All The Ways To Make Money In Media Without Running Ads

All The Ways To Make Money In Media Without Running Ads

All The Ways To Make Money In Media Without Ads

It turns out there are a lot of ways.

Shape

By Michael Rothman , Co-Founder, CEO at Fatherly@mjrawth

At a time when Google, Facebook and Amazon capture up to 70% of all ad dollars generated in the US and newspapers across the country have  shed half their journalism jobs since 2008 , you may think only a masochist would make a career in ad-supported media right now. But every period of creative destruction provides a wellspring of opportunity for entrepreneurs with passion, a point of view on the world and a capacity to embrace uncertainty. The lessons here are broad-when it comes to marketing your product, every company is in some ways a media company, and finding multiple revenue streams is essential to most healthy businesses. 

To benefit anyone trying to build a content business, I've compiled a list of successful revenue models. I deliberately left out advertising models because I want to highlight what else is out there in a world where a predictable advertising business is increasingly out of reach for all but the largest platform providers.

I've worked in media for nearly 20 years. I was on the founding team at  Thrillist , started  Fatherly