Today, more than one third of all Americans are over 50. Every day 10,000 Americans are turning 65 and by 2030, one in five of us will be 65 or over
This article dives into the media business and makes the case that in an era of increased competition for attention and reduced CPM’s (advertiser speak for revenue per 1,000 impressions), many publishers are falling into a doom loop. In an attempt to maintain their revenue, they add more and more ads to their content, which annoys their audience, in turn reducing attention and ad revenue, which only forces them to add even more ads to maintain their revenue.
The irony of us featuring this article isn’t lost on us. From the early, side-hustle days of Equity Mates to today, our ad load has certainly increased. We hope not to the extent that we’re reading about in this article.
Many digital publishers have entered a world where advertising almost overwhelms content. Take this screenshot from Variety’s website that may go down as one of the worst pages on the internet, at least from a recognised publisher.
Building sustainable revenue streams is a challenge for media businesses of all sizes. Very few have been able to build meaningful subscription revenue streams, meaning that the world’s publishing industry relies on ad revenue. And the industry is struggling to find a balance between having large enough teams to create high quality content and finding the ad revenue to pay for it.
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