Business Week has a look at right wing news sites such as WorldNetDaily and FreeRepublic.Com. Along with their right wing political angle, these sites have something else that differentiate themselves from other content sites such as Salon.Com — they’re not losing millions of dollars a month.
In fact, World Net Daily claims that most months it breaks even with monthly revenue in the $250,000-$300,000 range (that wouldn’t be enough to pay the inflated salaries of the folks at Salon.Com).
Or look at Australia’s Crikey.Com.Au which takes in a paltry $66,000 a year in revenue (Salon.Com burns through that much every two days), but keeps costs below $11,000 a year. Stephen Mayne, who runs the site, isn’t getting rich, but is well on the way to turning his site into a profitable small business.
According to Business Week,
Profits may sound miraculous for any content-based Web site right now, but given the smaller scale and narrower focus of these online niches, everything is possible.
“The smaller sites can survive on the media edge. It’s even easier if they are willing to focus on costs,” says Eric Scheirer, an analyst with Forrester Research. Moreover, niche sites’ long-term success could eventually threaten big media’s domination — a concept that has been all but discredited since the Internet bubble burst.
Personally, I don’t think we’re going to see any disruption of big media’s domination of the news anytime soon. On the other hand, the same economies of scale and organizational structures which make those companies very profitable also make it very difficult for them to meet niche market needs — the return on investment simply isn’t worth it. Which means plenty of opportunities for savvy independent web sites.