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Entertainment & Media Business Plans

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Gaming Cafe Business Plan

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Axe Throwing Business Plan

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Did you find what you are looking for.

Entertainment and media is a business category with room for every passionate entrepreneur. Why?

Everyone enjoys going out, enjoying themselves, and sharing new and unique experiences with their loved ones; we’re not seeing it change anytime soon.

Whether planning to start an amusement park, a theatre, or a skating rink—there’s ample growth potential as long as you have a solid business plan.

This library of entertainment, recreation, and media business plan examples here can inspire and guide you as you begin to plan your business. So, we got you covered on that part.

Benefits of using an industry-specific business plan example

Believe it or not, using an industry-specific business plan example is the best and probably the quickest way of writing a business plan.

Doubt it? Hold, this may change your perception; an extended list of the benefits of using an industry-specific business plan template.

• Inspiration : Reading a business-specific template can be incredibly helpful in getting content inspiration. Furthermore, it helps you gain insights into how to present your business idea, products, vision, and mission.
• Risk-free method : You are taking a reference from a real-life, let’s say, axe-throwing business plan—so you know this plan has worked in the past or uses a method subscribed by experts.
• Deep market understanding : Analyzing and reading such examples can provide clarity and develop a deeper market understanding of complex industry trends and issues you may not know but relate directly to the realities of your business landscape.
• Increased credibility : A business plan developed using an example follows a standard business plan format, wisely presents your business, and provides invaluable insights into your business. There’s no question it establishes you as a credible business owner, demonstrating your deep business and market understanding.
• Realistic financial projections : Financial forecasting being a critical aspect of your plan, this real-life example can help you better understand how they project their financials—ultimately helping you set realistic projections for your business.

These were the benefits; let’s briefly discuss choosing a media or entertainment business plan template that best suits your business niche.

Choosing an Entertainment or Media Business Plan

This category itself has 30+ business plan templates for various entertainment and recreational businesses. With many similar business types and templates, you may not find the most suitable one through manual scrolling.

Here are the steps to consider while choosing the most suitable business plan template.

Identify your business type

Are you going to open a massive amusement park for children? a sports complex for athletes? Or a family entertainment center for all?

Asking yourself these questions will help you identify your business type, which will help in choosing a niche-specific business plan template.

Once you identify your business type, you can choose between templates for different business segments.

Search for the template

We have an in-built search feature, so you can easily search for a business-specific template using your business type as a key term(e.g., media company business plan pdf). Once you have the search results, choose the most suitable one. Simple as that.

Review the example

Look closely at the content of the sample business plan you are considering. Analyze its sections and components to identify relevant as well as unnecessary areas.

Since all the Upmetrics templates are tailored to specific business needs, there won’t be many fundamental customizations. However, a hybrid business model targeting multiple customer segments may require adjustments.

For instance, if you plan to start a golf stimulator that also includes activities like bowling alley, skating rink, and arcade—you may need to make necessary adjustments to your business plan sections depending on your service offerings.

No big deal—you can view and copy sections from other business plan examples or write using AI while customizing a template.

That’s how you find and select the most suitable entertainment business plan template. Still haven’t found the perfect business plan example? Here’s the next step for you.

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Discover Upmetrics’ library of 400+ customizable business plan templates to help you write your business plan. Upmetrics is a modern and intuitive business planning software that streamlines business planning with its free templates and AI-powered features. So what are you waiting for? Download your example and draft a perfect business plan.

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Must-Have Media Company Business Plan Templates with Samples and Examples

Falak Chandna

Introducing the all-inclusive media company business plan template, thoughtfully designed to provide you with both a solid foundation and inspirational samples and examples. In today's rapidly evolving media landscape, a well-structured business plan is the compass that will guide your company to success. Whether you're seeking funding, outlining your growth strategies, or defining your unique value proposition, this template has got you covered. We understand the overwhelming challenges and opportunities in the media industry, and our aim is to help you craft a compelling narrative that showcases your vision and attracts the right stakeholders. Let's embark on this transformative journey together, empowering your media company to flourish and make a lasting impact in the world of media and entertainment.

Template 1: Media Service Provider Company Business Plan

This carefully-crafted document combines the practicality of strategic planning with the appeal of visual storytelling, presenting your business model, target audience, revenue streams, and competitive advantage in a concise and compelling manner. Whether you're seeking investors, partners, or you own an Event Management Company , this versatile resource will elevate your pitch to new heights, providing a clear roadmap for success in the dynamic and ever-evolving media industry.

Download Now

Template 2: Media and Entertainment Company Profitable Business Model

It is a strategic framework designed to analyze and optimize the business model of a Digital Media and entertainment company. It incorporates key components such as Customer Segments (CP), Value Propositions (VP), Customer Relationships (CR), Revenue Streams (RS), Key Resources (KR), Key Activities (KA), Key Partnerships (KP), Cost Structure (CS), and Sales Channels (SC). By utilizing this canvas, media and entertainment companies can identify their target audience, tailor their value offerings, enhance customer relationships, diversify revenue streams, leverage essential resources, form strategic partnerships, manage costs efficiently, and optimize sales channels.

Over To You

The media company business plan templates present a powerful and indispensable resource for aspiring entrepreneurs and established businesses in the media industry. Using our B usiness Plan  PPT Sets, you can gain a clear understanding of the essential components required to create a robust and compelling business plan. These templates cover critical aspects such as market analysis, competitive positioning, target audience identification, revenue generation strategies, and operational planning. As you embark on your media venture, these business plan templates will serve as your roadmap, guiding you toward achieving your goals and making a significant impact in the vibrant and ever-evolving world of media and entertainment. Embrace this invaluable tool, and let your media company flourish with confidence and innovation.

Frequently Asked Questions on Business Plan

How do i write a business plan for a media company.

Writing a business plan for a media company requires a structured approach and careful consideration of various elements. Start by conducting thorough market research to understand the media industry's current trends and opportunities. Define your company's vision, mission, and objectives, as well as your unique value proposition. Identify your target audience and outline your products or services. Include details about your marketing and sales strategies, competitive analysis, and financial projections. Additionally, highlight the key team members and their roles in the company. Be sure to review and revise the plan regularly to keep it updated and aligned with your evolving business needs.

What is the business description of a media company?

The business description of a media company provides an overview of the company's nature, goals, and offerings. It typically includes information about the company's history, its mission and vision, the types of media services or products it provides, and its target market. The business description should also highlight the company's unique value proposition, which sets it apart from competitors. Additionally, it may mention the company's achievements, key milestones, and any notable partnerships or affiliations.

What are media business models?

Media business models are strategies and frameworks used by media companies to generate revenue. These models include advertising-based, subscription-based, pay-per-view, freemium, licensing and syndication, affiliate marketing, and content creation and distribution models. Companies often use a mix of these approaches to diversify their income streams and adapt to industry changes.

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How to Start a Media Business in 6 Simple Steps

It used to be that a handful of media companies with deep pockets owned and controlled the industry.

These conglomerates had complete control of the information and entertainment we consumed. 

The digital age has completely overturned the industry. 

Now, anyone with a computer and camera and an exciting take on news or entertainment can create a media company. 

6 Steps to Start a Media Business

If you’ve always been interested in the media business, there has perhaps never been a better time to join the fray. 

• Create a plan for your business
• Sign up for media planning software
• Identify your target audience
• Register your business
• Start creating content
• Choose how you’ll make money

The Easy Parts of Starting a Media Business

Not everything about starting a media business has to be complicated.

One of the most promising prospects of getting into this business is the flexibility it offers. You are free to dedicate as little or as much time to starting and growing your business. In addition, you can start as a solopreneur handling all aspects of your business.

This way, you can keep your day job until your company is profitable enough to justify running it full-time.

A media business also has low barriers to entry. Specifically, a digital media business requires little more than your time and effort. You can get started even without an office space, working out of your home. You can also get started with just the basics, like a workstation, internet connection, and website.

Similarly, there are few overhead costs when running a media business, especially in the beginning. You don’t need to worry about paying employees, inventory, storefront, and other overheads associated with most types of business.

The media business also has potentially high gross margins. Coupled with the low overhead costs, you get to keep much of your profit.

Finally, all the information you need to start and run a successful media company is freely available. There are bountiful blogs, websites, Facebook groups, eBooks, YouTube videos, and other media dedicated to helping you start your business. Much of this information is also high value and completely free.

You also don’t necessarily need specific media education or certification to get started.

The Hard Parts of Starting a Media Business

There are many attractive reasons to get into the media business. But not everything is rosy in this line of work. Like starting any other business, you can expect challenges and drawbacks when creating your media company.

The most immediate challenge you’ll face when starting your business is competition. The media business is crowded, and some of your competitors have been in the industry for decades.

Building trust with your audience and clients can prove challenging. It will take some time before you can carve out a space for yourself in the media landscape.

Another challenge once you’re up and running is cash flow. This is especially true in the weeks and months following your big company launch. Starting your business means you are self-employed.

There are no benefits or paid time off. Additionally, you don’t have a consistent check to look forward to. You only get paid for your work, and you can expect some dry months in the beginning.

Starting a media business is also labor-intensive. You’ll likely be handling all the administrative tasks on top of making major business decisions. In addition, your business could easily obliterate your social life and even get in the way of spending quality time with your loved ones.

Lastly, maintaining a positive brand image can prove challenging. You are putting yourself out there as an expert makes you an open target for criticism. Navigating the political and social landscape can be tricky. And, the internet can be brutal for people who are actively putting out their ideas and opinions. You need thick skin to succeed in this business.

However, a media business can be rewarding despite the challenges. The media market is incredibly fragmented in the digital age. There’s a good chance for you to find a niche that you are passionate about, matches your expertise, and where you are likely to succeed.

If you’re ready to pull the trigger on your business idea, here’s how to create a media business step by step.

Step 1 – Create a Plan for Your Business

The media business is an extensive industry. According to Law Insider , you’re in the media business if you engage in creating, producing, distributing, exhibiting, or otherwise exploiting visual, audio, or audio-visual works or recordings. Specific works falling under this definition include television, books, radio broadcasting, periodical publishing, and merchandising.

So, it is necessary to narrow down your idea of the media business you want to create.

Choose Your Niche

There are almost infinite options when starting a media business. So, choose a niche to get started building your business. Some of the most common media niches include:

• Publishing – including newspapers, magazines, books, blogs, research papers, references, and comics.
• Video & Animation – including video products such as YouTube, broadcast television, and animation
• Video Games – including all types of virtual environments like virtual reality
• Film – may include producing and distributing documentaries, movies, and music videos
• Streaming Media – refers to on-demand media that people can access online
• Audio – such as broadcast radio or podcasts
• Music – includes producing, distributing, and performing music
• Interactive Media – like apps, websites, and software

The business niche you choose is entirely up to you. But, there are a few guidelines that can help you choose the best niche. For example, you want to start with a general area where you are knowledgeable. To this end, think about your passions, hobbies, and previous work experience.

Then, identify a gap within that market where you position yourself to solve problems. For example, Michael Arrington started the now popular website TechCrunch.com as a part-time blogger. He focused solely on technology news, allowing him to position his blog as the go-to source for technology news. As a result, TechCrunch was acquired by AOL in September 2010 for approximately $40 million.

Create a Business Plan

A business plan will inform almost every aspect of building and running your business. So, it is worth dedicating some time and effort to creating a plan for your business. Primarily, the business plan will help you identify your goals and objectives. It will also chart a path to reaching the objectives and help you manage your budget and time.  

Some of the sections to detail in your business plan include:

• Executive summary
• Financial considerations
• Keys to success

The Small Business Administration (SBA) website offers extensive resources to help you plan, launch, manage, and grow your business.

Step 2 – Sign Up for Media Planning Software

Media planning can be tricky, especially when getting into business for the first time. Media planning software like Bionic helps to make the process easier. The Bionic team will even set up your account within an hour of requesting a free trial.

The platform even sets up training at no extra cost to ensure you get the most out of the software suite.

Request a Free Trial

Simply visit this link to request your free trial. You’ll need to provide a few details including your first and last name, phone number, and email. Then, you’ll receive an email from the customer support team with the credentials for your active account.

The free trial includes all of the software’s features. The team will also help you create your first media plan. This software has everything you need to look professional from the get-go. Bionic works for all media channels, including radio, digital, TV, and print.

Bionic offers three pricing options: Month to Month ($225/month), Annual Contract ($195/month), and Annual Pre-Pay ($175/month). You also get a 14-day money-back guarantee in case you don’t like what the tool has to offer.

