Markus Paul Somm was, until late 2018, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Basler Zeitung, the largest daily newspaper in the Basle area of Switzerland. Educated as a historian and political scientist, Somm has published several books on Swiss history and politics. He lives with his family in the Zurich area. While at the Shorenstein Center, Somm wrote a paper that focuses on business models for digital media.
Small is Beautiful
June 3, 2019
The decline of the legacy media started long before the Internet, but the Internet exposed a business model that relied too heavily on the wrong customers. This paper argues that subscription might be the only viable business model for digital media in the long run, but a small circulation might be large enough to make news outlets sustainable. Small is beautiful.
