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Laura Fitzgerald
Finding a Niche
At the dawn of journalism, there were few places to go to receive news. Most of the time,
there was one local paper in town. When television became popular, there were only three major
television networksNBC, CBS, and ABC, so they had to appeal to large, general audiences.
When cable television came around, an explosion of channels came on-air, each becoming more
specialized towards a specific audience. The dawn of the internet accelerated this trend, as
thousands of media websites catered to very specific audiences, and consumers could choose to
follow sites on the web that outlined their interests. The diversification of media has created a
business model in which catering to small, loyal niche markets is the key to success.
Bloomberg News is one company that thrives off catering to the niche market of business
reporting by creating quality content that users can obtain first through their data terminals.
Bloomberg News grew from Bloomberg LP with a small news side in the 1990s to a leader in
business reporting with six media sites and 150 bureaus in 73 countries. Without the Bloomberg
data terminals, the news side wouldnt exist, so that side has to maintain quality reporting. Laura
Keller, a distressed debt reporter, said if she is ever inaccurate her credibility is damaged, so her
ability to do her job correctly is damaged, especially since she relies on good relations with her
sources to get her information. In addition, there is the standard of being fair to sources. Kerri
Geiger, another reporter for Bloomberg, said, being fair is as important as being accurate.
Geiger means that if she reports something that her source didnt want her to report, it damages
her reputation and the quality of her work. The work of the individual reporter reflects on the
organization as a whole, and any news organization is only as good as the quality of the work
done by individual reporters. By maintaining quality work in a specific niche, these journalists

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can garner loyal readers through Bloombergs wire service. In this way Bloomberg is able to
thrive in the media world through its quality work.
But the maintenance of a niche platform can cause problems for a media organization that
sprawls too far from that original niche. In September 2015 Bloomberg News went through a
round of layoffs, firing about 90 journalists, after founder Michael Bloomberg returned to the
company. Bloomberg and the new editor in Chief John Micklethwait made cuts to news coverage
such as sports and education because the organization had strayed from its original purpose of
providing business and political news to busy financer professionals. The change in the
newsroom also emphasized shorter, newsier articles over longer investigative pieces for readers
short on time. Some news critics were critical of the changes to the newsroom because they felt
the loss of long form investigative journalism equals the loss of quality. In an article exploring
the recent changes at Bloomberg, Damaris Calhoun wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review
that, To several reporters and editors who tough they were building Bloomberg into a world
class news organization, under Winkler, Bennet, and Hays, the company no longer holds the
promise it once did. In addition, the round of layoffs definitely caused headaches and strain
within the company. The upholding of a niche within a larger organization can come with
consequences when that organization strays too far from its original niche.
The rise of VICE media illustrates the creation of media companies that cater to hard-toreach niche audiences. BJ Levin, an executive producer for VICE on HBO said the key to
finding success in the media world is to, have a niche and own it. VICEs niche started out in
1994 as a punk magazine that catered to millennials. It since then has ballooned into a wildly
successful company with a website, news division, and documentaries on HBO. It garnered huge
investments from media giants Disney and Hearsts A&E and TCV, companies that have

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sponsored Netflix and Facebook, demonstrating its success
of its credibility from traditional media giants.
success, Levin said, is its unique ability to

and acknowledgement
The key to VICEs
reach such a

hard-to-reach audience. Since it was one

of the

only competitors in the millennial

niche, it had little competition and
thrived. Reaching a hard to reach audience and dominating that audience is one recipe
for success in a niche publication
The rise of the podcast
shows how the diversification of

VICE media thrived because it appealed to millennials, reached a

hard-to-reach niche audience.

media also extends into new media that exist alongside old media. Alex Blumberg, CEO and cofounder of Gimlet Media, said the popularity of the podcast wont edge out older media like
radio. I dont think anything ever goes away, Blumberg said. The landscape just gets more
crowded. He means that podcasts will never replace old media because the audience for it will
never fall away from it completely. Rather, audiences will diversify the platforms that they use
media onthey may still listen to radio in the car, but listen to podcasts in a more mobile setting,
like on their phones as they go about their day. New media, the podcast, can still exist alongside
old media, the radio, as audiences diversify the platforms that they use.
Departures demonstrates how a publication can thrive on a niche sector through audience
loyalty. Departures magazine effectively limits its readers to a very small nichethe very
affluentby restricting membership to American Express Platinum cardholders. Jessica Flint,
senior travel features editor, said her audience is incredibly loyal, and even cited an example in
which she featured a restaurant in one of the issues and the owners of the restaurant contacted

