How do you build a media business?
To build a Media - Business I think you need to know two things.
First of all you need to make Media that people care about.
Than can be pretty much any information and entertainment delivery medium: Writing, Visual, Audio. that's how we consume media for the most part. As long as you make something in this area that is interesting enough to a large enough group of people you can build a business out of that.
The business side is that you need to make money from the media you are creating. Sounds obvious but is often overlooked. A frequent mistake is to make media first and figure out monetization later.
Media doesn't have to be a business either. It can exists as a hobby, artistic expression or just for yourself.
To make this choice easier for you here are the main ways "media" makes money.
Direct Sales
Advertising
Licensing
Subscriptions
Events
There might be more but that is it of the top of my head and most others can probably be part of those. So let me explain
Direct Sales
in this case the medium is directly sold to a person.
Think of books, DVDs, a single newspaper. You offer medium and person buys it. Giving you a one off transaction.
Advertising
The medium has advertisement placed in it and that is how the publication is financed.
Newspaper and Magazine Ads, Video sponsorships, Pre-Roll Ads, classified ads. Things like that. Even if we don't think about it in this way most broadcast media since the beginning of newspapers has been funded though advertising.
Licensing
TV-Shows can be licensed to other countries or channels. Then they pay for the right to show it. Media can also be licensed to stock websites for example. In this case the creator or owner of the media is giving specific distribution rights to another company who is monetizing it in their way. But the creator/owner is getting paid by the company not their consumers.
I feel like this is a bit more complex than I want it to be but probably understandable enough.
Subscriptions
Instead of having a one off transaction media makers and consumers can have an ongoing exchange of money. That's a newspaper subscription, HBO, Netflix, Nebula, Dropout or a book club and there are probably countless other examples like that.
Essentially the business is continuously providing the consumer with media and so the consumer is continuously paying for it.
In recent years subscriptions have gotten a bad rep but they have been around for a very long time. If this relationship is between a production company and someone else it can also be called a retainer.
Events
I want to list this as a separate category because it might be the most non-obvious way to monetize media because it's quite indirect.
Going to the cinema and buying a movie ticket might be the clearest example of this but a radio station might host a music festival and earn more through tickets than in the same time on radio advertising.
A podcast might host an in-person live recording.
A youtuber might host a meetup, conference or retreat. Where throughout the year their media is free but the event the host is paid for and that is financing their production.
In most cases you will notice that media businesses often have multiple income streams at once to be diversified and not rely on one too much. But usually there is one of the options that dominates their income.