Step 3 – Identify Your Target Audience

It is also crucial that you identify the customer group you want to target with your media company. This step will also help you determine the direction of your business. For example, your target audience will determine the type of content you create, the most effective marketing channels, and even how you monetize your media business.

Learn the Types of Target Audiences

Breaking up target audiences into segments makes it easier to find your ideal audience. Some of the categories of target audiences include:

Interest – this group includes audiences with specific hobbies, interests, and entertainment preferences. Interest groups are especially valuable for creating brand loyalty. Therefore, it is worth segmenting audiences into different groups under this category. For example, you can have different groups for entertainment preferences, hobbies, and interests.

Purchase Intention – Audiences in this group are the spenders. They will be the backbone of how your media company generates revenue.

Subcultures – This group is even more effective for creating a community around your brand. Audiences in this group share everyday experiences such as entertainment fandoms or music genres. You can go a long way in creating a loyal following if you understand what motivates this target group.

Ask the Right Questions

There are a few critical questions that can help you identify your ideal target market.

• The type of media you plan to offer your customers
• The market segment that benefits most from your media
• What is unique about the content you plan to offer?

The answers to these questions should easily guide you in identifying an ideal target audience. This way, you can create relevant media that appeals to your customer base. Then, you’ll be able to communicate your value through your core messages and media services.

Then, segment your target audience according to age group, interests, location, and language. This step will further help you target your message to the correct audiences.

Define Your Value Proposition

Defining your value proposition helps to set the pace for your business. Media businesses are a dime a dozen. So, it helps if you can figure out the unique value you have to offer. Does your media company offer unbiased news? Do you have a fresh perspective on entertainment news? 

Think about what you have to offer that is fresh, unique, and valuable in the marketplace. You’ll face a lot of competition from more established media companies. Having a unique value proposition will make it easier to take some much-needed market share.

Step 4 – Register Your Business

You’ll need to set up a business structure before you can get to the hands-on parts of starting a media business. Registering your business will help you appear professional right out of the gate. Also, registering your business has practical implications like paying taxes, liability protections, opening a business account, and hiring employees.

Choose a Business Structure

For most people, a Limited Liability Company (LLC) is the best business structure for a media company. An LLC is flexible, allowing you to publish alone or bring on partners.

You also get limited liability protection, meaning that you are not personally liable for your business’ losses, debts, lawsuits, and other liabilities. This way, you can protect your personal finances and assets.

Additionally, an LLC offers flexible tax options to benefit your bottom line. For example, you can choose to be taxed as a partnership or corporation. We have a great guide here to help you choose the best business structure for your operation. At the very least, you should look into limited liability protection.

So, a sole proprietorship or partnership is out of the question. These business structures do not offer limited liability protection. Your personal assets and finances will be fair game if you run into business difficulties like debt or lawsuits.  

Register Your Business

Once you’ve settled on a business structure, it’s time to make it official. The process of registering an LLC is relatively straightforward. You’ll need to:

• Choose a name for your LLC
• File an Articles of Organization with the secretary of state
• Pay your state filing fee
• Create an operating agreement
• Obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS

We recommend using a business formation service or a legal service. Of course, you can always register the LLC on your own. But, you may run into challenges in any of the steps. A formation service takes responsibility for the entire process. This option helps you form your LLC quickly and easily.

Step 5 – Start Creating Content

This step may look a little different depending on the medium you choose. For example, creating an entertainment news blog will look a lot different than a podcast. But, there are commonalities regardless of the media platform you choose to reach your audience.

Plan Your Content

Content planning is the foundation of the content creation process. So, it is worth taking this step seriously. First, start by researching topics for your content. This shouldn’t be too difficult if you’ve already picked a niche and identified your audience.

Still, you may be overwhelmed with content ideas and topics within your niche.

To solve this problem, research keywords that can help drive traffic to your platform. Google Ads is an excellent tool for this purpose. It comes with a Keyword Planner. Here, you can get valuable search volume data for your targeted keywords. This tool is entirely free, and you can easily download reports.

You’ll want to make sure that you don’t have direct competition from major players. For example, it will take a lot to compete against The Economist if you plan to offer similar content.

Choose a Topic You Like

This point is especially relevant if you’ll be creating your own content. Building valuable content is a long-term game. So, you may not be motivated enough to produce content consistently if you do not enjoy the topic. On the other hand, search engines and audiences alike reward consistency.

For text-based content, make sure that your posts are easy to read. Images, headers, and bullet points help to make your content more scannable. Again, it may sound obvious but stick to the topic best you can.

For video-based content, be sure to create a structure. A good video should include a hook, a summary of the video, the problem you’re hoping to solve, and your unique take on solving the problem. Finally, end the video with a call to action.

Again, the key to a successful media company is consistency. So, make a schedule for creating content and stick to it. The Bionics software will prove invaluable for this step. 

Step 6 – Choose How You’ll Make Money

The main reason many people get into the media business is to make money. Fortunately, there are various avenues for generating profits in this business. You can also combine two or more business models to increase your revenue. Here’s a look at your monetization options for a media business:

Affiliate Linking

Traditionally, affiliate linking has been associated with social media influencers. But, even mainstream media companies are taking advantage of this potentially lucrative revenue source. For example, the New York Times runs a review website known as Wirecutter .

It is essential to include a disclaimer about your affiliate relationships. Similarly, ensure that the affiliate links are clearly marked. This step will help you maintain your journalistic integrity.

Sponsored Content

Sponsored is a relatively new revenue source. But, many digital media companies leverage sponsored content. Here, companies pay to advertise their content on your platform, alongside yours. You can create the sponsored content or have businesses submit it.

Either way, make sure that the sponsored content is clearly marked. Again, it helps your integrity if your audience doesn’t confuse your regular content with sponsored content.

Memberships and Subscriptions

Here, you put your content behind a paywall. Your audience needs to subscribe to get access to the content. This monetization method is very similar to how traditional media makes money.

Subscriptions and memberships can be tricky to monetize. But, it is still possible if you have a sizeable and loyal membership. You’ll need to offer a lot of value to convince your audience to subscribe to your content.

Display Advertising

Most media companies make money from display advertising. You can offer space on your website for businesses to advertise their products or services.

Display advertising is versatile, effective, and relatively easy to do. So, it is worth a shot when considering how to monetize your media business. This option is particularly profitable when you get a large audience. 

How to Start a Digital Media Company

Starting a digital media company can be very profitable. With proper planning, execution and hard work, you can enjoy great success. Below you will learn the keys to launching a successful digital media company.

Importantly, a critical step in starting a digital media company is to complete your business plan. To help you out, you should download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template here .

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here

14 Steps To Start a Digital Media Company :

• Choose the Name for Your Digital Media Company
• Develop Your Digital Media Company Business Plan
• Choose the Legal Structure for Your Digital Media Company
• Secure Startup Funding for Your Digital Media Company (If Needed)
• Secure a Location for Your Business
• Register Your Digital Media Company with the IRS
• Open a Business Bank Account
• Get a Business Credit Card
• Get the Required Business Licenses and Permits
• Get Business Insurance for Your Digital Media Company
• Buy or Lease the Right Digital Media Company Equipment
• Develop Your Digital Media Company Marketing Materials
• Purchase and Setup the Software Needed to Run Your Digital Media Company
• Open for Business

1. Choose the Name for Your Digital Media Company

The first step to starting a digital media company is to choose your business’ name.  

This is a very important choice since your company name is your brand and will last for the lifetime of your business. Ideally you choose a name that is meaningful and memorable. Here are some tips for choosing a name for your digital media company:

• Make sure the name is available . Check your desired name against trademark databases and your state’s list of registered business names to see if it’s available. Also check to see if a suitable domain name is available.
• Keep it simple . The best names are usually ones that are easy to remember, pronounce and spell.
• Think about marketing . Come up with a name that reflects the desired brand and/or focus of your digital media company.

2. Develop Your Digital Media Company Business Plan

One of the most important steps in starting a digital media company is to develop your business plan. The process of creating your plan ensures that you fully understand your market and your business model. The plan also provides you with a roadmap to follow and if needed, to present to funding sources to raise capital for your business.

Your business plan should include the following sections:

• Executive Summary – this section should summarize your entire business plan so readers can quickly understand the key details of your digital media company.
• Company Overview – this section tells the reader about the history of your digital media company and what type of digital media company you operate. For example, are you a social media company, content publisher, or an advertising company?
• Industry Analysis – here you will document key information about the digital marketing industry. Conduct market research and document how big the industry is and what trends are affecting it.
• Customer Analysis – in this section, you will document who your ideal or target audience are and their demographics. For example, how old are they? Where do they live? What do they find important when purchasing services like the ones you will offer?
• Competitive Analysis – here you will document the key direct and indirect competitors you will face and how you will build competitive advantage.
• Marketing Plan – your marketing plan should address the 4Ps: Product, Price, Promotions and Place.
• Product : Determine and document what products/services you will offer 
• Prices : Document the prices of your products/services
• Place : Where will your business be located and how will that location help you increase sales?
• Promotions : What promotional methods will you use to attract customers to your digital media company? For example, you might decide to use pay-per-click advertising, public relations, search engine optimization and/or social media marketing.
• Operations Plan – here you will determine the key processes you will need to run your day-to-day operations. You will also determine your staffing needs. Finally, in this section of your plan, you will create a projected growth timeline showing the milestones you hope to achieve in the coming years.
• Management Team – this section details the background of your company’s management team.
• Financial Plan – finally, the financial plan answers questions including the following:
• What startup costs will you incur?
• How will your digital media company make money?
• What are your projected sales and expenses for the next five years?
• Do you need to raise funding to launch your business?

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

3. choose the legal structure for your digital media company.

Next you need to choose a legal structure for your own digital marketing agency business and register it and your business name with the Secretary of State in each state where you operate your business.

Below are the five most common legal structures:

1) Sole proprietorship

A sole proprietorship is a business entity in which the owner of the digital marketing company and the business are the same legal person. The owner of a sole proprietorship is responsible for all debts and obligations of the business. There are no formalities required to establish a sole proprietorship, and it is easy to set up and operate. The main advantage of a sole proprietorship is that it is simple and inexpensive to establish. The main disadvantage is that the owner is liable for all debts and obligations of the business.

2) Partnerships

A partnership is a legal structure that is popular among small businesses. It is an agreement between two or more people who want to start a digital media company together. The partners share in the profits and losses of the business. 

The advantages of a partnership are that it is easy to set up, and the partners share in the profits and losses of the business. The disadvantages of a partnership are that the partners are jointly liable for the debts of the business, and disagreements between partners can be difficult to resolve.

3) Limited Liability Company (LLC)

A limited liability company, or LLC, is a type of business entity that provides limited liability to its owners. This means that the owners of an LLC are not personally responsible for the debts and liabilities of the business. The advantages of an LLC for a digital media company include flexibility in management, pass-through taxation (avoids double taxation as explained below), and limited personal liability. The disadvantages of an LLC include lack of availability in some states and self-employment taxes.

4) C Corporation

A C Corporation is a business entity that is separate from its owners. It has its own tax ID and can have shareholders. The main advantage of a C Corporation for a digital media company is that it offers limited liability to its owners. This means that the owners are not personally responsible for the debts and liabilities of the business. The disadvantage is that C Corporations are subject to double taxation. This means that the corporation pays taxes on its profits, and the shareholders also pay taxes on their dividends.

5) S Corporation

An S Corporation is a type of corporation that provides its owners with limited liability protection and allows them to pass their business income through to their personal income tax returns, thus avoiding double taxation. There are several limitations on S Corporations including the number of shareholders they can have among others.

Once you register your digital media company, your state will send you your official “Articles of Incorporation.” You will need this among other documentation when establishing your banking account (see below). We recommend that you consult an attorney in determining which legal structure is best suited for your company.

4. Secure Startup Funding for Your Digital Media Company (If Needed)

In developing your digital media company business plan, you might have determined that you need to raise funding to launch your business. 

If so, the main sources of funding for a digital media company to consider are personal savings, family and friends, credit card financing, bank loans, crowdfunding and angel investors. Angel investors are individuals who provide capital to early-stage businesses. Angel investors typically will invest in a digital media company that they believe has high potential for growth.

5. Secure a Location for Your Business

There are a few things you’ll want to take into account when looking for a location for your digital media company. You’ll need a space that is large enough to accommodate your team and all of your equipment. Additionally, you’ll want to find a location that is accessible and has good internet connectivity. You’ll also want to consider the cost of living in the area, as well as the availability of talent.

