Have you ever heard someone rethink an entire industry's business model in the middle of a conversation?
I did last month.
Brian Morrissey hosts The Rebooting, a podcast about how newspapers, magazines, and other media companies are adapting to the digital age. Last month, he interviewed Jennifer Ferro, the CEO of KCRW, the iconic public radio station in Santa Monica, California.
About halfway through the interview, Ferro said this:
"We use media to cultivate this community. We don't build the community in order to make media."
You can hear the realization happen in real time.
Morrissey paused for a moment, then replied:
"No, no, no, I think it makes a lot of sense because I think a lot of media these days and going forward is just that. It's not what you're producing, whether it's radio programming or whether it's a magazine or something like this. Ultimately, it is about... I think a lot of media is going to be about having a community that wants it to exist..."
Then he added:
"...and that can serve as... I'm sure, like, a KCRW fan, they kind of want to connect with each other."
Jennifer immediately replied:
"People put KCRW listener in their dating profiles."
Then she expanded on the idea:
"People want to connect with each other. And I think everyone, it doesn't matter if you're public media or for-profit, everyone has to think of themselves as brands. You express that brand in a whole bunch of different ways."
A Different Business Model: Community Revenue
Most people would hear that exchange and think it's about radio. It's not.
It's about the future of every creator whose business depends on content.
For years, we've treated content as the product. The goal has been to attract a bigger audience, hoping that more attention would eventually translate into more revenue.
Jennifer Ferro describes a different business model: Community Revenue.
The content still matters. But it isn't the destination. It's one of the ways you strengthen a community that people want to exist.
People don't support KCRW simply because they enjoy the programming. They support it because they value what KCRW makes possible: the relationships, the identity, and the sense of belonging that surround it.
That's why Morrissey stops thinking of KCRW as a radio station that builds an audience and starts thinking of it as a community that happens to produce radio.
That's a fundamentally different business model.
The obvious question is: How do you build something people want to belong to?
The Why? Workshop: Your First Step
Every community starts with a shared mission.
If you're ready to take the first step toward building a Community Revenue business, join me for The Why? Workshop this Monday evening.
It's a free, interactive workshop where I'll help you define your community's shared missionā€”the reason people would want your community to exist. Once you know that, every other decision becomes easier: the content you create, the events you host, and eventually, the ways your community generates revenue.
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