Media has never sold content
My first job was as an eleven-year-old paperboy, hauling bundles of the local newspaper around a country town three nights a week. At the time, I thought the paper sold journalism at ten cents a copy. In reality, most of the cash came from classified ads. We all know that revenue models for media have been continuously turned on its head over the last thirty years by the internet, search engines, smartphones and social media. Yet we need journalists more than ever, so it is worth asking: what do they actually sell?
Years after my paper round, I would occasionally pass Melbourne’s newspaper presses after midnight on my way home from working late. Readers would be lining up for the first edition, not because a crisis had broken overnight, but because before the internet access to timely detailed information was still relatively scarce. Radio and television delivered the headlines, but newspapers remained the primary source of depth, context and highly specialised information, whether that was local news, financial results, sporting statistics or classified advertisements. They controlled both the creation and distribution of that information.
Looking back, the economics were never quite as simple as they appeared. Media organisations have rarely sold content alone. What they have monetised has changed over time, but it has almost always been something scarce. Perhaps the value lies in something deeper: the audience, the expertise behind the information, the trust attached to the source or the community gathered around it.
Around the same period, I had the privilege of meeting with Andrew Jaspan and Jack Rejtman as they were establishing The Conversation. Traditional newspapers were under pressure, digital advertising was reshaping economics and social media had not yet fully transformed how information spread. Against that backdrop, the idea that universities might collectively support a publication where academics worked alongside editors to communicate directly with the public felt unusual. It was not simply another publication. It was an early indication that expertise itself could become the foundation of a media business.
Through The Conversation, universities gained a mechanism for extending the reach and influence of academic knowledge beyond journals and conferences, while readers gained access to evidence-based analysis. The articles themselves were important, but the underlying value was trusted expertise translated into public understanding.
The scale of that proposition is now evident. What began in Australia has grown into a network operating across more than ten regional editions. Articles are republished in around 90 countries, translated into 23 languages and reach more than 40 million readers each month. The content matters, but the underlying asset is the ability to connect trusted expertise with a global audience.
The Conversation was not an exception. It was an example of how media business models evolve. Media businesses often appear to compete through content, but over longer periods they succeed by controlling whatever has become scarce. Newspapers monetised distribution when access to information was scarce. Commercial television monetised audience attention. Search engines monetised user intent through advertising. Social platforms monetised networks and behavioural data. Creator businesses increasingly monetise relationships. Each model looks different on the surface, yet the underlying logic is remarkably consistent. The winners are rarely those producing the most content. They are the ones controlling whatever has become scarce.
Similarly, industry publications such as Harvard Business Review monetise managerial expertise rather than news, while specialist services such as Bloomberg monetise access to timely financial information and decision support. Membership organisations such as The Information monetise insider access and professional networks. Many Substack creators monetise direct relationships with readers. In each case, content remains important, but it serves primarily as the vehicle through which a different scarce asset is delivered. Some newsletters evolve into courses, executive education and professional communities. Others become marketplaces, connecting audiences with jobs, products or opportunities. The content may attract the audience, but it is often not the ultimate source of value.
What is being sold is often not the content itself but some combination of expertise, relationships, access, trust, community or belonging. These are the assets that remain scarce when content is abundant. That helps explain why media business models appear so diverse today. Many may produce similar content, but they are not all competing to sell the same thing.
The history of media is not a story about content. It is a story about scarcity. Every generation of media leaders has built businesses around whatever was hardest to obtain: distribution, attention, audiences, data, expertise or relationships. As content becomes increasingly abundant, scarcity will simply move again. The winners will be those who recognise where it has moved before everyone else does. Let’s hope the best journalists move with them!