Technological advances have introduced changes in digital media business and funding models. Traditional “legacy” newspapers are reacting to the superior business performance of digital intermediaries such as Google and Facebook, which capture a big part of total digital advertising revenues. This work describes the change of focus of the Unidad Editorial, publisher of a set of leading digital newspapers in Spain, including elmundo.es. The company ceased perceiving other digital newspapers as its competitor and tried to learn from the advertising revenue models of major players in the digital arena. This study argues that the management of big data is deeply transforming legacy newspapers' advertising regime. Their advertising model is increasingly based on more sophisticated segmentation tools and programmatic advertising techniques. It finds that a strategy to attract revenue based on learning from competitive models of big platforms is efficient and logical. Hence, the ability to market the value of individual users in real-time is a key factor in the success of this model.

El big data puede ser un apoyo a la gestión de todo tipo de empresas, como los medios de comunicación. En España, diversos medios han iniciado proyectos vinculados a datos. En este trabajo se analiza cómo está utilizándolos Unidad Editorial para la mejora de su estrategia publicitaria, desarrollo o personalización de productos, mejora de la distribución y determinación de precios. La información se ha obtenido mediante entrevistas en profundidad a los responsables del grupo de áreas como big data, publicidad y digital durante 2017. Los resultados confirman que el grupo ha puesto en marcha proyectos sencillos como la monitorización de datos, pero también más complejos, requiriendo el cambio en el modo de trabajar de toda un área. Los beneficios obtenidos son importantes, aunque no se pueden perder de vista los riesgos para la privacidad o la creatividad.

With digitization, journalistic companies tested out different ways of creating value through the capabilities that technology provides. Online newspapers applied the experience they had with their print versions to brand extensions, aiming to build revenue models that went beyond the classic models for advertising and charging for content. Their goal was to leverage brand value by expanding their name to a new product. This study focuses on Unidad Editorial, which undertook various initiatives testing the power of the digital brand elmundo.es and expanding the boundaries of the business. We use information obtained from 23 semistructured in-depth interviews with executives from the early days of their online business to the present, providing a comprehensive picture. Elmundo.es’s experimentation with brand extensions and other non-advertising revenue sources helps us understand digital media’s shift towards charging for content –which the Covid-19 pandemic provided a favorable environment for– in their search for alternatives to compensate for the decline in advertising revenue. New brand extension projects, for which brand strength and consistency with the original product are determinative, remain open. In addition, these new practices will be subject to the journalistic companies’ investment capabilities.

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Este trabajo aborda cómo ha entendido Unidad Editorial, empresa editora del diario El Mundo, el negocio digital y la función que ha concedido a elmundo.es dentro de la estrategia a lo largo de los años. Se describen las etapas de evolución en los veinticinco años transcurridos desde su inicio y sus condicionamientos externos e internos. Entre los externos tienen especial importancia la “burbuja” de las puntocom, la crisis económica de 2008 y la explotación económica por el manejo de grandes volúmenes de datos o big data. Respecto a los internos, el de mayor trascendencia fue la fusión con la empresa de medios Recoletos y la gestión por marcas que heredó.