Jezebel bets on a paywall
Jezebel bets on a paywall
How much can your biggest fans pay you?
A song to read by: “Hey Lou,” by Lewis OfMan, Camille Jansen
What I’m reading: “Francisco,” by Alison Mills Newman
Housekeeping note: There will be no Medialyte on Sunday March 3, as I will be on vacation
Published this week
— Complex Media Acquired by Live Shopping Platform Ntwrk for $108 Million
— Exclusive: Amazon to Sunset Freevee, Streamlining Its Ad and Product Efforts
— The Next Era of Subscriptions: 3 Trends Shaping Publishers' Paid Products
— Axel Springer, Poised for Growth, Unveils Its First US Leadership Team
On my mind
The last few weeks have seen the continued collapse of the digital media ecosystem, with Vice effectively shutting down its website, The Messenger shuttering and round upon round of layoffs dramatically shrinking the workforce of virtually every other publisher.
But lost amid the chaos was the news that Jezebel, which was closed by G/O Media in November only to be resuscitated under Paste Magazine ownership the following month, launched a paid membership product two weeks ago.
For $8 per month or $80 per year, paying supporters gain access to a host of perks, including commenting abilities, access to private Discord chats, exclusive merchandise and select content.
As editor in chief Lauren Tousignant explains, the decision to launch the paid product came about largely in response to the difficulty of effectively monetizing Jezebel with advertising. The standard fare of the site—in pursuit of both humor and impactful reporting—makes liberal use of the kind of terminology that trips the brand safety filters that advertisers bake into their automated ad buys.
Without securing direct advertising, Jezebel will struggle to net a livable CPM through open-exchange programmatic, which has been an ongoing concern for the site. By giving devoted readers an opportunity to pledge monthly payments to support its content, Jezebel is hoping to sidestep the issue, keeping its material uncensored without levying a needlessly stringent paywall.
Whether or not this will work remains to be seen. The fact that it launched this two weeks ago but I just heard about it on Wednesday is a bit concerning—an offering like this hardly benefits from underexposure.
I also worry that the product will not get the resources it needs to have a fighting chance. Compared to other independent publishers with paid offerings, like Defector or 404 Media, the technology underpinning its membership product is unsophisticated, which will limit its ability to convert all but the most ardent of its supporters.
Still, I think providing readers with a way to express their support financially is a brilliant move, and one that every publisher should consider.
As I wrote about last week, monetization strategy is becoming nimbler, with publishers offering readers a wider variety of products to choose from and ways to pay. Included in that concept is giving devoted fans—however few or many a publisher might have—more ways to give them money.
This is why we see publishers ranging from The Rebooting to Puck to Defector offering subscriber tiers that cost $1,000, because why not? You miss 100% of the whale donations you fail to solicit, I believe the saying goes.
Similarly, we have long moved past the days of needing to even offer anything, explicitly, in return for largesse. Vox Media, a for-profit publisher, rolled out a donation option during the pandemic and never turned it off. The Guardian, likewise, uses a “nagwall” to remind readers how many free articles they have consumed a year, guilting them into coughing up a monthly donation even though the content remains free to access either way.
Some, including myself, have scoffed at the brazenness of such ploys, which strike me as the strategic equivalent of the “Money please” bit from “Parks and Rec.”
But I eventually came around to the idea after realizing that I simply have not yet been the target audience for one of these calls to action.
These kinds of patronage options are intended only for the small, perhaps even infinitesimal portion of an audience that feels an incredible sense of ideological alignment with the publisher and wants to express that kinship through commercial support. If, as a publisher, you have no vehicle for them to demonstrate that support, you are effectively leaving money on the table.
I thought about this a fair bit after Condé Nast announced it was folding Pitchfork into GQ. I tweeted a joke at the time, saying, “A lot of people ‘pitching’ a fit over the loss of Pitchfork never ‘forked’ over their money to support it in any significant way.”
In response, someone replied, “It is/was a website supported by ad revenue. What were people supposed to do more of? Refresh their browser pages?”
As much as I hate acknowledging that a reply guy was right, I had to admit he had a point.
Sure, technically you could have bought tickets to Pitchfork music festivals, and I suppose you could have clicked the affiliate links in its reviews to buy the vinyls (and risk not supporting local music stores in the process!), but how else could you have demonstrated your support for Pitchfork in a material, financial sense? There was no membership or subscription product, or even a print magazine to subscribe to.
