.

“It is all about that recurring revenue”,
says Paty Gomes, from Jota. 

Jota started with five people and a single product in 2014, a US$8 paywall-based subscription service for lawyers and other legal professionals. It now has 87 workers on staff and a wide array of legal information services, especially around taxes and political risk. Its corporate products have grown so much that it will soon stop its subscription service for individuals, opening its website content for free.

More projects mean more attention

But news products also have a place for non-profit organizations. Take, for example, Revista AzMina, a woman-rights news organization from Brazil. What started in 2015 as a text-only news organization is now a multi-project news outlet, with initiatives like a website about abortion data in Brazil, a mobile app where women can ask for help if they fear they might be in danger, an AI-powered bot that monitors and analyzes women’s rights legislation in Brazil and an observatory about online violence against female candidates in Brazilian politics.

“The interesting thing about AzMina is that it started as a magazine. So, the main focus is journalism, producing content, and reporting. However, the first major launch by our organization wasn’t for journalism, but rather for a technology product,” said content director Barbara Liborio, about their mobile app called Penhas, during the Abraji conference.

Because of such projects, AzMina generated in 2022 around US$600,000 in total revenues, mostly from grants and donations, contributing to other investments in the organization. “Developing several projects like these helped us get where we are today”, Liborio said.

The organization keeps renewing a lot of its funding to maintain and further improve the projects, but said it might search for another approach to generate recurring revenue, like Jota. “Sometimes funding shifts from one organization to another, and we need to think about how we can monetize our products.”

[imageframe lightbox=”no” lightbox_image=”” style_type=”none” hover_type=”none” bordercolor=”” bordersize=”0px” borderradius=”0″ stylecolor=”” align=”center” link=”” linktarget=”_self” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”down” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][/imageframe]

“Technology in journalism as a product, not as a support”, Abraji conference. July 12, 2024. On the left, Paty Gomes, from Jota, and Sergio Spagnuolo, from IPI. Sao Paulo, Brazil, Photo: Emilly Cassiano

Next Step Forward

[imageframe lightbox=”no” lightbox_image=”” style_type=”none” hover_type=”none” bordercolor=”” bordersize=”0px” borderradius=”0″ stylecolor=”” align=”center” link=”https://ipi.media/four-steps-to-sustainability-ipis-local-news-accelerator-catalyzes-product-and-business-development-for-local-media/” linktarget=”_self” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”down” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][/imageframe]

Four steps to sustainability: IPI’s Local News Accelerator catalyzes product and business development for local media

Innovation Deck

Are you an experienced media professional passionate about driving innovation and sustainability in the media industry? Do you have expertise in fields related to news product development and innovation methods for journalism, along with a desire to coach and advise independent media organizations?

✍️ If so, apply to our programme as a consultant and join us in driving creativity, strategy and positive change! Our programme creates a vibrant space for peer learning and engaging in a community of practice. Consultants will be strategically matched with media tackling challenges in their field of expertise.

Call for Media Consultants
📍Global
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis

 

Share your thoughts, reach out to the Media Innovation team
and help us shape our media support programmes! Say hi – [email protected].

 

Become a member

IPI membership is open to anyone active in the field of journalism, in news media outlets, as freelancers, in schools of journalism or in defence of press freedom rights, who supports the principle of freedom of the press and desires to co-operate in achieving IPI’s objectives.

Become a member

Latest
Syria: Urgent answers needed over longest held American journalist Austin Tice
Serbia: Media regulator election again made a mockery of EU-required reforms
Saudi Arabia: IPI condemns execution of journalist Turki al-Jasser
Georgia: Independent media face new wave of repression as new laws come into effect
Thank you for applying to the 2025 New Media Incubator!
United States: Journalists covering protests in Los Angeles face violence and detention
Report: The shrinking space for journalism in Croatia
Egypt: IPI demands immediate release of British-Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah
Oslobođenje: Making history accessible with a user-friendly, monetizable digital archive