Abstract

The communication companies’ general crisis affects journalists all over the world, and the ones working in the Spanish province of Castellon are not an exception, specially after the closing down of the regional corporation Valencian Radio Television (RTVV) where many of them were employed. To survive, they chose to create their own digital media, competing for a very fragmented advertising market in the local journalism niche. In this paper, the journalistic projects that emerged in Castellón between 2008 and 2015 are analyzed. We describe their business models and their situation. The results reveal two main characteristics of this type of media: lack of a business plan and dependence on public administration content. Both aspects can determine the future development of these ventures.

Abstract

Entrepreneurial journalism is the set of projects created since 2008 by journalists to deal with the transformation of the Spanish media market. Specialization in sports stands out as one of the levers of growth, constituting around 17 per cent of the new media outlets. The degree of innovation in journalism production are analyzed through the measurement of two elements: their value proposition, in particular their business model, and the new ways of storytelling deployed in journalism. We identified and assessed 65 new media according to their degree of innovation. We concluded that new projects generating traditional genres (news, information services) are less innovative in the pursuit of business models. Conversely, the use of different genres (slow journalism) goes hand in hand with models not based only on advertising and sales. In conclusion, while there is little innovation in 41 projects of sports news, at least 8 initiatives with an innovative proposal stand out.