Journalism stars are leaving newsrooms to join the new media creator economy. Meanwhile, the financial success of a few obscures the brutal dynamics of this sector.

When the last local daily newspaper in London, the Evening Standard, switched to a weekly in 2024, a number of start-ups launched to fill the void in local journalism in the nine-million-people capital of the United Kingdom.

Many of those — The London Centric, The Minute,the Spy, and others — started as e-mail newsletters by individual journalists on the Substack platform.

By March 2024, they collectively attracted 50,000 free subscribers, per my estimate. Compare this to 275,000 copies the Standard used to print and give away daily.

Since 2017, 50,000 creators have joined Substack, including veteran TV journalists like Jim Acosta, ex-CNN; Joy Reid, ex-MSNBC; and Dan Rather, ex-CBS News. 

Substack’s co-founder Hamish McKenzie compares traditional media to crumbling temples replaced by a media garden of thousands of independent voices.

One in five Americans — including a higher share of younger adults (37%) — told Pew Research Center they regularly get news from influencers on social media.

The brave new world of creators

The top 10 publishers on Substack collectively had hundreds of thousands paid subscriptions and earned more than US$40 million a year. 

In the Politics and News categories, more than 30 publications make at least US$1 million a year.

The financial success of this lot is remarkable, and it attracts more journalists and other creators to join Substack. 

There are now more than five million paid subscriptions on Substack, which makes the platform a bigger subscription brand than The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post. 

But with 50,000 writers, the average Substack counts only 100 paid subscriptions.

Brutal facts about creator economics

The success in this new creator economy is actually rare, similar to other media sectors driven by network effects and positive feedback loops, such as online video, or music, or podcasts. 

The distribution of creators’ popularity, and revenue, usually follows a power law pattern.

For example, in 2024, Spotify paid out US$10 billion to artists, but there were 12 million of them competing for listeners on the platform. 

While the top 10,000 generated US$100,000 or more per year, most artists didn’t earn a living wage on the platform. They earned it through live performances, merchandise, and brand partnerships.

On YouTube, there may be 100 million channels, but the top 3% channels get 85% of all video views and associated revenue.

The host of the biggest YouTube channel, Mr Beast with 383+ million subscribers, made more money in 2024 from selling a new show to Amazon Prime than from advertising revenue shared by YouTube. 

Media was actually a loss maker for its biggest new star. Mr Beast made all profit and most revenue from selling chocolate (US$251 million) rather than from his videos (US$246 million). 

No wonder the most important source of revenue for independent media creators, per a 2023 survey, was marketing off-platform products and services, e.g., books, courses, or events.

Greg’s Readers First newsletter is a public face of a revenue and media subscriptions initiative by INMA, outlined here. INMA members can subscribe here.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .