Conventional wisdom suggests that the advertising model for the print edition of newspapers is as dead as last week’s headlines.
In this case, I would not argue with conventional wisdom, even though when you scratch the surface, CW often has about as much substance as table dust.
Yet the trend in newspapers is slowly veering away from basing its survival on ads.
In the case of the Kyiv Post, you perhaps have seen some ads for our other services, each of which are related in some way to news, the printing of it, and the distribution of it:
• Kyiv Post Conferences: It seemed a natural to add the strength of our brand to well-run, newsworthy conferences. With the East Europe Foundation, we are planning a major conference in October and smaller ones along the way.
• Kyiv Post Editorial Services: This is a growing business. We tap into native-language experts in English, Russian and Ukrainian to best present your business website, publication, newsletter or other documents.
When it comes down to it, though, the Kyiv Post’s basic job is to deliver news in a credible, independent manner. That job extends to looking behind the obvious and – being a weekly – providing investigative and interpretive narration to events.
In other words, our job is to tell it like it is and let the chips fall where they may. This is what the Kyiv Post has been good at throughout its 16 years’ existence. Because of this, I call our newspaper the “world’s window on Ukraine.”
As our main product is the newspaper itself and the accompanying English-language website (a new version of which will be unveiled next month), we are focusing on three areas:
• Corporate subscriptions: For about the price you would pay for a jumbo bag of potato chips each week, you get up to 100 copies of the Kyiv Post delivered to your company. You won’t gain weight, but you will learn something.
• Support-the-Kyiv Post vending machines. We’re not the Kyiv Zoo, but we do have a product that is faced with extinction unless we can pay to keep a professional staff. We’re talking pocket change here.
• A pay wall for KyivPost.com: We realize this is a dangerous gambit. However, we believe a good portion of the 5,000 to 9,000 visitors each day have the wherewithal and the motivation to pay to access the website.
What it all boils down to is value: In our first economics class, we learn that purchases are based on “utility”, or how much one wants a certain product, and that dictates what this person will pay for it.
For a thirsty person in a desert, a glass of water could be worth a fortune. For unvarnished English-language news in Kyiv, we believe there is an audience willing to pay. We deal in a scarce commodity: Independent news.
During a recent meeting, the publisher of the Moscow Times looked at me quizzically when I told her that we are trying to place a monetary value on the Kyiv Post. Having given the Moscow Times away for 20 years, she was incredulous.
She was, however, impressed that we have some 30 companies already signed up for corporate subscriptions, and that our commercial editorial services, while slow to get off the ground, are starting to gain a foothold.
The verdict is out on Kyiv Post Conferences. However, our colleagues at the Moscow Times do 35 conferences a year. Hey, we’re just as smart as they are.
In my world, after being at the helm of the Kyiv Post for nine months, I consider our options unlimited, but the strict advertising model is going the way of the gas-guzzling Hummer. I say this even though we have increased ad sales by 32 percent. We remain a long way from where we need to be.
In the future, the Kyiv Post will be based on the economic model of a few coins in exchange for value received.
That’s kind of novel in this business. And yes, this has been an unpaid commercial announcement.
Kyiv Post CEO Michael Willard can be reached at [email protected]