In other words, even if you were a diehard fan of the publication, you really had no way of supporting it in a material, financial sense.
Following that logic, I think every publisher, especially one with a cult following, should ensure its most fervent supporters have a way to express that support financially—ideally one with a high ceiling.
In its second year of operations, for example, Defector had 70 subscribers at the $1,000 per year level. I have no idea who those people are, what compelled them or what those numbers look like now, but I bet that extra $70,000 was absolutely worth spinning up that ridiculous tier.
There is no telling what kind of success Jezebel has with its membership product, but it has the right idea in at least giving its readers a way to show their support.
The week that was
Sorry for not publishing Medialyte last week, but it was a three-day weekend! That is all the defense I am going to give.
This week was a bit tamer, finally. I published two stories I’m quite proud of, including a scoop about Amazon sunsetting Freevee that performed very well. I also finally got to close the loop on the Complex acquisition that had been lingering in deal purgatory for the last several months.
On Tuesday, my colleague Catherine Perloff and I got drinks with Marketing Brew reporter Ryan Barwick, as we all share a trauma bond over the psychological damage we have incurred reporting on ad tech. Also we debated the eternal question: New York Magazine or the New Yorker?
On Wednesday, Adweek had an all-team meeting whose general tenor was optimistic, a refreshing counterpoint from the otherwise depressing state of the media industry. With remote staff in the city for the meeting, many members of the team went to a comedy show that evening at which our very own Annie Hildebrand performed.
The next few days were more sedate, although Friday did find me at a live jazz hangout in Bed-Stuy, Bar Lunatico, that I had been meaning to check out since moving here. Between the lead singer in the band and some of the comedians on Wednesday, I have experienced more than my fair share of horrifically improvised crowd banter this week.
On Saturday I had a wonderful day that unfolded in an odd order, as a good friend Josh Baiad had a birthday party in the early afternoon at a bar in Gowanus, then I returned home to attend the virtual baby shower my brother and sister in law were hosting for far-flung family. Baby Leona, my first niece (or nephew, for that matter), is due in April, so well wishes on that please.
Then that evening I was able to catch “Anatomy of a Fall” at the Angelika, and I quite enjoyed it. Another week, another great French film! They are onto something over there. I would recommend the movie if you love French court procedurals or the instrumental version of the 50 Cent track “P.I.M.P.”
The last Oscar nomination for Best Picture I have yet to see is “Zones of Interest,” but I am worried because it has been praised as “meditative” and a “searing commentary on the banality of evil,” which both sound like euphemisms for boring. Has anyone seen?
One good rumor
I have been told this is “not news,” but you be the judge: Dotdash Meredith has lately taken to dividing its portfolio into “core” and “non-core” sites—taking a page out of the Robert California playbook—and its core sites now generate more than 80% of its total sessions and digital revenue.
The core sites include: People, AllRecipes, Investopedia, Better Homes & Gardens, VeryWell Health, the Spruce, Travel + Leisure, InStyle, Food & Wine, Martha Stewart, Byrdie, Real Simple, Southern Living, Simply Recipes, Serious Eats, Eating Well, Parents, VeryWell Mind and Health.
But what of the non-core sites? What is their fate?I hear that they are not likely to be shut down anytime soon, but will gradually receive fewer resources, existing in more of a state of maintenance than active growth.
DDM, more than most publishers, focuses on creating strategic evergreen content and then updating those posts routinely so they stay relevant. This means that, in theory, a non-core website could still attract traffic and generate revenue with only minimal attention.
But still—hardly a vote of confidence for those working on the non-core sites, no?
Some good readin’
— It still blows my mind that “There, There” was the first novel I have ever read about the contemporary Native American experience. Why is there not more like this? Plus, Tommy Orange rules. (Blackbird Spyplane)
— You should be reading Puck! (New York Magazine)
— I’ve been thinking a lot about how some of the most important activists are often some of the most insufferable people, both historically and now. Much to think about! (New York Magazine)
— This piece about Google killing independent sites … kind of seemed whiny! That is callous, I apologize, but everyone knows you play the referee not the game. (House of Fresh)
— This was smart! (Vox)
— Oh man what Vice eulogy to share? Too many of them were too simplistic. Vice was built to succeed in an era that has since passed, and I disagree with broad claims of its quality. Parts of it were good; parts of it were quite bad. But it is true that the eye-watering pay disparities between executives and journalists are reprehensible and part of the problem. (Defector)
Cover image: "Two women on the shore,” by Edvard Munch