A few thoughts on the recent Crain's Chicago Business piece on Chicago hyperlocal media
A few weeks ago, Crain's Chicago Business magazine did a piece on Chicago area hyperlocal online media and how it's struggling to make money. Which isn't really all that surprising. As I've written before, for news outlets, making money online is harder than it is in print, especially when they have more local focus. But I did find a few interesting nuggets inside this article.
First, there's DNAinfo Chicago. It's the Chicago version of the DNAinfo, which covers New York City. I've sited it on this blog and elsewhere on the social media before - it's a great source with a lot of capable reporters on staff. One of DNAinfo Chicago's strengths is that they take the sort of neighborhood level coverage community newspapers and blogs are good at and bring it all together in one place, giving Chicagoans everywhere access to news they would otherwise miss (Hyde Park Herald and Beverly Review do a great job of covering Hyde Park and Beverly neighborhoods, respectively, but if you've never been to those neighborhoods, chances are you don't even know those newspapers even exist). But it's never been entirely clear how DNAinfo Chicago is going to make profit. I've always kind of assumed that it's owner Joe Ricketts' pet project, and that would be willing to cover their expenses until he moves on to something else. But according to Crain's piece, the launch of the print weekly newspaper compiling DNAinfo Chicago's coverage of Lincoln Park neighborhood and recent forays into Internet radio is the company's attempt to break even, and eventually make profit. And I hope they succeed because, like I said, DNAinfo Chicago does some pretty good work, but it does raise the question of what happens if the attempts to make profit don't work.
Then, there is the bit about 22nd Century Media, a chain of suburban newspapers started a few years ago by Jack Ryan (best known as the guy who ran against Barack Obama for US Senate seat until a sex scandal involving his ex-wife torpedoed his bid). The chain is making profit, and one of the only two Chicagoland suburban chains that's expanding (the other being Shaw Media). The article credits the fact that they saturate the market with copies (guaranteeing exposure to advertisers, which is an important thing) while imposing a pretty strict paywall on the online version. What the article doesn't mention is that they don't use nearly as many reporters (or staff at all, really) as Pioneer Press, relying on freelancers for a lot of coverage and, if rumors are true, not paying them as much as Pioneer Press or Shaw Media.
And finally, there's the bit about Sun-Times Media that surprised me.
At Wrapports LLC's Sun-Times Media, the suburban newspapers are mostly profitable, according to sources close to the Chicago-based company, but they farm out local digital reporting to a sister company, Aggrego LLC. That startup is a money-loser.
This raises several questions. First of all, most reports suggest that the only newspaper in Sun-Times Media that's making profit is the Chicago Reader, and suburban newspapers are losing more money than most. Lest we forget, the company sold [Joliet] Herald-News to Shaw Media early this year, and that was supposedly one of the less money-losing suburban newspapers. But if suburban newspapers are "mostly profitable"... There is the obvious question of "which ones." Are they talking about daily and not-quite-daily newspapers like Lake County News-Sun and Naperville Sun? The Pioneer Press weeklies? Some combination of both?
We know that Sun-Times Media recently announced ambitious plans for Pioneer Press, and I wonder how that fits in.
And then, there's the big about Aggrego. The article, I think, overstates its importance to Pioneer Press' output. Aggrego staff manages social media stuff and posts occasional links, compilations, etc. While, a few months ago, there were concerns that Aggrego staff was contributing as much as Pioneer Press staff to the online versions of the newspapers, these days, Pioneer Press staff and freelancers are responsible for the majority of what goes up.
From what I understand, the idea behind Aggrego was to create in-house web/app developer and use its writers to create websites for areas Pioneer Press either no longer covers thanks to a decade of cutbacks or never covered to begin with. But so far, not much seems to have come of this (aside from the Yorkville site that hasn't been updated since November of last year and what amounts to a link hub for a pair of towns in Florida).
Rumors have it that Wrapports invested a lot of money in Aggrego. And if it is, in fact, "a money loser," I'm wondering what's going to happen next.
First, there's DNAinfo Chicago. It's the Chicago version of the DNAinfo, which covers New York City. I've sited it on this blog and elsewhere on the social media before - it's a great source with a lot of capable reporters on staff. One of DNAinfo Chicago's strengths is that they take the sort of neighborhood level coverage community newspapers and blogs are good at and bring it all together in one place, giving Chicagoans everywhere access to news they would otherwise miss (Hyde Park Herald and Beverly Review do a great job of covering Hyde Park and Beverly neighborhoods, respectively, but if you've never been to those neighborhoods, chances are you don't even know those newspapers even exist). But it's never been entirely clear how DNAinfo Chicago is going to make profit. I've always kind of assumed that it's owner Joe Ricketts' pet project, and that would be willing to cover their expenses until he moves on to something else. But according to Crain's piece, the launch of the print weekly newspaper compiling DNAinfo Chicago's coverage of Lincoln Park neighborhood and recent forays into Internet radio is the company's attempt to break even, and eventually make profit. And I hope they succeed because, like I said, DNAinfo Chicago does some pretty good work, but it does raise the question of what happens if the attempts to make profit don't work.
Then, there is the bit about 22nd Century Media, a chain of suburban newspapers started a few years ago by Jack Ryan (best known as the guy who ran against Barack Obama for US Senate seat until a sex scandal involving his ex-wife torpedoed his bid). The chain is making profit, and one of the only two Chicagoland suburban chains that's expanding (the other being Shaw Media). The article credits the fact that they saturate the market with copies (guaranteeing exposure to advertisers, which is an important thing) while imposing a pretty strict paywall on the online version. What the article doesn't mention is that they don't use nearly as many reporters (or staff at all, really) as Pioneer Press, relying on freelancers for a lot of coverage and, if rumors are true, not paying them as much as Pioneer Press or Shaw Media.
And finally, there's the bit about Sun-Times Media that surprised me.
At Wrapports LLC's Sun-Times Media, the suburban newspapers are mostly profitable, according to sources close to the Chicago-based company, but they farm out local digital reporting to a sister company, Aggrego LLC. That startup is a money-loser.
This raises several questions. First of all, most reports suggest that the only newspaper in Sun-Times Media that's making profit is the Chicago Reader, and suburban newspapers are losing more money than most. Lest we forget, the company sold [Joliet] Herald-News to Shaw Media early this year, and that was supposedly one of the less money-losing suburban newspapers. But if suburban newspapers are "mostly profitable"... There is the obvious question of "which ones." Are they talking about daily and not-quite-daily newspapers like Lake County News-Sun and Naperville Sun? The Pioneer Press weeklies? Some combination of both?
We know that Sun-Times Media recently announced ambitious plans for Pioneer Press, and I wonder how that fits in.
And then, there's the big about Aggrego. The article, I think, overstates its importance to Pioneer Press' output. Aggrego staff manages social media stuff and posts occasional links, compilations, etc. While, a few months ago, there were concerns that Aggrego staff was contributing as much as Pioneer Press staff to the online versions of the newspapers, these days, Pioneer Press staff and freelancers are responsible for the majority of what goes up.
From what I understand, the idea behind Aggrego was to create in-house web/app developer and use its writers to create websites for areas Pioneer Press either no longer covers thanks to a decade of cutbacks or never covered to begin with. But so far, not much seems to have come of this (aside from the Yorkville site that hasn't been updated since November of last year and what amounts to a link hub for a pair of towns in Florida).
Rumors have it that Wrapports invested a lot of money in Aggrego. And if it is, in fact, "a money loser," I'm wondering what's going to happen next.