COVID-19 has halted much of the world’s normal operations and changed our daily lives. As more and more people are off the streets and hunkering down in their homes, media outlets are seeing a historic rise in readership. Now media, an industry that has struggled for years, finally has the modern audience it has failed to attract in large numbers, but outlets are being put to a new kind of test. That’s because many outlets anticipate a decrease in the financial backbone they have grown accustomed to surviving on — advertisement sales.
Journalists are performing a public service by keeping the world updated on all things COVID-19. Glued to their devices, readers are constantly refreshing their news apps to see the latest updates on pandemic-related changes. Last week, COVID-19 made up a reported 1% of articles published and nearly 13% of articles viewed. And, overall traffic to news sites has gone up by 50%. Yet, many local newspapers are bracing themselves for the expected hit on ad revenue. As of now, it’s predicted that 2020 could see a 25% decrease in local advertisement revenue. Think about it: Local businesses are just trying to pay their employees and get by. They no longer have space in their budget for extras like digital advertising.
While some outlets are pivoting to ensure they can keep the public informed while also keeping the lights on (by adapting news coverage and increasing paywalls), others are struggling to find solutions (ones that don’t involve pay-cuts, layoffs, or even halting all activity).
Can media outlets survive off of digital subscriptions alone?
Larger publications like Axios now have a whole section of their platform dedicated to COVID-19 while the Boston Globe has increased their total number of digital subscribers to 170,000 from 111,000 last year. How? By ramping up COVID-19 coverage and making strategic use of their paywalls. On the other hand, some of America’s most prominent publications (The Atlantic, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg News) have decided to offer COVID-19 news to non-subscribers. Seeing the spike web traffic around COVID-19 as an opprunity to reach a new audience.
But local news outlets have not seen the same success, and the coronavirus has led to layoffs across the country. Other local news outlets have announced temporary pay cuts to all full-time staff, and some have even suspended publication altogether.
For now, it does not appear that layoffs, ad loss, pay cuts, and possible outlet closures will subside. In the long run, only time will tell how large of an impact the COVID-19 pandemic will have on the media industry.