The best way to find a suitable location for your digital media company is to consult with a real estate professional. They will be able to help you identify locations that meet your specific needs. Additionally, they can provide you with information on the local market, as well as the current rental rates.

6. Register Your Digital Media Company with the IRS

Next, you need to register your business with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) which will result in the IRS issuing you an Employer Identification Number (EIN).

Most banks will require you to have an EIN in order to open up an account. In addition, in order to hire employees, you will need an EIN since that is how the IRS tracks your payroll tax payments.

Note that if you are a sole proprietor without employees, you generally do not need to get an EIN. Rather, you would use your social security number (instead of your EIN) as your taxpayer identification number.

7. Open a Business Bank Account

It is important to establish a bank account in your digital media company’ name. This process is fairly simple and involves the following steps:

• Identify and contact the bank you want to use
• Gather and present the required documents (generally include your company’s Articles of Incorporation, driver’s license or passport, and proof of address)
• Complete the bank’s application form and provide all relevant information
• Meet with a banker to discuss your business needs and establish a relationship with them

8. Get a Business Credit Card

You should get a business credit card for your digital media company to help you separate personal and business expenses.

You can either apply for a business credit card through your bank or apply for one through a credit card company.

When you’re applying for a business credit card, you’ll need to provide some information about your business. This includes the name of your business, the address of your business, and the type of business you’re running. You’ll also need to provide some information about yourself, including your name, Social Security number, and date of birth.

Once you’ve been approved for a business credit card, you’ll be able to use it to make purchases for your business. You can also use it to build your credit history which could be very important in securing loans and getting credit lines for your business in the future.

9. Get the Required Business Licenses and Permits

The licenses and permits you need to start a digital media company depend on the specific business you plan to operate. For example, if you plan to sell advertising or make copyrighted content, you may need a license from the government. You should speak with an attorney or business licensing agency in your area to find out what specific licenses and permits you need for your business.

10. Get Business Insurance for Your Digital Media Company

There are various types of insurance necessary to operate a digital media company.

Some business insurance policies you should consider for your digital media company include:

• General liability insurance : This covers accidents and injuries that occur on your property. It also covers damages caused by your employees or products.
• Auto insurance : If a vehicle is used in your business, this type of insurance will cover if a vehicle is damaged or stolen.
• Workers’ compensation insurance : If you have employees, this type of policy works with your general liability policy to protect against workplace injuries and accidents. It also covers medical expenses and lost wages.
• Commercial property insurance : This covers damage to your property caused by fire, theft, or vandalism.
• Business interruption insurance : This covers lost income and expenses if your business is forced to close due to a covered event.
• Professional liability insurance : This protects your business against claims of professional negligence.

Find an insurance agent, tell them about your business and its needs, and they will recommend policies that fit those needs. 

11. Buy or Lease the Right Digital Media Company Equipment

To run a digital media company, you will need computers, software, cameras, and storage devices.

12. Develop Your Digital Media Company Marketing Materials

Marketing materials will be required to attract and retain customers to your digital media company.

The key marketing materials you will need are as follows:

• Logo : Spend some time developing a good logo for your digital media company. Your logo will be printed on company stationery, business cards, marketing materials and so forth. The right logo can increase customer trust and awareness of your brand.
• Website : Likewise, a professional digital media company website provides potential customers with information about the services you offer, your company’s history, and contact information. Importantly, remember that the look and feel of your website will affect how customers perceive you..
• Social Media Accounts : establish social media accounts in your company’s name. Accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and/or other social media networks will help customers and others find and interact with your digital media company.

13. Purchase and Setup the Software Needed to Run Your Digital Media Company

To run a digital media company, you need software to create and manage your content, as well as software to sell and distribute your content. Some common software options for creating content include Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, while common software for sales and distribution include Apple iTunes and Amazon Kindle.

14. Open for Business

You are now ready to open your digital agency. If you followed the steps above, you should be in a great position to build a successful business and know everything you need about starting a media company. Below are answers to frequently asked questions that might further help you with how to build a media company.

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How to Start a Digital Media Company FAQs

Is it hard to start a digital media company.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the ease or difficulty of starting a digital marketing business will vary depending on your digital marketing skills, experience, and resources. 

However, if you follow the steps above, you should be able to start your digital media company without too much difficulty.

How can I start a digital media company with no experience?

It can be difficult to start a digital media company with no experience, but it's not impossible. Here are a few tips to help you get started:

• Do some research. Make sure you understand the digital marketing space and the competitive landscape.
• Develop a strong business plan. This will help you outline your goals and marketing strategy .
• Build a strong team. You'll need talented and experienced people to help you grow your own business.
• Be prepared to invest money and time. It will take a lot of hard work and dedication to make your business successful.
• Stay focused and don't give up. Successful businesses take time to build, so be patient and don't get discouraged.

If you follow these tips, you'll be on your way to starting a successful digital media company.

What type of digital media company is most profitable?

The most profitable type of digital media company is one that creates and distributes content across multiple platforms. This could include websites, social media, and other digital channels. Companies that focus on multiple platforms are typically more profitable than those that focus on a single platform, such as just a website or just social media.

A digital media company can also be more profitable if it has diversified revenue streams. This means that the company generates income from multiple sources, such as advertising, subscriptions, and e-commerce. Companies that rely heavily on one source of income are usually less profitable.

How much does it cost to start a digital media company?

The cost to start a digital media company can vary depending on the size and scope of the business. However, in general, there are some basic costs that are incurred in starting any business, such as incorporation costs, legal fees, and marketing expenses. In addition, there may be specific costs associated with launching a digital media company, such as website design and development costs, online advertising expenses, and subscription fees for digital content platforms.

What are the ongoing expenses for a digital media company?

Digital media companies incur a variety of ongoing expenses, including personnel costs, marketing and advertising expenses, and software and hardware expenses. Personnel costs can be significant for digital marketing agencies , as they often employ engineers and technical staff to design and maintain their websites and online audio and video content. Marketing and advertising expenses are also common for digital media companies, as they strive to build their audiences and generate revenue. Software and hardware expenses can also be significant for digital media companies as they often need to purchase and maintain servers, storage devices, and other computer equipment.

How does a digital media company make money?

There are a few ways a digital media company makes money. One way is through advertising. Companies pay to have their ads placed on the website or app, and then the company will receive a commission based on how many people view or click on the ad. Another way is through subscriptions in which people pay a monthly fee to access the company's content. Finally, some digital media companies make money by selling products or services related to their content. For example, a website about travel might sell travel insurance or flight tickets.

Is owning a digital media company profitable?

There are a few reasons owning a digital media company can be profitable. First, the number of people who consume digital media continues to grow. Second, companies are willing to pay a premium for quality digital media content. Finally, digital media is an effective way to reach a large number of people.

Why do digital media companies fail?

There are a few reasons digital media companies fail. First, it's difficult to compete in the saturated marketplace of digital media. Second, they don't always have sufficient funding early on to grow and scale their business properly. Third, some business owners may not focus enough on the customer experience to attract and retain customers. Finally, they may fail if they cannot pivot quickly to new trends in the media industry.

Other Helpful Business Plan Articles & Templates

• Development

How to Create a Production Company Business Plan [FREE Template]

H ighly successful video companies start with a strong production company business plan. Whether your company has been around for a while, or you’re a freelancer ready to take your services to the next level, this post will provide you with actionable strategies for success to compete more effectively right now.

It all beings with formulating the business plan that will get you where you want to go. If you don’t have a business plan, don’t worry. We provide a  free business plan template below and will walk you through it. 

Step by step.

• Production Company Business Plan
• The Executive Summary
• Perform a Video Company Self Assessment
• How to Get Started
• Financing a Video Production Company
• Marketing Plan
• Day to Day Operations

Freebie: Business Plan Template for Video Production

Download your FREE printable business plan template for your video production. Just enter your email address and we'll instantly send it to you!

business plan template

1. what is a production company business plan.

Essentially it's a tool for raising funds, creating a roadmap, or altering course and plotting out the next steps.

One purpose of any business plan to so convey to investors, or a bank, why they should put money into this business.

Think of creating a business plan you could bring to them

What does that mean?

It means you need this business plan for a production company to prove that you will make money. To prove it to you, but also to any investors.

After all, nobody invests to lose money. Or break even. So with that in mind, let's forge ahead into the actual writing of the business plan.

how to make a business plan

2. what is an executive summary.

Every business plan starts from the top down, with an executive summary.

What is that, exactly?

An executive summary is a short part of a larger proposal or report that summarizes the main points so the reader can become quickly educated on the whole document without having to read it all.

So it’s a detailed overview.

Of course, "executive summary" has a nice ring to it...

Your job here is to lay out the big picture of your plan. Some questions to ask yourself: Why do you want this business in the first place?

Similarly, what inspired you to start it? What's going to make it work?

Next, start to answer the questions your investors might have. Try getting into their head-space.

"Why would YOU invest in this business?"

You might want to write about the competition. The targeted demographic. Be specific here.

What need does your business fill? Which kinds of customers and clients are you targeting?

Think about your target market

Furthermore, what else sets you and your business apart?

Especially relevant is using concrete examples and not only ideas. Can you cite previous work you've done?  

This brings us to...

Your production companies competition

What does the rest of the field looks like. Your investor will want to know if they don't already.

What sets this company and this production company business plan apart from others?

Knowing the entire field of competitors you have is a good idea, even if it's a very long list.

Your production company business plan must factor in what else is being offered. That way you can adjust, and target a more specific niche.

Or, you can figure out what you can do better.

For example: what can you identify in your competitor's list of services that you know you can nail?

This is what your video company plan needs to convey.

Finally, remember to think of it from the investor's standpoint. How is this an opportunity for them?

how to create a business plan

3. why a video company self-assessment.

This step is easy to do, but hard to do well.

Can you take a good long look at your video production studio? With the intent to circle problems? Areas that need improvement?

The second part of this step might be easier. Find the areas where your video production studio can really shine.

In contrast, you don't want to elaborate on weaknesses in your video production company business plan. Rather, you want to identify them so you can find ways to address them.

You need to have answers to the questions these flaws might bring to the mind of your investors.

  You are not required to sing “Man in the Mirror” 

Then go beyond looking in the mirror.

Look back at the field before you.

This is a business plan for a production company. What opportunities exist for that?

Most of all, try and tailor this production house business plan to specific needs.

Here are a few methods of company self-analysis:

This is a way to identify changes in your industry, to target potential growth opportunities. The acronym stands for:

P olitical Factors

E conomic Factors

S ocial Factors

T echnological Factors

 P roduction company business plan would include a PEST

We've mentioned elements of SWOT:

W eaknesses

O pportunities

The one to focus in on here is threats. Don't assume everything will work out for the plan just the why you'd like it to.

Because it won't. Investors will know that. You should not only know it, you should expect it.

Most important of all: prove that you're prepared for whatever may happen.

Here's a cool way to approach your SWOT analysis. Try applying your strengths to your opportunities and see what kind of leverage you can create.

Then theoretically expose your weaknesses to your threats. Are you in trouble? Do you need to address something to better protect your company?

Think of this as planning for a battle. Therefore, you don't want to ignore cracks in the wall if your enemy is bringing a battering ram.

Business plan can benefit from SWOT

Strategy, structure, systems, style, shared values, staff, and skills.  The 7S model  was developed by business consultants  Robert H. Waterman Jr. and Tom Peters . It's also known as the McKinsey 7S framework.

The idea here is that your business needs these elements to be aligned and "mutually reinforcing". Let's go over each "S".

Strategy: How does this business plan to gain an advantage.

Structure: How do you divide the various operations of the company.

Systems: Procedure for measurement, reward and resource allocation.

Skills: the companies core and distinctive capabilities.

Staff: Human resources.

Style: Behavior patterns of the key groups like managers.

Shared values are in the middle of them all on the diagram. It's somewhat self-explanatory.

In theory, using these methods of self-analysis will help you a great deal. Due to them you'll know, and decide, all sorts of things about your production company.

The 7 S model of analysis

Start putting these ideas onto paper now! If you haven’t already…

Gentlemen, start your engines

4. how to get started.

A business plan for a production company must lay out how you will get started. This is also referred to as a "roll out plan".

How you engineer your beginning is critical to your cash flow. What do you need to get started?

And can you start at a sustainable level?

Will you open a physical office space right off the bat?

