have to believe in it, dedicate resources to it, have a person dedicated to it and give it time”. Neue deutsche Medienmacher/innen are now working with organisations in other countries to update the guide.
Re-thinking business models Re-thinking business models may mean new forms of financing or monetising content, or it may mean re-thinking the approach to co-operation. Some of the alternative forms of monetisation are touched on in the previous section: Correctiv benefits from a tax exemption and receives donations from citizens; and Domani is backed by a foundation. In this section, we describe how Telex in Hungary and Binge Audio have used crowdfunding, while AFP is reducing its dependence on its traditional clients through an agreement which will see Google pay for AFP content. Among the different forms of cooperation, Arena for Journalism (an organisation promoting crossborder journalism) provides an infrastructure for cross-border cooperation between journalists. Radioplayer leverages technology-sharing to achieve greater negotiating power and put competing domestic radio stations in a position to take on Apple and Google, e.g. in the case of radio in the car industry. Two projects financed by the European Commission are investigating new tools to mitigate investment costs for individual organisations, and to develop other new forms of monetisation and sharing. For some, co-operation will not be enough and it will require consolidation to take on existing challenges, including the issue of media pluralism. Both Thomas Leysen, Chairman of Mediahuis and Gilles Pélisson, Chairman and CEO of TF1 Group saw consolidation as inevitable. Whatever the model, there was consensus among all speakers that new models should not undermine editorial independence in any way. New forms of monetisation Veronica Munk described how she set up Telex in Hungary after she and 90 colleagues walked out on their previous employer (Index) over editorial independence. They founded Telex, which was based on a crowdfunding and advertising-based model. They raised through Facebook a few thousand euros within an hour and one million euro within one month of launching through crowdfunding. They currently have 49 000 contributors and an audience of 500 000, making it one of the largest news portals in Hungary, and one valued for its independence, the quality of its journalism and its financial and ethical transparency. Binge Audio has also used crowdfunding. It could finance a publishing venture that traditional publishers were not interested in, and this year published four books, mainly on gender issues with a feminist take. “We had an engaged community not only willing to pay, but eager to pay,” Gabrielle Boeri-Charles explained. Monetising any format in the current environment is one of the biggest challenges and it is an area where Fabrice Fries, AFP CEO, said its organisation broke new ground as the first news agency to have signed a neighbouring rights agreement with Google (in November 2021). Unlike some other agreements, including in France, it does not mix elements of copyright and commercial services, but is purely about copyright. According to Fabrice Fries, it will diversify AFP’s sources of revenue, put Google
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