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her to say they had patrons come and spend an obscene amount of money simply because they
had read about it in the magazine. Since the magazine is free for subscribers, it depends on ad
revenue. This, however, is not a drawback, because luxury advertisers realize the loyalty of
Departures readers and flock to the magazine. In fact, 2014 was the third consecutive year of
growth. This shows the importance of niche audience that is extremely loyal is good for business.
The rise of the internet allows more media companies to occupy specific niches and
coexist peacefully alongside other niche groups as audiences diversify and increase the amount
of sites they consume. Amada Wolfe, senior digital director of fitness.com and shape.com said it
was hard to pin down her competitors because as an online publication, she is simply trying to
get as many eyes on her content as possible, so she doesnt necessarily have specific competitors.
She said that when obtaining online users, Its not a horse race. In the online world, just
because one person goes to one sight doesnt mean they wont go to another. Users will often go
to Google and scroll across multiple sites, so they dont remain loyal to any one publication, like
they have in the past with print subscriptions. The internet allows many publications to survive
within the same niche. The real challenge is then getting your website to the top of the search
page so that you have the maximum amount of eyes on it. With the rise of the internet, audiences
diversify the platforms they use even within the same medium, allowing multiple publications to
survive within the same niche.
Departures magazine serves as the antithesis to the larger trend of print publications
finding successful niches online. The reason the print edition has served so well in the digital age
is because subscriptions are very exclusive. In addition, the content, online isnt real
journalism Jessica Flint said. While this is an opinion, Flint still points out the fact that a tiny
fraction of the content that is online is also in the print magazine. The online version is for all

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audiences, so content online isnt as marketed to the affluent audience that the print subscribers
comprise. The print subscribers receive content in print that is not available anywhere else, so it
creates a very loyal audience that contributes to the success of the magazine.
Social media is a new platform that is used to engage with loyal niche audiences. Jane
Frye, the audience engagement and social media manager for ABCs The View, uses social media
by finding Twitter and Facebook comments from viewers and posting it on the show. Frye said
doing so engages the audience with the show and presents viewpoints from the average viewer,
as opposed just to the views of the celebrity hosts. The View, which features all-female hosts and
often focuses on womens issues, caters to the older women, most of the time with a family. Frye
said this is an incredibly loyal audience, especially since this audience has a considerable amount
of time on their hands, and social media acts as an outlet for that loyalty. Social media is a viable
tool to harness the loyalty of an audience to engage them in a show or publication.
For better or for worse, the media landscape is getting more crowded with the internet
and other new media platforms like podcasts and social media. On one side of the spectrum,
audiences diversify and multiply the content they use when they search for content on Google,
allowing for multiple publications like fitness.com and shape.com to occupy the same niche. In
this business model, getting the most amount of views is key, so online publications fight to stay
at the top of the search bar. On the other side of the coin, some media giants like Bloomberg and
Departures that exist across multiple platforms thrive off finding a loyal audience within their
niche, or by reaching hard-to-reach audiences, like VICE media. Still others use social media to
harness the loyalty of their audience, such as The View. For better or for worse, niche
publications are here to stay, and it is a business model that has proved successful in the new age
of media.

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Sources
Calhoun, Damaris. Bloomberg's New Regime and Tension over the Editorial Vision. 30 June
2015. http://www.cjr.org/analysis/bloomberg_news_tensions.php.
Departures and Travel + Leisure Post Advertising Increases in First Quarter. 11 February 2014.
http://www.magazine.org/industry-news/press-releases/member-pressreleases/departures-and-travel-leisure-post-advertising.
History and Facts. 2016. http://www.bloomberg.com/company/bloomberg-facts/.
Steel, Emily. Vice Lands 2nd Investment, to Fuel Expansion. 4 September 2014.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/business/media/vice-lands-2nd-investment-to-fuelexpansion.html?_r=0.
Laura Keller, interview, Jan 12, 2016
Kerri Geiger, interview, Jan 12, 2016
BJ Levin, interview, Jan 14, 2016
Jessica Flint, interview, Jan 13, 2016
Jane Frye, interview, Jan 12, 2016
Alex Blumberg, interview, Jan 14, 2016

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