Overhead is a major cost. If this is more of a production house business plan then you’ll want to factor that in.

Do you have existing clients?

Equipment or gear already in place?

A video production business plan suggests that your focus will be on video production. Things like equipment will be critical.

In addition to considering this an entertainment production company business plan you may also want to focus on creative development.

How you want to focus effects how you want to phrase things. And it matters almost immediately.

START FEES YOU CAN AVOID

It's a good idea to propose that you start small.

There are two reasons for this.

The first is that you will scare away investors if you ask for too much up front, almost without fail they can tell if you are asking for more than it seems like you need.

It also throws into question how serious you are about sustaining success.

Which leads to the second reason.

It'll be much harder for you to sustain success if you ask for big upfront funding that you aren't sure you can earn back plus profit.

Let's say because you know of a few jobs you'll have early on, that you ask for less up front.

You'll be able to get rolling right away, earning back the initial investments and then some.

Above all you want to start off with easy wins.

Or as close to easy wins as you can get when launching or re-launching a video production business plan.

Seems like it would somewhat obvious not to ask for more than you can earn back...

Rather, it's a mistake people make all the time.

Speaking of which...

do have the capital?

5. financing a company.

Any business needs capital. As a result, you need a section where you lay out the cash flow for the production house business plan.

What kind of money do you expect to have coming in, and how much do you expect to be spending?

Make the budget, while also estimating how you'll be earning.

If you can't demonstrate this, then you need to go back to the drawing board.

Just pose like this and you’ll reassure any investor

You will want to get involved with an accountant at some point soon.

But remember, this is a business plan for a production company. So you may have a lot of costs coming at you early just to get started.

What is a marketing plan?

Your video production business plan is almost complete. Another section worth including would be one on marketing.

Here is a good additional resource on small business accounting .

You want to prove that business will be coming in, and not assume it will on faith alone.

Building a strong portfolio is a must. Consider again what niche you may be able to serve best. Find a solid "bread and butter" to start with.

Remember, good businesses expand when they need to. They don't bite off more than they can chew right out of the gate.

INVEST IN A GOOD WEBSITE

Do some research on how you’ll be building the best website for your product.

Get your production company a few social media accounts, and start trying to create a presence there. You'll need to find many ways to attract clients, and show your work.

Do some additional research on how to market a production company.

All this needs to find its way into the marketing section of your production company business plan.

what's your daily workflow?

7. day to day operations.

The day to day operations are a critical part of the plan. Have you visualized what the daily workflow will be?

Now is the time to do that. Who is going to be on your team, and how will it grow and change over time?

Determine what tasks will take priority each day, and how to best utilize your resources and finances.

This will be a key step in determining if your production company business plan is sustainable.

Ask yourself a few of the following questions:

How much time per day will you spend building your client base? What elements of each job will you tackle in-house? Which tasks might you outsource?

What equipment and gear do you own?

When will it need to be replaced and/or upgraded?

Are you going to hire anyone to start? Will they be full-time employees?

Will you hire independent contractors per project? How many, roughly?

As mentioned in the finance section, you need to know how you'll plan your reporting for taxes and your bookkeeping process.

These questions will help you start to determine what each "day at the office" will look like.

The clearer a picture you can paint here, the better.

Write a Business Plan

Get as specific as possible in each section of your entertainment company business plan. The more you know... right?

Now, let's get a little more advanced. In our next post we'll dive into writing a 4 part business plan. 

Up Next: Write a 4-Part Business Plan →

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Manage video production timelines, tasks, storyboards, shot lists, breakdowns, call sheets. Made for video creatives, new media and film.

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MONETIZING MEDIA

The business of media & entertainment.

Business Models for Media Companies

How do media companies make money? Across media formats (writing, videos, music, podcast, games, etc), there are 5 overarching business models to generate revenue from the content your company creates: 1) transactions, 2) subscriptions, 3) licensing, 4) content marketing, and 5) advertising. Let’s review.

1. Transactions

Transactional business models are the simplest way to make money off content: slap a price tag on whatever you create and charge for it…just like you would when selling a pair of shoes. This works best when you have larger, clearly defined pieces of content that people are likely to want as one-time purchases separate from other content you have created. We are talking about books, films, albums, games, online courses, research reports, etc.

Transactions can be for content to own or for content to get temporary access to. In the former, the customer buys a copy of the content that they can download or walk away with (i.e. they own a copy forever); in the latter, the customer buys access to content that remains hosted on the distributor’s platform so they can end access after a period of time.

Buy to Own/Download to Own

Historically (pre-Internet), people have bought physical copies of content: a book from Barnes & Noble, a record album from Virgin Megastore, a DVD from Best Buy, a video game from GameStop, etc. As content consumption moved online, this type of transaction went with it: in iTunes, you buy content, download it, and can send the file around to other devices. In a business context, you might buy a report from a market research firm and receive it as a PDF to download. Buying to own is still widespread online.

Pay-to-Unlock

The alternative – and the increasingly common model – is to buy temporary access to content that remains hosted elsewhere so you can’t take a copy to do whatever you want with. For example, a pay-per-view boxing match that costs $100 to see on TV or a movie available for 48-hour rental on Youtube at a price of $2.99. Renting individual movies or TV shows to watch online is referred to as TVOD (Transactional Video-On-Demand). The period of time you get access to content for could be indefinite, but without having a copy of the file itself, you don’t own the content.

From a media company perspective, the pay-to-unlock approach reduces the threat of piracy, which is common with download-to-own content since consumers can send the file to friends or upload it for free on another site. Moreover, a media company collects tons of data about how people are interacting with content they’re hosting; they don’t get data from people interacting with downloaded files.

A newer innovation is  pay-as-you-go content consumption through micro-transactions. The Dutch startup Blendle, for example, created a platform for reading articles from a wide range of publishers that charges you a few cents per article you read. Each piece of content is a new transaction, but because you have pre-loaded your Blendle account, you don’t have to go through a new payment process every time. There are many efforts to use blockchain technology to do micro-transactions on an even smaller scale (i.e. less than $0.01 per article) as well. This micro-transactions model hasn’t taken off in a big way though.

In-experience purchases

In video games and some other interactive forms of media (like VR and AR experiences), you can charge your users money to access tools or other benefits within the experience. Like in a video game, players can spend money to buy a more powerful fighting sword or get more virtual coins. These in-app purchases (IAP) or in-game purchases have become the core of the games industry. The release of the iPhone in 2007 created a boom in mobile games, who found that they make the most money by being free to play (F2P) and then incentivizing players to spend money on optional purchases within the game.

2. Subscriptions

In media, subscriptions are based on access to content for a period of time that’s recurring (typically monthly cycles). It locks in an ongoing relationship with the customer, who has to opt-out of the recurring payments if they want to stop being a customer. Usually, the subscriber gets access to a pool of content that they can consume at will, rather than only getting access to one piece of content.

Because subscribers continue to pay on an ongoing basis, they also expect new value to be provided on an ongoing basis. You typically don’t pay a subscription to consume the same unchanging piece(s) of content again and again; you pay a subscription for ongoing access to a flow of content that’s regularly refreshed with something new. That could be daily news articles, monthly refreshing of movies on Netflix, etc.

Newspapers and magazines tend to operate on subscriptions because they are comprised of many small articles people consume a high volume of. Similarly, SVOD (Subscription Video-On-Demand) platforms – like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, VRV, fuboTV, etc. – have gained traction because people watch enough content on them that they prefer an all-you-can-watch subscription rather than having to consider each film or TV episode as a new purchase.

Because the relationship with a subscription customer is not tied to one specific piece of content but rather the broader offering available to them, the value they measure is their overall experience…the quality of content they’ve consumed, the affinity they feel for the media company’s brand, the “fear of missing out” if they unsubscribed. In this dynamic, subscribers are like members of a club…winning and retaining their business is about a relationship rather than a one-time transaction. It also means that you’ve locked in recurring revenue just by gaining one new subscriber; in a transactional model, you have to fight for every purchase you want a potential customer to make, regardless of whether they’ve shopped with you before (i.e. you have a new “Customer Acquisition Cost” or CAC for every sale).

(Subscriptions don’t have to be only for exclusive content. Sometimes there are other benefits that the audience is willing to pay a subscription for; for example, in mobile games there are often subscriptions that remove annoying ads so you are aren’t interrupted by ads while playing.)

3. Licensing

Many creatives want to stay out of the direct-to-consumer business…they just want to create the content they want, then license the rights to another media company that handles marketing and distribution. This is the classic way Hollywood and other creative industries operated; pre-Internet, it was incredibly difficult for creative teams to also distribute their content. Much of that traditional infrastructure is still in place. There are lots of structures for licensing; sometimes it’s one upfront payment, sometimes there’s a revenue share on the sales (aka royalties).

Films follow this path: a production company sells the film to a studio that markets it and negotiates with exhibitors (i.e. cinemas) and online streaming platforms to distribute it. Television shows are created by production companies, bought by networks, and distributed through networks’ partnerships with cable companies. Music, books, and games are more direct-to-consumer nowadays than they once were, but the traditional distributors still remain important (i.e. record labels and streaming platforms; publishing houses and e-book platforms;  game publishers).

This route makes sense when you work on a small number of big productions, each of which might be unrelated to the others in terms of theme, target audience, etc. It would be inefficient to launch every new film as its own standalone media company that has to build an audience from scratch, for example.

The downside of licensing is that the fate of your content is dependent on middlemen, and you collect little-to-no data on who your audience is and how they’re consuming your content. Without that data and without direct interaction (getting their email addresses, etc.), it is tougher to build ongoing relationships with fans and engage them with new offerings.

4. Content Marketing

Content marketing is, simply put, using content as a tool to market some other product or service from which you make money. (Content marketing is also done by individuals to market their personal brand, with the ROI coming from the benefits the notability brings to their career.)

Brands using media as marketing

Content marketing has exploded in recent years within the marketing departments of companies across every industry. Companies that are bad at it plug their product offerings extensively so there’s no mistake you’re reading/watching promotional material; companies that excel at it focus on creating high-quality, engaging content that develops a relationship between their brand and the audience like a media brand would.

Airbnb, VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase, Hubspot, United Airlines, and tons of other non-media companies have launched media products that operate as a loss because of their marketing value to the rest of the business. Some media entrepeneurs decide to launch their brand as part of a big company’s marketing department (or sell it to them, as we saw with Hubspot’s acquisition of The Hustle).

The content marketing model can also start with media, then expand into relevant products/services to sell once you’ve crafted a brand and audience. In fact, many free-to-read news outlets in the business world are – when you look at their business model – live events companies with extensive content marketing. They cover industry news through articles and videos, and they do monetize that through advertising, but the largest revenue generator is the conferences they host, which are marketed to their business audience with ticket prices ranging anywhere from $500 to $5,000 plus sponsors paying to reach those attendees.

Media companies with e-commerce

A common content marketing model for independent media properties is using IP from the content to do e-commerce…selling merchandise for passionate members of your audience to purchase, just like bands do with their fans. Sites ranging from WaitButWhy to BuzzFeed have done this. Publications like the Wall Street Journal have curated products from other companies to sell in an e-commerce section to their audience. There’s a grey area between being a media company and a consumer brand nowadays.

Affiliate linking

Affiliate linking is when a media site puts links to other companies’ products in their content and gets paid a fee for referring the traffic. This has become a big part of the digital publishing industry. Sites with write product reviews, travel tips, cooking recipes, etc. and link to sites where you can buy the products they mention. They often frame themselves as neutral reviewers but their business model is to drive sales of the products they link to.

Anyone can earn affiliate income from linking to Amazon products since they have a standardized referral program. In other cases, the media company negotiates their own deal with the product sellers. Sometimes the media company is paid based on the amount of people who click the link (pay per click), other times they are paid a flat fee or a percentage commission of that people they refer end up spending.

The New York Times’ Wirecutter is a major player in the product reviews category. Red Ventures’ The Points Guy is a dominant media site for referring Americans to sign up for credit cards with travel rewards. There are thousands upon thousands of sites making money this way. Generally, the key is to have really good SEO for your sites content so people looking for reviews come first to your content then click your links to buy a product.

This is also a common monetization strategy for YouTubers and other social media influencers.

5. Advertising

There are many ways to do it, but ultimately advertising is a simple concept. You create content that draws people’s attention, then you also show promotional content from brands around, above, below, in front of, in the middle of, and/or after your content so the audience sees it too.

