Abstract

This exploratory article maps the development of the reader revenue market, and its aim is twofold: first, to examine how the digital reader revenue market was structured in 2010–2020; second, to investigate how the market was configured during 2020–2021. The article argues that in the past decade, large news publishers were rewarded for the attention they received from their readers in form of digital subscriptions. Their ability to monetize their audience attention gave them a dominant position in the reader revenue marketplace. In 2020–21, Google’s and Facebook’s payments to news publishers started to further strengthen dominant companies as they were reaping the monetary benefits of them. Platform payments raise a concern because news publishers revenue models may become even more ingrained in the platform ecosystem. Additionally, local news outlets are largely excluded from the large platform payments, potentially weakening their financial position in the reader revenue marketplace. However, platform payments are temporary in their nature, and long-term impacts on the market structure are hard to predict. The analysis here is based on data retrieved from three platform companies and 14 newspaper groups operating in 9 Western markets.

摘要

这篇探索性文章描绘了读者收入市场的发展，其目的有两个：首先，研究 2010-2020 年数字读者收入市场的结构；其次，调查 2020-2021 年市场的配置情况。文章认为，在过去十年中，大型新闻出版商因其从读者那里以数字订阅的形式获得的关注而获得了回报。他们将受众注意力货币化的能力使他们在读者收入市场中占据主导地位。在 2020-21 年，谷歌和 Facebook 向新闻出版商支付的款项开始进一步加强占主导地位的公司，因为他们正在从他们那里获得金钱利益。平台支付引起了关注，因为新闻出版商的收入模式可能会在平台生态系统中变得更加根深蒂固。此外，本地新闻媒体在很大程度上被排除在大型平台支付之外，这可能会削弱他们在读者收入市场中的财务状况。然而，平台支付本质上是暂时的，对市场结构的长期影响难以预测。此处的分析基于从在 9 个西方市场运营的 3 家平台公司和 14 家报业集团检索到的数据。