plus
Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 13 of the Baekdal Plus podcast (which you can also just read as a regular article). It's been a while since my last episode. It's been three months, and the last time I talked about robot journalism with Hannah. That was the most popular episode I have made. In case you haven't heard it, I interviewed a robot about the future of robot journalism, and people loved it so much that they started asking me when Hannah, the robot, would come back.
So, that was really fun, and yes, Hannah might return some day.
But today we are going to talk about something completely different. We are going to talk about the amazing world of unit economics and unit analytics. I know, unit economics sounds really boring to a lot of people, but it's an extremely important thing for publishers to embrace. Not just on the business side, where you are hopefully already using it, but much more so on the newsroom side.
We will talk about why this is so amazing, how others are doing it, and also talk about the many problems we have with it.
Let's start by defining what unit economics really is. Well, it's the metrics that you use to define the value of each individual thing that you do.
For journalism, this is usually about the articles that we write. Unit economics defines how much revenue a specific article made. Not on average, but the actual real revenue for that specific article.
Measuring this is not hard to do.
There are usually two types of revenue, advertising and subscriptions.
Subscription revenue is calculated as a share of the activity. Think about something like Spotify. The way they pay artists is to look at how many plays or time spent each individual song achieved. And then they use that metric to divide the total revenue for each song.
Register to try out Baekdal Plus completely for free for one week.
Baekdal Plus is your premium destination for trends and analysis for the media industry. Every year you get 25 reports about the future media trends, business and editorial strategies, monetization analysis and insights about how to use analytics specifically for publishers.
As a subscriber, you also get full access to all the Plus reports (more than 200) published over the past 8 years, as well as the ability to share what you read.
Yes, of course, please write to plus@baekdal.com and I will send you a regular invoice that you can pay via your bank. I will need your company name, address and VAT number (if within the EU). Also, please note that due to this process being manual, this will be for an annual subscription only.
Yes, please write to plus@baekdal.com for details. But for 25-99 users: the price is 20% off the subscription price ($79/year per user), 100+ users is a fixed price at $5,000 (for all combined).
Yes, please head over to Baekdal Media to read about consulting where I can help you with strategy reviews, trend and strategy reports, and strategic guidance for you media company or a specific publication.
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
The trends around robot journalism are growing, so what are the major elements to consider?
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
What if we approach election coverage from a completely different perspective?
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Let's talk about why media startup almost always fail to make an impact.
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $12
Founder, media analyst, author, and publisher. Follow on Twitter
"Thomas Baekdal is one of Scandinavia's most sought-after experts in the digitization of media companies. He has made himself known for his analysis of how digitization has changed the way we consume media."
Swedish business magazine, Resumé
free
plus
free
free
plus
plus