Most ads can be direct sold or programmatic:

• Direct sold ads are ad campaigns the media company’s staff sell directly to brands and agencies; this is expensive because of the sales team required but can result in much higher pricing, especially if the media brand has a deeply engaged audience and/or valuable niche audience.
• Programmatic ads are ads sold automatically on big ad marketplaces. Advertisers are on one side (the “demand side”) looking for opportunities to put one of their ads in front of their target audience, but only if the price if within their budget. Websites with an audience are on the other side (the “supply side”) offering their ad space to be bought. This all happens now on an automated, real-time basis for every ad impression (every individual visit to a webpage) rather than with humans on each side. There are adtech tools for both sides matching advertisers with ad space, creating a market where the more advertisers who want to reach a specific webpage visitor there are, the higher the price they pay for show that ad goes. This is a complicated space with many different approaches and technologies so I will leave it at this for now.

Sponsored content (aka “advertorial”) is high quality content similar to what the media companies normally creates, but it is authored by an advertiser. For example, Goldman Sachs might contribute articles in business news publications that share their analysis of economic trends. Or Walmart might sponsor a cooking-focused YouTuber’s video about how to pick the freshest produce at a grocery store. This content is labeled as sponsored but tends to appear alongside normal content.

Sometimes the advertiser (or their ad agency representing them) already have content they created and want to share across media channels; usually the media company creates the sponsored content for the advertiser, with the advertiser’s input and final approval. Many large media companies that do this, from the New York Times to VICE, created in-house creative agencies that not only handle internal sponsored content but also consult brands (for a fee) on making their marketing content and sponsored content elsewhere better.

Since many media businesses have events (conferences, music concerts, etc.), we can also include event sponsorships here. Major consumer product brands often sponsor the tours of major musicians within certain geographies. Consumer-facing media companies that put on events often earn more money from sponsors than from ticket sales (while events by business media companies are often more like a 50/50 split since they can charge expensive ticket prices).

Product placement  is the common practice in video and photo content (including video games) of putting certain products from advertisers in the video or photo as if they naturally belong there. A character in a video may use a certain Samsung phone or drink a Red Bell or drive a Volkswagen, and the brand pays for its product to be included like that. It makes fans of the content feel emotional connection to the brand and desire the product. This sometimes also happens in music, often with a reference to a certain alcohol brand.

These tend to be more complementary ways to integrate advertisers into content and are used my media companies with prestigious brands and deeper audience engagement.

Rewarded ads are common in mobile games but can be used with other types of content as well. You offer your users the opportunity to unlock special benefits (like exclusive content or access to in-game assets like coins or weapons) in exchange for either paying money or watching an advertiser video. These are optional ads that your audience chooses to watch in order to access something. The vast majority of any audience isn’t willing to pay for content so this is a way to monetize those audience members.

Advertising isn’t the focus of this blog, and I’m not a big fan of media companies centering their business model on advertising, so I’ll leave it at that. (Read my post The Problem with Advertising .)

Which is best?

Most successful media companies use more than one of these monetization strategies. Which will be most effective for any given media company depends entirely on the content they want to create, the audience they target, and the ambitions they have for how the company will evolve.

I do believe subscriptions are the heart of a strong media business though. A subscription business model requires you to create high-quality, differentiated content that deeply engages your audience and makes them loyal fans. That means a more financially stable business and more valuable IP. It also puts your company in a stronger position to monetize through most of the other strategies here: advertisers will pay more to be featured to an engaged audience with deeper emotional connection to the content; having loyal fans makes e-commerce viable; your fans trust in your brand means they trust your product recommendations (for affiliate linking).

If you have an equity stake in the business, you should also understand that different business models affect the way investors (and larger companies making acquisitions) value the business. Let’s say a media company has $20m in revenue with $3m in EBITDA and it has been growing 20% year-over-year the last 3 years.

• If all of that revenue is from subscriptions then it is very reliable revenue from loyal fans (who you can easy market new products too) and likely to remain stable for years to come, so investors are willing to pay higher prices for shares in the business. They may value the business at $50m (2.5x revenue, 16.7x EBITDA).
• But if all of that media company’s revenue comes from ads, investors recognize that there is a lot more uncertainty about the future of the business because the advertising market fluctuates dramatically. Maybe then they value the business at $20m (1x revenue, 6.6x EBITDA).

If you founded the company in this example and are now selling it, you would make 2.5x more money if it is subscription-based than if it is ad-based. Also, media companies whose audience is businesspeople (like industry trade publications or podcasts) are generally valued higher than media companies whose audience is everyday people because businesses as customers can afford to pay much more money, tend to be much more loyal, and the advertisers eager to reach them are willing to spend much more money.

— Originally published on 20 February 2018. Updated on 7 March 2023.

How to Start a Media Business

• Small Business
• Types of Businesses to Start
• Starting an Agency
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What Are the Different Distribution Channels in a Service Business?

Ways to enhance a advertising agency, how to create an advertisement for a photographer.

• What Are the Different Types of Advertising Agencies?
• How to Make Your Photography Hobby a Small Business

With people around the world interconnected through their phones, computers, tablets, radios and TVs, media businesses are booming. You can hop on the bandwagon by creating a media business that offers a niche set of communications channels, working for clients, or creating and distributing your own content. Reviewing the basics of a media company business plan can help you decide how to take on this new challenge.

Types of Media Companies

The more you specialize in media, the more of an expert you will be in that space. On the other hand, the more media services you offer, the more business opportunities you might have. One of the first steps you should consider when starting a media company is to decide what types of media areas you want to work in. Some of the services of a media company you might offer include:

• Social media
• Marketing communications (press releases, blogs, SEO, branded content)

Decide if you want to specialize or if you prefer to offer a wide variety of services. The more services you offer, the more staff or contractors you’ll need. You also need to decide if you want to be a publisher who makes money selling advertising and sponsorships and creating other revenue streams, or if you want to work for clients, creating communications for them.

Agency or Publisher?

After you identify the type of media you are confident you can successfully create, manage and sell, decide whether you will be a publisher or create media for clients. That choice determines how you will generate revenue and create content.

Research your competition in the areas that interest you to see what your potential competitors are charging, who their clients are, what quality of media content they are producing, and where they are marketing themselves. This helps you decide whether you can compete in this area and, if so, how you have to operate.

Set Up Your Niche

Now that you’ve decided whether you’ll be a publisher or service provider and identified the form(s) of media you’ll be creating, set up your list of services. For example, if you want to be a publisher in the nutrition space, you might create a print or digital magazine as your main product. You’ll expand your offerings with a blog, specialty books (print or digital), YouTube channel, and other social media accounts. You might exhibit at local or national health fairs or operate your own.

If you start a public relations firm, you might offer press release writing, collateral material development, crisis-management communications, social media management, event planning and article ghost-writing.

Write a Business Plan

You can project your expenses and revenue and develop an operating manual if you write a business plan before you launch. Many free business plan templates are on the internet, and you can find a free SCORE mentor to review your plan. The basic sections include:

• Executive summary
• Marketplace overview
• Product/service description
• Marketing plan

Your business plan should include information on your media choices, target audience, target advertiser/client, competition, and pre-launch and first-year budgets.

Set Up Your Business

Decide on a business structure. You can work as an informal contractor/freelancer or set up a limited liability company, corporation or another form of business structure, the legal website Nolo explains. if you plan to work out of your home, find out whether you need a local business license.

Set up an office, get a post office box, open a business bank account (if you want to separate your personal and business expenses) and create a website, social media accounts, stationery and business LinkedIn profile.

Generate Samples and Testimonials

If you plan to work with clients, ask local nonprofits or small businesses if you can do some free media work for them before you launch. This work can generate work samples, case studies and testimonials you can use to market your business. This is also an opportunity to test contractors and staff members. Ask your clients to give you reviews on specific social media sites.

If you’re going to work as a publisher, start creating blog and social media posts to see what type of content gets the most response and traffic. This will help you generate content ideas for your media property.

Start Seeking Clients

After you've set up your business and created an online presence, start pursuing clients. Start small so you can test your ability to service them. If you’re a publisher, you need to generate online traffic or guarantee a print circulation before you can sell advertising or sponsorships. If you’re a communications agency, you should be able to start charging immediately. If you’re not good at sales, hire a commissioned salesperson to bring in clients so you can focus on your media work.

• Score: Find Your Business Mentor
• Nolo: Choosing Your Business Structure

Steve Milano is a journalist and business executive/consultant. He has helped dozens of for-profit companies and nonprofits with their marketing and operations. Steve has written more than 8,000 articles during his career, focusing on small business, careers, personal finance and health and fitness. Steve also turned his tennis hobby into a career, coaching, writing, running nonprofits and conducting workshops around the globe.

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How To Start Media Production Business [PLAN]

Media production company business startup guide.

Starting your own multimedia company is not a big deal.

Having arrived on this page shows that you desire to start a media company. In as much as starting a media company isn’t a big deal, you need to be aware of what it is. I assume you are greatly aware of what a media company is.

But I’ll still tell you what is involved in it.

What’s a media company? I’ll point to a media company as an outlet to share information. And it comes in different forms. E.g. sharing information via television, via radio, newspapers, and magazines, and it does not just end there, the internet is another way to share this information.

So we can rightly say that a media company is a bank of information for the public.

Now the question is, how can I start a media company? What do I need to start a media company? What should I keep in place as I want to start my own media company?  After starting my media company, what am I to do to get my audience?

If you are thinking of those questions, then I want you to do something. Do you know what it is?

You don’t? Alright, let me tell you. I want you to stop thinking of those questions.

In this article, I’m going to cover all you need to know and do as long as you wish to start a media company.

Here is how to start a media production company.

Be Specific

As a beginner, it is advisable to focus on a particular category of media.

Remember at the outset of this article, I mentioned that there are various forms of a media company, like I said, we have TV and Radio stations that fall under Broadcasting.

We have the Newspaper and Magazine which falls under Print Media, and also distributing information online using a website.

So like I said, you need to choose one, at least for a start, maybe as time goes on and when the company is growing, you may decide that your media company will handle all the categories. But for now, be specific.

Draft Out Your Media Business Plan

Thinking of starting a new company is one thing, having or drafting a plan for your media company is the most important thing to consider.

Why did I say this?

This plan will help you know how your media company business will be structured. I believe you know what a business plan is all about.

Since your media company business is a new one coming up, you may have investors coming in. So with this plan, they will know what your media company business is all about, its funding, and other relevant details.

Here is a TV station business plan and another one for a radio station business plan .

Pick and Register Your Media Name

Now you have fixed your media company’s plan, we move to another important step. Every social media company has a unique name it is known for.

And this is something you should consider also, pick a unique name for your media company. Remember that this is something you’ll have to do just once. So for that reason, choose wisely.

Think of a good and selling name for your media company and register it with relevant trademarks in your country.

Registration is important so that your name will not be taken away from you by a competitor, and will make you run your media company without problems from the Government.

Get an Office

This step is solely dependent on the type of media outfit you are starting or running. Surprise? Don’t be because not all media outfit needs a physical or office space.

Do you know there are some media business opportunities online? For example, a blog media. It does not need an office for a start as compared to a Radio and Television broadcasting, the same with Newspaper and Magazine which needs an office space for equipment to be kept.

Hire, Hire and Hire

Media is wide, and for you to be updated and active, you need people and staff.

If you are interested in starting a Radio station or a TV station, you need presenters, managers, On-Air personalities (OAP), editors, and also a constant power supply.

For Newspapers and Magazines, you need writers, need editors and you also need graphic designers. Then for a website or blog, you need people who will research and report information to you.

So you just have to hire, fire, and hire workers for your media company.

Market Your Media Company

This step looks normal but have you ever thought about it again? Now let me ask you.

Is there any business or company that is successful today and never did the marketing of its business? No, and I’ll say it again No!

This is because marketing is like a lifeline for any business that is successful.

So if you want your media company to be successful, you need to do marketing.

Convince potential customers by putting out content that will help them. Not just any content, but consistently putting up excellent content because this will set your media company above others.

You could also market your digital media company by voluntarily accepting to sponsors key industry events, giving premium services to them.

Guide: Starting a News Clipping Business Plan

So when you follow all I have written about in this article, let me congratulate you in advance, because you will start a media production company that will be successful.

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Film Production Company Business Plan: The Complete Guide

The process of film production is a long and arduous one. It starts with the writing stage, where screenplays are written by a writer or multiple writers.

