Rethinking sustainability: What The Baltimore Banner got right

As an industry, we must think about long-term revenue growth. We need a revenue reset! That is the premise of this column: ideas publishers should consider, promising experiments and ways AI and related technologies might accelerate opportunity for the news industry.”

Imtiaz Patel, a media executive who has led growth, digital innovation and revenue strategy across major news organizations

I’ve spent 20 years in the news business — 10 focused on local news — working at massive organizations like Gannett and start-ups like The Baltimore Banner, where I was the founding CEO and publisher. While I’ve had to cut costs — often out of necessity — the real issue in local news is revenue, not cost. We don’t have enough revenue to do the essential work we do. Cutting cost won’t solve the problem. We need to find revenue. Cutting costs every year, hoping we’ll be fine, just won’t work. As an industry, we must think about long-term revenue growth. We need a revenue reset!

That is the premise of this column: ideas publishers should consider, promising experiments and ways AI and related technologies might accelerate opportunity for the news industry. While some of what I will speak to will likely exist, I hope also to provoke us to think differently, and challenge established norms to find new ways to grow.

For this first column, I want to reflect on The Baltimore Banner, which, while still early in its life, is already shaping up to be a modern success story. Less than three years in, the Banner is on track to hit its revenue goals, with over 80 newsroom staff, 60,000+ subscribers and a Pulitzer Prize. In 2021, during our bid to acquire Tribune Publishing, we thought about a digital native start-up. Our “Plan B” was a digital-first, locally rooted outlet in Baltimore in case we failed in our bid. The Banner emerged from that vision.

Beyond providing the initial capital, Stewart Bainum deserves credit for how intentional we were in every detail of the business. We worked with the late Ted Venetoulis to create the model, which included journalism standards, cost structure, staffing, technology, culture and revenue. We reverse-engineered sustainability. We mapped out how many subscribers, page views and dollars were required for the organization to stand independently at a scale we believed was necessary to serve our communities well. We didn’t think a small newsroom would cut it. We needed scale which presented revenue challenges. We believed in producing exceptional journalism but doing so with a commercially aware mindset.

Sustainability, we concluded, required multiple revenue streams. Subscription revenue had to be at the core — not only because it was dependable, but because it forced us to relentlessly focus on serving the reader. While public interest journalism must remain unfiltered to serve the public, it must also coexist with content people actively seek out and value. That’s why we invested heavily in food and sports coverage. Too many publishers get this balance wrong — producing work they believe people should want rather than what readers actually do want or need.

Our model drew elements from those who came before us: The Daily Memphian, Lookout Santa Cruz, The Texas Tribune, Block Club Chicago and, especially, The Boston Globe, whose subscription strategy we shamelessly emulated.

We built a four-pillar model:

• 50% from subscriptions
• 25% from advertising
• 10–15% from sponsorships and events
• The remainder from donors

This diversified approach helped us scale and mitigated over-reliance on any one revenue stream. In the early days, advertising and sponsorships outperformed expectations, so we leaned into that momentum while continuing to grow the other pillars. Sustainability remained our North Star.

A word on subscriptions. Initially, we launched without any discounts, believing that there was a segment of the population who would support us without needing a discount. This proved correct and got us to roughly 6,500 subscribers. I was vehemently against the $1 for six-month promotion. I believed that few subscribers would convert at the end of the promotion. The Boston Globe convinced us through their experience and data that I was wrong. And so, the “$1 for 6” became our go-to promotional strategy to great success. Here’s a lesson in being open to alternative ideas.

The essence of our success was fostering a deep, deliberate partnership between the newsroom and the business side. This didn’t mean business interests dictated editorial direction — we maintained strong walls there — but each side had to understand the other’s drivers. We invested heavily in cross-education, aligning the organization through shared understanding. Everyone in the newsroom understood our core metrics. Let me be clear. Without this partnership we would not have succeeded.

Key takeaways:

• Diversify your revenue streams.
• Lean into reader revenue as your foundation.
• Make the business of news everyone’s responsibility.
• Have a point of view but be open to alternative ideas.
• Be intentional in every aspect of your organization.

In future columns, I will explore both mature and emerging ideas that we, as publishers, need to seriously consider for a revenue reset.

Imtiaz Patel is a media executive who has led growth, digital innovation and revenue strategy across major news organizations. As chief consumer officer at Gannett, he oversaw consumer revenue and marketing for USA TODAY and 200+ local publications. As CEO of The Baltimore Banner, he built a digital-first newsroom from scratch, reaching 60K subscribers and $10M in year-one revenue. He previously held leadership roles at Dow Jones and has advised publishers like The Philadelphia Inquirer. Based in New York, Imtiaz is passionate about the arts, food and Liverpool FC. He can be reached at imtiazp99@gmail.com.