The informed model

I recently came across an interesting media business model while listening to Brian Morrissey's Rebooting podcast. He was interviewing one of the co-founders of Informed, an app that curates articles from English-speaking, paid publications (like the Economist, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, etc.) for continental Europeans that speak English. The idea behind the business model is that they can license content from these publications and sell this bundle of content without cannibalizing potential subscribers from the publishers.

The reason for this is that the target market of English-speaking Europeans would never need enough content from one of these publications to justify paying for an individual subscription. But when you bundle together some of the most relevant content to this audience from a bunch of publications, it starts to make sense. The publishers aren't actually losing any potential subscribers, so everything they make from licensing their content is pure upside.

To me, this seems like a no-brainer for publishers and could be a nice way to monetize an audience that they would have a very difficult time monetizing otherwise. The only question really lies on the demand side - can Informed get enough paying subscribers that they can reach a scale that makes it sustainable for them? Currently, they are not profitable and running on venture funding, so that is still an open question mark. However, if it does turn out to be a successful model, it could open up other similar distribution models where you can package together local news that is relevant to a wider readership, as well as foreign media that is relevant to American readers. Translation could make these options even more broad. An interesting one to keep an eye on.