The screenplay typically has at least three acts that have to be edited for pacing and story development purposes. Once the script is finished, it’s time for pre-production!

There’s a lot of misconception about what film production really entails. This article will clear up some of the misconceptions and give you an idea of what it is like on set, as well as how to break into the industry.

FILM PRODUCTION COMPANY BUSINESS PLAN

What is a film production company business plan.

A film production company business plan is a document that can help you to get investors and loans from banks, but it’s also useful for you to see if your idea is viable. It helps you determine if it’s worth investing money, time, and effort.

Film production company business plans are documents that should be created before starting the business.

They will help you gain investors so you can start your film production company and make money out of your films.

A business plan should have all the necessary information about your film company , including the mission statement, executive summary, market analysis, funding request, financial projections, and management team.

Starting a film production company is an exciting venture that blends creative storytelling with the thrill of entrepreneurship.

Crafting a solid business plan is our roadmap to success, ensuring we navigate the complex landscape of the film industry with confidence.

We’ll jump into the essentials of a film production company business plan, from financial projections to marketing strategies.

Stick with us to learn how to lay the groundwork for a thriving production company that’s ready to take on Hollywood.

Executive Summary

When embarking on the exhilarating journey of starting a film production company, the executive summary stands as a pivotal introduction to the business plan.

It provides a snapshot of the company’s vision and objectives, ensuring that potential investors or partners grasp the core of what we’re building.

In our executive summary, we’ll outline the major points that distinguish our company, such as our unique storytelling capabilities and innovative distribution strategies.

We hone in on our competitive advantage – a blend of seasoned industry professionals and fresh talent that pushes the envelope of what’s possible in film.

We’ll also touch upon our foundational goals:

• Captivate a diverse audience with groundbreaking narratives,
• Create a slate of projects that showcase profitability and creative ingenuity,
• Establish a brand synonymous with quality entertainment.

Financial plans are succinctly summarized to demonstrate the strategic allocation of resources and the anticipated financial trajectory.

Here, investors will find confidence in our capability to manage budgets effectively and produce high-return projects.

Marketing strategies are briefly yet powerfully presented, showcasing how we plan to penetrate the market and gain substantial traction.

We outline our approach to leveraging social media , partnerships, and film festivals to amplify our presence and stake our claim in a crowded industry.

Each element of our executive summary is designed to pique interest and invite deeper exploration into our full business plan.

Through it, we lay the foundation for a dialogue with stakeholders that could translate into lasting support for our creative endeavours.

Company Overview

In the heart of our business plan lies the comprehensive Company Overview section, a detailed portrait of who we are and what we stand for.

As seasoned filmmakers at Filmmaking Lifestyle, we take pride in our ability to tell gripping stories through the lens of our cameras.

We offer a range of filmmaking services, but here’s a snapshot of our core offerings:

• Narrative Film Production – Our signature offering includes developing and producing feature films that resonate with audiences globally.
• Commercial Video Production – We craft compelling marketing videos that help brands tell their stories and engage with their target demographic.
• Innovative Content Creation – With the digital space evolving rapidly, we stay ahead of trends producing content that stands out in crowded platforms.

Our mission goes beyond the visual aesthetics; it’s about weaving narratives that leave a lasting impact.

Each project is an opportunity for us to push the envelope in creative storytelling.

At the core of our operation, we strive to achieve a convergence of artistic vision and commercial viability.

Anchored by a team of dedicated professionals, we bring diverse perspectives and skills to every production.

This synergy creates a fertile ground for innovative filmmaking.

Our work ethic revolves around a relentless pursuit of excellence and a commitment to staying on top of the latest industry advancements.

Focused on scaling our film production capabilities, we’re actively exploring emerging technologies and distribution channels to enhance our impact in the industry.

We’re all about staying ahead of the curve, making sure our films are not just seen, but remembered and revered.

With a portfolio that spans various genres and styles, our flexibility allows us to tailor our approach to each unique project.

Collaboration is key – by joining forces with talented writers, directors, and producers, we amplify our ability to craft unforgettable cinematic experiences.

Investing in our growth, we’ve equipped ourselves with state-of-the-art equipment and editing suites, ensuring professionalism and efficiency in our production workflow.

Convergence of art and technology is critical in our approach and is reflected in every piece of content we produce.

eventually, our Company Overview is not just an introduction to who we are; it’s an open invitation to jump deeper into the possibilities and potent potential of partnering with Filmmaking Lifestyle.

We’re here to bring visions to life and curate a portfolio of work that speaks volumes of our passion for filmmaking.

Vision And Mission

Partnering with these key figures elevates our visibility and strengthens our network within the film industry.

Attendance and participation at industry events ensure we stay current and visible.

Film festivals , screenings, and conferences act as platforms for networking and showcasing our latest productions.

Our sales approach hinges on:

• Fostering strong relationships with distributors and streaming services,
• Offering competitive pricing while ensuring high production value,
• Developing a feedback loop with our audience to refine our portfolio according to their preferences.

As the film industry evolves, so must our approach to marketing and sales.

Employing dynamic strategies that align with the latest trends will ensure that Filmmaking Lifestyle continues to thrive in a competitive marketplace.

Production And Post-production Plan

Developing a thorough production and post-production plan is crucial for us at Filmmaking Lifestyle.

This ensures streamlined operations from the initial storyboard to the final edit.

In the planning phase, we focus on script finalization, casting, location scouting , and securing permits.

Each of these elements is critical, as they set the stage for successful filming.

During production, our attention shifts to the practical application of our strategies.

This includes advising on shooting schedule s, budget adherence, and logistics management.

We’re dedicated to fostering a cooperative environment where cast and crew can work efficiently towards a common artistic goal.

Our team ensures that every day on set counts towards creating a compelling final product.

Entering post-production, our plan transitions into editing, sound design , and visual effects.

We have a robust workflow that includes:

• Dialogue editing and ADR,
• Soundtrack composition and sound effects,
• Color correction and grading,
• Special and visual effects integration.

Each of these post-production processes is handled with precision.

Our skilled editors and technicians bring the director’s vision to life, polishing the film to meet both artistic and market standards.

We maintain meticulous records and backups to safeguard against data loss ensuring our projects are delivered without hiccups.

also, we constantly adapt our production and post-production tactics to suit the evolving landscape of film and video.

By staying ahead with the latest software and editing techniques, we guarantee top-notch quality that resonates with our target audience.

Engaging with industry advancements allows us to uphold our reputation for innovation and excellence.

Financial Projections

Financial projections serve as the fiscal compass for our business, providing a snapshot of the anticipated revenue and expenses.

We carefully calculate these projections to forecast the financial health of our film projects and overall operations.

When crafting our financial outlook, we factor in all potential sources of income – ranging from theatrical releases to streaming platform deals.

Our expense list is comprehensive, with line items for production costs, marketing campaigns, and distribution fees.

Revenue streams typically include:

• box office sales,
• Licensing agreements,
• Merchandise sales,
• Syndication rights.

Meanwhile, expenses often encompass:

• Actor and crew wages,
• Equipment rental,
• Post-production services,
• Marketing and advertising costs.

We maintain a cautious approach with our projections, especially considering the volatile nature of the film industry.

For each project, we provide conservative estimates that take into account various market conditions and audience trends.

Navigating the financial aspects of film production doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

By regularly revisiting and refining our financial projections, we stay prepared for unforeseen expenses or shifts in revenue.

Never resting on our laurels, we Use cutting-edge analytical tools and industry benchmarks.

This enables a level of precision that helps safeguard our investments and optimize profitability.

We prioritize transparency in our financial dealings, ensuring that stakeholders and investors have a clear understanding of where their money is going.

Our detailed projections form the basis for robust investment strategies, securing the bedrock of our financial planning.

With each new project, we build upon our knowledge base.

Our financial foresights become increasingly accurate, guaranteeing that Filmmaking Lifestyle not only survives but flourishes in the competitive film production landscape.

Funding And Investment

Securing the financial backbone for film projects is a critical step in the execution of our business plan.

Harnessing a mix of funding sources allows us to diversify risk and tap into various pockets of opportunity.

Crowdfunding has become a significant source of investment, enabling us to engage our audience from the outset.

Platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo offer a ground for community support and validation of our creative endeavors.

Equity financing is a traditional route where investors receive a stake in the production’s potential returns.

This method aligns investor and producer interests, creating a mutually beneficial relationship.

Here are some of the key components of our funding model –

• Pre-sales of distribution rights,
• Tax incentives and rebates,
• Grants and subsidies specific to the film industry,
• Partnerships with production companies and studios.

We also look toward film financing companies that specialize in entertainment.

Their knowledge of market trends and distribution strategies makes them a powerful ally in our financial planning.

Engaging with angel investors and venture capitalists who have a vested interest in creative projects provides us another avenue.

These individuals or groups often bring more than just funds – they carry expertise and networking opportunities to the table.

With meticulous fiscal management, we ensure that each investment is allocated effectively.

Diligent tracking of expenditures and returns keeps us ahead in our financial undertakings, and prepares us for sustainable growth and development.

By staying flexible and open to emerging investment opportunities, we sustain our production capabilities.

Our approach is continually refined, allowing us to capture new investment while fostering ongoing partnerships.

Risk Assessment

When crafting a business plan for a film production company, it’s pivotal to conduct an exhaustive risk assessment.

In our experience, this analysis isn’t just a formal requirement – it’s a precautionary step to safeguard our investments and efforts.

Understanding the potential risks allows us to develop strategies proactively.

We account for everything from casting issues to weather disruptions, ensuring that our backup plans are as robust as the primary ones.

Market volatility must not be underestimated.

The film industry is susceptible to trends and consumer preferences that can shift overnight.

Our vigilant eye on market trends helps us adapt quickly and effectively.

The risks of technological advancements cannot be ignored.

They might render our current methods obsolete, demanding constant innovation and flexibility in our approach to filmmaking.

A substantial risk in film production stems from financing and budget constraints .

Here are factors we consistently monitor and mitigate:

• Sudden increases in production costs,
• Delays in funding release – Unanticipated post-production expenses.

Legal challenges also pose a significant threat.

Maintaining meticulous records and obtaining all necessary rights and permits is standard practice for us to prevent costly disputes.

To stay ahead, we evaluate risks associated with distribution and audience reception .

Strategies include:

• Targeted marketing campaigns – Building strong relationships with distributors – Diversifying our portfolio to appeal to a broader audience.

Finally, we face the universal risks of unexpected events like natural disasters or global crises.

We establish insurance and emergency response plans to manage such unpredictable scenarios.

Film Production Company Business Plan – Wrap Up

Crafting a solid business plan for our film production company, Filmmaking Lifestyle, is crucial for our success.

We’ve laid out the groundwork to understand our market position, devised strategies for marketing and sales, and outlined our production processes.

Our approach to securing diverse funding sources ensures we’re financially prepared to bring our cinematic visions to life.

We’re also proactive in assessing and mitigating risks, ready to adapt to the ever-changing film industry landscape.

With these strategies in place, we’re not just making films—we’re building a resilient, forward-thinking business ready to captivate audiences and withstand the tests of time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is competitive analysis and why is it important in the film industry.

Competitive analysis in the film industry involves researching and understanding competitors to identify both the strengths and weaknesses within the market.

This helps Filmmaking Lifestyle to determine their own position and create strategies for success.

How Does Filmmaking Lifestyle Approach Marketing And Sales?

Filmmaking Lifestyle develops a robust marketing and sales strategy that encompasses identifying their target audience, creating compelling promotional materials, and implementing innovative sales techniques to reach viewers and generate revenue.

What Are Some Sources Of Funding For Filmmaking Lifestyle?

Filmmaking Lifestyle’s sources of funding include crowdfunding, equity financing, pre-sales of distribution rights, tax incentives, grants, subsidies, and partnerships with production companies and studios.

They also work with film financing companies, angel investors, and venture capitalists.

How Is Fiscal Management Handled In Filmmaking Lifestyle?

Fiscal management at Filmmaking Lifestyle involves careful allocation of investments, ensuring that funds are spent efficiently and preparing for sustained growth and development within the company’s financial capabilities.

Why Is Conducting A Risk Assessment Vital For Film Production Businesses?

Conducting a risk assessment is vital as it helps in identifying potential issues like market volatility, budget constraints, legal challenges, and distribution risks.

It allows for the creation of strategies to mitigate these risks, ensuring the stability and adaptability of the film production business.

What Strategies Does Filmmaking Lifestyle Use To Mitigate Production Risks?

