Minority-language media in Europe face pressure as revenue from their business model decreases and audiences turn to other sources or disappear. The digital transformation is inevitable but can take years to implement. With right tools and skills, however, it can be done faster.
The workshop “Digital Skills for the Reader Revenue Era in Publishing” focused on some of the basic blocks of growing direct reader revenue: newsletters, digital audio including podcasts, audience engagement, and social media.
Part I
Part II
HELD ON: Thursday, March 17 (Part 1) and Friday, March 18 (Part 2)
RECORDING: Video recording will be available soon.
AUDIENCE: Journalists (including freelancers), editors, and media managers with minority-language media in Europe.
Topics we covered:
- How to plan a newsletter strategy.
- Why podcasts are important for publishers and how to craft an overall audio strategy.
- Changes that need to be done in the newsroom workflow when focused on reader revenue.
- What roles and skills are important for a digital publisher.
Speakers & Presentations:
• David Tvrdon, 58p.digital, Slovakia
⇓ Presentation available here (pdf file)
• Jana Matkova, SME.sk / Petit Press, Slovakia
⇓ Presentation available here (pdf file)
• Vicent Partal, VilaWeb, Spain
⇓ Presentation available here (pdf file)
• Gwyn Nissen, Der Nordschleswiger, Denmark
Training facilitator:
Jacqui Park, Head of Network Strategy and Innovation, IPI
(Trainers’ short bios are available below)
Resources and Recommended Read:
Additional readings and resources, best practices and cases to learn from:
- Discovering a value proposition
- Too many news media are terrible at communicating their value proposition
- How the FT uses customer discovery to design better value propositions
- How to build a good reader revenue model: lessons from Spain and the UK
- Yes, podcasting can work for small publishers: Tips from the UK’s Reach
- Towards you North Star: Building a subscription-first company
- The challenge of finding your newsroom’s North Star metric
- 5 Steps to Building a Better Newsletter Program
- Five things we can learn from the Funke Mediengruppe newsletter transformation
- All the ways publishers are using newsletters to grow paying members
Meet the Trainers:
David Tvrdon
58p.digital
Slovakia
David Tvrdon has worked in digital media for over 10 years, helped kick start podcasting in Slovakia, and has over five years of experience in digital marketing. He specializes in digital strategy including subscription growth and retention, newsletters, and online distribution. David writes a weekly newsletter on tech, media, audio, journalism, and has a weekly column at The Fix.
At the moment he is trying to find ways to get subscribers more engaged and is working on retention strategies such as building up a comprehensive newsletter offering and onboarding experience for new subscribers. He has won the innovation in journalism award in Slovakia.
Jana Matkova
Head of the Podcast and Video
SME.sk / Petit Press
Slovakia
Jana Maťková, the head of the podcast and video department at SME.sk. Studied journalism at Comenius University in Bratislava. Along with her studies she worked as a video reporter for Slovak daily newspaper SME and its website SME.sk. After school she has gone to public domain radio Slovenský rozhlas, where she covered daily news and was a host of evening show K veci. In 2020 she has returned to SME.sk and started to work as an editor and podcast host within podcast department. Now she is the head of the podcast and video department. SME.sk is the oldest podcast producer in Slovakia and it is one of the biggest producers in the country.
Vicent Partal
Director
VilaWeb
Spain
Vicent Partal is the director of VilaWeb. He has also worked at El Temps, El Punt, Diari de Barcelona, Catalunya Ràdio, La Vanguardia and TVE, among others. He is considered one of the pioneers of the internet in the Catalan Countries.
Co-founder of the weekly magazine El Temps in 1983, he was part of the Diari de Barcelona and TVE (Spanish public TV) newsrooms where he specialized in international politics. In 1994 he created the first internet news system of the Catalan Countries called El Temps Online. In 1995, together with Assumpció Maresma, director of the newspaper at the time, he founded the first electronic newspaper in Catalan, VilaWeb. The same year he created with Jordi Vendrell the program L’Internauta on Catalunya Ràdio.
Currently, he is the director of the electronic newspaper VilaWeb. In addition to publishing daily the editorial of VilaWeb, he writes once a week in Berria and Nós Diario.
Gwyn Nissen
Editor-in-Chief
Der Nordschleswiger
Denmark
Gwyn Nissen has been the editor-in-chief of Der Nordschleswiger since July 2013 and before that was editor-in-chief and director of the transport-media organization Dansk Transportforlag (2008-2013). Previously he spent 21 years at JydskeVestkysten (1987-2008), and had an initial stint at Der Nordschleswiger (1983-1987).
Born in 1963 in Aabenraa/Apenrade, in the southern part of Denmark (NorthSchleswig/Nordschleswig/Sønderjylland), Gwyn now lives with his family in Rønshoved near the Danish-German border.
Questions?
Contact Milica Miletic at [email protected]
NewsSpectrum’s Digital News Accelerator
This special workshop is part of NewsSpectrum’s Digital News Accelerator, a series of expert online workshops on digital transition and business needs for minority-language media in Europe. The accelerator is open both to NewsSpectrum grantees and to other representatives of minority-language media in Europe.