Análisis del modelo de ingresos en medios nativos digitales de carácter alternativo de España

Abstract

Los roles profesionales, la tipología de contenidos y las rutinas de producción de los medios de comunicación se han visto transformadas en el ciberespacio. La emergencia de medios nativos digitales con una idiosincrasia alternativa, más allá de los cibermedios generalistas ya consolidados, ha planteado además una serie de retos que afectan especialmente a la rentabilidad de estos proyectos periodísticos. Partiendo de ello, la investigación analiza diferentes modelos de ingresos de ocho cibermedios españoles alternativos a partir de un análisis comparativo de estudios de caso, entrevistas a sus fundadores y un grupo focal con usuarios. De este modo, la investigación concluye, entre otros aspectos, que en los cibermedios alternativos predomina una apuesta por modelos de ingresos centrados en la horizontalidad, la participación y el compromiso de los usuarios mediante contenidos que explotan la hipertematización mediante la diversidad y la especialización. El estudio advierte de la necesidad de diversificar las fuentes de financiación e identifica las suscripciones y el crowdfunding como las principales alternativas.

Funding Sustainable Online News: Sources of Revenue in Digital-Native and Traditional Media in Spain

“…The rest rely on just one or two sources of income, among which traditional advertising dominates over more innovative solutions. The comparison with previous studies such as those by Salaverría (2019), Tejedor (2020) or Negreira-Rey (2020) in the case of local and regional media (2020) shows that, in general terms, the income structure of Spanish digital media still suffers from low diversification and it evolves slowly towards new revenue models [51,52,54]. Moreover, the fact that the main source is still standard advertising, for which revenue is declining, poses serious questions about the medium-and-long-term sustainability of news publishing houses, as this source is the only one in use at the majority of the Spanish digital newspapers and non-fee-based radio and television networks.…”

“…In agreement with previous research [11,73,74], the decline of conventional advertising revenue explains the adoption of new revenue streams. In spite of not having reached mainstream status in the market, these innovative funding models show that some companies in Spain-the largest ones, mostly [73] but also new alternative digital-native media [52]-have redefined and experimented with their digital business strategies. Thus, our research shows that sponsored content and user payments-per unit, by subscription or through a membership-are the most popular new forms of digital revenue among Spanish media companies, as each was found to be used at 16% of all active online news outlets in the study.…”

“…With around 3000 news sites registered in 2018 [51], the Spanish online media market stands out for its variety and diversification in terms of size, reach, topic scope and ownership) but also for its financial weakness, which is incompatible with the long-term sustainability of media organizations as businesses and increasing job insecurity [51][52][53]. Furthermore, among Spanish digital media, local and regional organizations prevail (73%); this underlines the importance of proximity in this market [52,54,55]. Additionally, although general news predominates in the Spanish market, there is also a broad offer of specialized sites (32%) [51].…”

“…Second, founding teams are usually small and they rely on citizen cooperation to produce content [55]. Third, the small size of the areas they cover limits their audiences and advertisers, which forces them to diversify their revenue streams, adding models such as subscriptions, crowdfunding [52] or alliances with other companies to pursue common objectives, such as networks of local media [55] or media co-operatives [53]. Finally, the difficulty in achieving the sustainability and the civic aim of this local and regional online news outlets explains how they are the main recipients of public subsidies for publishing and production in the territories' own languages [51].…”

La sostenibilidad del Tercer Sector de la Comunicación en España. Diseño y aplicación de un modelo de análisis al estudio de caso de El Salto y OMC Radio1

“…Los medios universitarios se integran desde 2011 en la Asociación de Radios Universitarias (ARU) y aún no han sido objeto de regulación. (5) Por último, existen otras muchas organizaciones y prácticas de carácter mixto que no se definen exactamente por ser medios sino que son más bien proyectos comunicacionales populares y alternativos con distintas áreas de incidencia -jóvenes, mayores, mujeres, migrantes, etc.-y caracterizados por el empleo de distintos formatos: colectivos de video y cine participativo y comunitario (Montero y Moreno, 2020), medios nativos digitales alternativos (Tejedor y Pla Pablos, 2020), proyectos de información y activismo digital (Calvo, 2020), etc.…”