Strategies include adapting to market trends, staying flexible with technology, monitoring costs, securing rights and permits, targeted marketing, working closely with distributors, diversifying their content, and having insurance and emergency plans in place.

Matt Crawford

Related posts, film financing 101: the definitive guide, what is an entertainment lawyer: what they are and what they do, 8 best ai investing software & apps in 2024, great customer service: 11 ways to make clients remember you, how to eliminate negativity: using the power of now, film budget planning: our definitive guide.

Iam having a movie by the name from the streets to the world

Best of luck, Kelvin!

Matt .. would you have template of the Biz Plan .. and are you Fine with sharing the same? – AMAAN

Here’s an idea for a template: https://toskaproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/TEA-Business-Plan.pdf

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How to develop a media sales strategy

The importance of a solid sales strategy.

Sales is one of the most important elements of a media company’s commercial strategy. The sustainability of the business relies on its ability to generate income. Projections of revenue generation in the business plan will act as the guide to what is possible and will temper or encourage commercial ambitions.

Sales is one of the most important elements of a media company’s commercial strategy. The sustainability of the business relies on its ability to generate income.

Projections of revenue generation in the business plan will act as the guide to what is possible and will temper or encourage commercial ambitions.

These guidelines are deliberately general so that they can be applied to any kind of media business, whether it is print, broadcast or online.

And because advertising still generates the lion’s share of income for most media businesses, the focus in this article will be optimizating this revenue stream.

The four pillars of your sales strategy

Having worked on the commercial side of media businesses for many years, I have seen many unfocused sales strategies which can run to 100 pages or more in length; this is not the way to do it. A good sales strategy should give you a clear answer to the following four questions:

• What do you want to sell?
• To whom do you want to sell?
• How do you want sell?
• At which price do you want to sell?

It looks almost too simple, but if you have worked out a sales strategy which delivers straight answers to these four questions – the four pillars – you will have defined a strategy which is more likely to succeed. It will also help your sales people carry out their job, and it could help you establish a market leader position.

The rest is about sitting down with your management team and working out a plan for each of the four pillars. The following are some examples.

Q1: What do you want to sell?

This is a broad area covering topics such as:

• Which target audience do you want to sell to?
• Which kind of adverts, formats or sponsorships do you want to sell?
• Which advertising/sponsorship packages do you want to sell?
• Which other related services do you want to sell (competitor surveillance, content, production, etc)?

There are no general answers to these questions because they are all affected by local regulations, market standards, technical skills and your own editorial profile. But when it comes to defining which target audience to focus on, there are a few general terms which should be considered.

When starting a media business you will lack the historical research data needed to help you outline which target audience to focus on. You will need to choose a target audience profile to enable potential clients to see a connection between that profile and the content produced by your newspaper, magazine, radio channel, etc.

When audience data start coming in, you can then begin to see the actual profile of your audience. Based on this, you can decide whether it is possible to broaden the commercial target group or, perhaps, start selling packages for more than one target group.

Q2: To whom do we want to sell?

Don’t just start running after the biggest spenders in the market. Focus your sales effort on advertisers with a target group which is in line with your reader/audience profile.

If your commercial target group is defined as men aged 25 to 50 with middle to high income, it may not make sense to chase clients in the health and beauty category. Start by listing the most obvious categories. For the target audience profile mentioned above, a list of possible categories could be:

• Financial services
• Beer and alcohol
• Telecommunications
• Computers and IT equipment

After defining the categories that are most likely to appeal to your target audience, make a list of the 10 to 15 most likely advertisers within each category. Make sure that only one sales person is responsible for each category as he or she will pick up valuable knowledge about the industry as they work their way down the list.

Make sure you hold meetings with both the advertiser and their media agency. You meet the advertisers to get the orders; you meet the media agency to avoid creating enemies.

Some people recommend focusing only on the advertisers because the media agencies may come across as arrogant, negative and interested only in reducing prices. There is some value in this approach, but try to put yourself in the advertisers’ place. If you paid somebody to be the expert in a certain area and they advised you not to choose a specific supplier, would you then choose that supplier? No, probably not.

Some sales strategies focus only on media agencies as they control the bulk of all media spending in the market. Forget it. The media agency is never going to do the sales work for you. It is up to you to convince the advertiser that they should have a preference for your media organisation. Once you have created this relationship, the media agency is unlikely to stand in your way.

The general rule is to keep your eyes focused on the advertiser and be aware that you have to do all the sales work. However, keep the media agency informed about what you are doing and offer them the same information as you are giving to their client. Try to strike a healthy balance between the two in order to avoid the situation where the media agency stands in the way of you getting the order.

Q3: How do we want to sell?

This is an extremely important area. By setting a clear path for your sales people to follow, you are helping them find the right way to move. And by making that road clear and visible they can use all their energy selling. You are forming the sales culture in your company. Having a clearly-defined and healthy sales culture is probably the most important single factor in becoming a commercial success. There are internal and external considerations.

• What kind of sales culture do you want?
• What are your core values?
• How do you want to measure the performance of your sales staff?
• What are your rules for holding meeting with clients, the number of phone calls etc?
• What story do you want to tell the market?
• What are your unique selling points (USPs)?
• How do you make sure that everybody in the team is heading in the same direction?
• Which position in the market are you aiming to occupy/dominate?

Here are a few examples of internal subjects which are of great importance.

Sales culture

Make sure you create a competitive sales culture where the most successful sales person is rewarded in terms of money, credibility and attractive clients. Good sales people are competitive and they will function well in this environment. Those who don’t like this environment are unlikely to be successful sales people and you probably don’t want them around anyway.

Core values

Define a set of core values which your sales people have to apply to everything they do. One of these could be: “We never speak badly about a client.” I have heard a sales person calling a client stupid because the client didn’t appear to understand the sales pitch. But actually it is the other way around. It is the sales person who is at fault by not being able to articulate the benefits in a way that the client understands. By establishing your core values you are less likely to have one of your sales team give up on a client because the message being conveyed has not been understood.

Measure performance

Make sure you measure the performance of your sales staff. Keep an eye on their results and make their track record visible for the entire sales crew to see. Show all results for all members of the sales team on a weekly basis to make clear that you are creating a competitive environment where performance is recognised.

In terms of external areas be sure to focus on the following:

Make sure everybody is telling the same story about the company when they talk to advertisers: Who you are, what your goals are, how you want to achieve them, what makes you different, etc.

Set up an internal workshop for the sales team where they define the USPs of your media company. Involve them in the process of finding the best sales arguments. If you do, they are more likely to understand the arguments and use them. As a result, your sales team will be moving in the same direction and will be offering a unified message to the market.

Decide which position you want to take in the business to business (B2B) market. For example “The professional and analytic player”, “The fast and furious”, “The upcoming star”, “The bad boy”, etc. This will help you decide how to address sales-related issues.

Q4: At which price do you want to sell?

Study your competitors and decide which position you want to take. Make a printed rate card and send it out to the market. This will prove you are a serious player intending to be in the market for a long time.

Of course it is difficult to decide which price level to put in the rate card, but it is better to make it more expensive than too cheap. If the price level proves to be too expensive you can always introduce some new discount packages, i.e. “introduction package”, “summer package” “rotation package”, etc.

If you start by making your rate card too cheap, you will later be faced with the cost of making a new one. Also, if you send out a new and more expensive rate card you risk bad media publicity, such as “X-Media increases prices by 25% against poor audience growth”.

Consider selecting the biggest media agency to represent you and pay them to help formulate your strategy. Raise the issue of the rate card and invite them to come up with a recommendation. By adopting this approach you will obtain a professional view on what the market price should be and the media agency will put you on their media plan.

RELATED ARTICLES MORE FROM AUTHOR

Introducing a converged newsroom strategy, content sharing for the benefit of all, ensuring female representation in news leadership and coverage, sustainable journalism in practice, an example of the media project management process, the skills and techniques of media project management, basics of project development for a media organisation, adapting to changing audience behaviour, preparing and introducing a media corporate plan.

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What is Media Planning and How Do You Build an Actionable Media Plan?

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Advertising is expensive, and media planning isn’t easy. Whether in an agency or in-house, the media planner is the person who makes sure advertising dollars get spent effectively.

Media planning is essential to reach the right audience and get the message in front of them at the right time. But there’s also a huge financial responsibility attached to it. Every bad decision can quickly run up painful costs.

This article starts with the basics: what is media planning, and then we go on to clarify how the digital media planning process works, and how you can build an actionable plan.

What is media planning?

Media planning is the process of determining where, when, and how often an advertisement should run to maximize both engagement and ROI (return on investment). It involves every step from campaign planning, budgeting, and scheduling to launch and even beyond.

The media planner needs to acquire a solid understanding of the business, the audience, and the messaging. Digital advertising is continuously becoming more complex, and the planner must be familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of the different platforms and methods. The same is true for TV which is moving to CTV (connected television) and for radio which is now being replaced by streaming and budgets have shifted to podcasts etc.

What is a media plan and what does it include?

The media plan is part of the campaign plan. It covers everything related to the distribution of assets through various media channels.

• Objectives A media plan defines the objective or what the campaign is supposed to achieve. It lays out what you expect your audience to get from the campaign or what action you want them to take. A campaign could aim at raising brand awareness , or it could promote a holiday deal to increase sales.
• Goals The goals of a media plan are derived from the company’s business plan. The media plan specifies the specific campaign goal and describes how you intend to reach the goals. Managers want to see numbers, so the plan should show calculations of estimates and measurable KPIs.
• Target audience The plan should include any and all parameters about the target audience relevant to the campaign. It can also present info that isn’t directly connected if it could impact decisions throughout the execution. It’s important to know your target audience, their preferences, and the media on which they are reachable.
• Types of media and media channels This is a critical piece for the media planner who needs to work out the specific media mix that will be most effective for the audience, the campaign, and the time.
• Timeline To run your ads, you need to determine when and for how long. The media plan sets a clear timeline for when the different assets will be published on which media and for how long the campaign will last. Advertising may begin on one platform only, and other media may follow. Campaign assets may run longer on one platform than on another.
• Frequency This is related to the timeline; however, it refers to the individual assets. The idea is that not all ads need to show all the time and you need to determine at which frequency an ad is active.

What are the different types of media planning?

Advertising campaigns can involve any variety and number of media types and channels. Let’s break down the different types into categories.

We look at advertising in two main areas: online media channels and offline media channels. Campaigns can include both, and the media plan determines which channels to employ and how.

1. Examples of online media channels:

• Display ads
• Video marketing
• Social media

Interestingly, 80% of B2B marketers who run paid campaigns use social media. This represents a huge shift from the more ‘traditional’ online forms of advertising.

2. Examples of offline media channels

• Radio / podcasts
• Out of home, or OOH (billboards etc.)

Types of digital media to include in the planning:

In digital media planning, there are three types of media:

• Paid media – you pay to publish
• Owned media – you publish on your own domains
• Earned media – others publish your content for free (reviews, media coverage)

Media planning in an agency deals exclusively with paid media. The responsibility for owned media is with the client and the earned media falls under PR (public relations). Inside a company the responsibility could be distributed slightly differently.

Planning the frequency of ads on digital media:

A campaign can run for a week or an entire year. This doesn’t mean the actual ad will show the whole time during that period. In advertising, there are three approaches to the publishing frequency:

• Continuous – the ad runs continuously over a specified time period. Running an ad on a fixed schedule for a specified duration of time ensures constant messaging exposure.
• Flighting – the ad runs intermittently, in other words, an ad is shown in alternating periods. For example, a company can choose to run the ad for a week, then pause a week and then run it again. Or they could decide to activate the ad only during specific hours of the day or days of the week, based on seasonality.
• Pulsing – a combination of the two methods above. Pulsing involves continuous advertising but also planned spikes or pauses. There’s a continual stream of ads, but the frequency and volume of ads ebb and flow based on their effectiveness.

What’s the difference between media planning and media buying?

Media buying is one piece of the puzzle of media planning. It refers to the actual act of buying the advertising space.

In an agency setting, the media buyer is usually a smart negotiator because that’s the essence of the job.

Here’s how the tasks are divided:

The media planner receives the brief from the client, including the type of campaign, target audience, campaign goals, campaign duration, etc. The planner prepares the media plan and, when approved by the client, writes up an RFP (Request for Proposal) that gets sent to the potential media partners.

Vendors come back with a proposal. The planner filters out the relevant proposals and then hands them to the media buyer.

The media buyer negotiates the best deal with the relevant partners. That may sound like a small chunk of the process, but it’s actually huge. A media buyer needs to be familiar with the different media platforms, pricing schemes, and advertising methods. You can read more on what media buying is here.

In companies that do not work with an agency but run their advertising campaigns by themselves, the lines are more blurry. The functions of media planners and media buyers often overlap.

The marketing team or manager could be doing the actual planning, and the buyer could be drafting up the RFP and finding the vendors. In other settings, media buying may be integrated into the media planner’s job, in which case one person does both.

What are the steps of a typical media planning process?

• After the agency receives a client’s brief, the media planner determines which partners are relevant for the campaign.
• The media team prepares an RFP that specifies all campaign requirements and asks for the best proposals, including rates and positions, from relevant publishers.
• The planner receives publishers’ responses and selects the best-suited proposals.
• The media buyer negotiates the best possible deal with the selected publishers.
• The media planner gets client approval.
• The media planner issues an IO (insertion order) to the relevant media companies.
• Campaign launch.

If media planning and buying are done in-house, the marketing team sets the goals, creates the plan, and executes it. Campaign goals derive from business and marketing goals. The planning and execution usually involve several people who share or divide responsibilities:

• Sets goals and KPIs based on analyzing competition and audience.
• Lay out the media plan as part of the campaign plan.
• The planner needs to evaluate ROI or ROAS (return on ad spent) and budget.
• From this point on, the process is the same as the agency. If there is a media buyer, they will negotiate rates. If there’s no differentiation between the two functions, the person who built the plan also negotiates the deals. At the same time, the creative team prepares the actual assets.
• The campaign is ready for launch when the deals are closed and the assets are prepared and approved by marketing management.

Now that the campaign is running, the planner’s job isn’t over. After launch, the most critical task is to make sure the media got delivered as planned.

While the campaign is running, the media planner needs to monitor customer reaction, engagement metrics , impressions, and clicks because they are responsible for optimization as needed. Planners use web media analytics to get the necessary data.

Similarweb makes it possible to benchmark ad performance against the competition and keep clients’ and stakeholders updated with accurate and timely marketing reports .

What you need to consider for a media planning strategy

Let’s now get a little more practical and see how to create a media plan and what to consider in the process. Put yourself in the shoes of a media planner. We’ll show you what and how you need to research to get the data that enables you to reach the necessary decisions for your media strategy.

The following points are relevant for both an agency and a company doing their own media planning.

• Determine what type of business you (or the client) are in , B2B, B2C, or else and evaluate performance in the market. You want to know if the market is a highly competitive or niche market and who the competitors are. You’ll look at the reach, the current marketing activities, the performance, and so on.
• Any company wanting to advertise should start with competitive research to build the campaign plan based on actual data. However, if you work at an agency, don’t rely on the client’s findings blindly but do your own research. One of the areas to examine is the competitive landscape . You want to find out which media platforms the competition uses, how successful, and how much they spend.
• Get to know the audience. Understand who the audience is and examine their browsing and buying habits. Many companies have buyer personas – fictional characters that represent the target audience.
• Set clear KPIs based on web metrics that can be measured and tracked. It’s critical to be precise and align expectations in all areas, financially and in terms of audience growth, reach, engagement, etc.
• Discover how this campaign fits in with other marketing activities. For one, everything needs to be aligned with brand messaging and character. Secondly, it’s important not to run too many campaigns at one time and confuse the audience.

How to conduct research for media planning in advertising

In digital marketing, web analytics tools are the cornerstone of strategizing. Any digital media plan should be based on data, and that data needs to be accurate and reliable. So, if you were (or are) a media planner, here are a few hands-on guidelines on what and how to research.

Conduct market research

To develop your media plan, start by conducting market research to understand the ideal types of content and media strategies for your target audience and customers. How can you tell? You check what works (and doesn’t work) for the competition.

Identify similar campaigns that your competitors have run – or are running. Do a competitive analysis for your media planning strategy to identify the channels and publishers. Similarweb’s Marketing Channels feature allows you to compare your website’s core user acquisition methods against your competitors.

Research the target audience

Every target audience has unique preferences and behaviors that could impact your media plan. Understand your audience’s demographics , like age, gender, and location, and examine what types of content this audience prefers and where to reach them.

If you don’t have buyer personas, consider creating them. Buyer personas help envision real people and how they interact with an ad rather than just an abstract audience description. To get started on building yours, download our buyer persona template below. The template will help you collect and organize the necessary information that represents the audience you want to target with your advertising campaigns. So, it’s a great way to start planning your media strategy.

What you see here is a sample slide. The template includes three slides for each persona. Check it out.

Download the Template Now!

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Use the buyer persona template so you can focus your media buying strategy on the right target audience.

Analyze competitors campaigns

Dive into the marketing channels of your competitors that share your target audience and see which campaigns generate traffic and engagement. Investigate their ad spend to determine if and how much you should invest in the various methods.

First, you’ll measure how much your competitors’ paid traffic share is compared to other traffic sources. Then you’ll dive into how they generate the traffic. Do they use programmatic or display ads? Where are they running?

Analyzing search visits by traffic types: total visits, organic vs paid, and branded traffic percentages

With Similarweb, you can not only see how they do it but also how successful the campaigns are. It will even show you where companies get the most valuable website traffic from.

See each paid search ad or display ad and get links to the related landing pages. This lets you deep-dive into your competitors’ campaigns to understand what media they use and where they invest their budgets. Learn from what works for them and avoid making the same mistakes.

Identify trends and new possibilities

We started this article by talking about the cost of advertising and how the advertising possibilities are changing. The media planner needs to keep a finger on the pulse in a competitive and changing market. Otherwise, ineffective campaigns can turn into a growing cost leak.

Identifying trends as they emerge enables agencies to help their clients be more successful. Marketing teams stay within the budget and improve ROI. Current, accurate data enables agencies to find the most efficient channels, reliable partners and optimize advertising efforts.

If this is you, the Similarweb Digital Marketing Intelligence platform and Agencies Analytics can provide you with the tools and data that present a clear picture of your competitive environment and the forces that impact that landscape. You can identify the leaders and find out exactly how they succeed. Monitoring the activities lets you be the first to identify new players and successful new advertising trends.

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Media planning is the process of deciding where, when, and how often an advertisement should run to maximize engagement and ROI.

A media plan is part of the campaign plan, covering the details of distributing assets through media channels. A media plan includes objectives, goals, the target audience, the types of media and media channels used, the timeline, and which frequency an ad is active.

There are two main areas of media planning advertising. Online media channels include display ads and video marketing. Offline media channels include radio/podcasts and print. There are also three types of digital media planning, paid media, owned media, and earned media.

This post was co-authored by Amelia Leib , who was Condé Nast’s Media Strategy Director for nine years and started her career as a media buyer at LVMH . Now she is the Media Industry Lead at Similarweb.

by Ruth Trucks

Senior Marketing Writer

Ruth, with 15 years in marketing, transforms complex data into engaging content. She enjoys gardening, motorcycle tours, and family time.

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Home » Marketing » How to Start a Media Company in 12 Easy Steps

How to Start a Media Company in 12 Easy Steps

Marketing , Marketing Strategies

Is there any reason to launch a new media company? In the era of Facebook, would it be profitable? 

In this article, we’ll discover the differences between e-commerce and media business . What does it take to start a media company and make money?

What is a Media Company?

If you create content with professional editors and writers, publish it periodically, it means that you are in the media business. Owners of newspapers and magazines establish media companies. They produce content, bundle it, and distribute it. Sometimes, they produce it in both paper and digital formats.

What Does a Media Company Do?

Let’s focus on the activities of publishers as an example of a media company. Publishers provide readers with different info: breaking news, investigations, reviews, etc. Some media cover many topics – politics, business, economics, health, etc. Others specialize in one specific niche for their publications. 

Besides print, publishers also put their content online . With websites, they have more opportunities to engage visitors. Besides text and photos, media companies create audio and video content. They can use platforms such as YouTube to interact with their audience in additional ways.

What are the Differences Between e-Commerce and Online Media Companies?

• the size of the target market
• the method of interacting with website visitors
• what drives profits

An e-commerce website and a media company approach building a sales funnel differently. A commercial one offers products to visitors in hopes of making a sale. The main “product” of online media is content. Content and readers create value for publishers. The more traffic a media website attracts the higher its ratings. Popular media companies have more opportunities to work with advertisers than lesser-known ones. Thus, they have more potential revenue streams. 

Learn more about recurring revenue models .

Steps to start your media company

Now, we’ll find out the steps of starting a media company and how to promote it. If you want to start up an independent media company with your own content, follow our tips below.

Target audience

The first step is similar for any company. You need to target a particular group of readers. This will provide you with ideas for content, and give you direction on building a website. Depending on the number of potential readers, you can determine the size of your business.

As an example, suppose you want to establish a blog about sports. Define your target group (or groups) – age, gender, region, etc. Connect the segments with particular sports (i.e. football, basketball, swimming, etc.). Now you can plan the limits of traffic for your website, the development stages of your business, and the marketing channels to interact with users. You know your audience’s interests, and what they need and buy. Based on this info, you can immediately build revenue streams by working with advertisers. 

Read if it’s worth trying blogging as a hobby .

Benefits and value

Like an e-commerce company, you need to identify the valuable features of your media company. They will form your company image and a core message for readers. What differentiates you from your competitors? Stay unique. What new info will users find on your website? Make it clear for readers. Show the benefits they’ll get from your company.

Print or digital?

Must-Have WordPress Plugins

Even some well-known newspapers have discontinued printing to cut expenses. Also, some leading print media publish articles on their website before putting them in print. 

Advantages of digital media:

• It is easy to make changes to articles, even after publishing
• Interactivity
• Ability to collect subscriber data
• 24/7 access from any region
• Ability to respond quickly to subscriber requests 

Learn how to notify subscribers about your new posts on WordPress .

Create content and attract users

Define categories and topics for creating content. Base your choice on the popularity of topics, search requests, trends, and/or keywords. Create high-quality, unique, and useful content for your audience. Depending on your niche (news, stories, blog articles), plan a marketing strategy to attract new visitors, and interact with loyal customers.

For website promotion, you can use:

• Search engine optimization
• Guest blogging
• Social media marketing
• Partnering with other media

Read more about unorthodox ways to attract visitors to your website .

Best tools to encourage visitors to return to your website after they once visit it:

• Push notifications . Best providers for media – Gravitec , Izooto

Try Push Notifications WordPress Plugin

• Email marketing. Providers – MailChimp, Sendinblue , Aweber

Using these tools you’ll create a subscriber base to communicate with loyal readers.

Make a profit

What are your goals for starting a new media company? The most popular reason is to generate income. Ads are not the only source of revenue for media companies. What are the alternative sources of revenue for publishers?

We’ve collected some ideas for you on how to make money with an online media company.

• Google AdSense. With this service, you insert a programming code on your website to display ads. The amount of your revenue depends on your website traffic. Cost Per Click (CPC) differs for various industries. Generally, the rate ranges from a few cents to $1-2 per click . On average, the number of clicks on ads is less than 1% of website traffic. Calculate your approximate revenue using your website statistics (“Pageviews Per Month” in Google Analytics).
• Third-party ad platforms. Much like Google Ads, third-party platforms connect advertisers with website owners. However, you get more potential for revenues. For example, ZEDO provides publishers with rich ad formats and videos to display on their websites. The company has tools for targeting and reporting. You can even find ad servers with ready-made promotional text content.
• Crowdfunding. If you’ve collected a loyal base of subscribers, ask them to help expand your business. Definitely, it’ll work if your company is highly trusted. For instance, perhaps you write about economics but want to hire someone to start a politics column. Crowdfunding can help you raise a basic amount of money for further investment.
• Paid content. Offer your subscribers access to especially valuable content for a fee. Membership is rather popular among online media. You can use paywall tools to gate your paid content. To encourage visitors to participate, offer bonuses with a purchase (calls to editors, consultation).
• YouTube Channel. Create video versions of your content, so that it can be posted on Youtube. Monetize your YouTube channel with ads .
• Partner program. Many companies have affiliate programs for the sales of their products through their partner network. To take part in it and make money, you need to publish stories about products on your website and include an affiliate link. Members of these programs receive commissions when purchases are made through their referral links. If you post affiliate links on social media, we recommend you customize their preview to get more clicks using the Piar.io app . 

Another option for a company that already has an influence in its industry is to find a sponsor. Sponsors provide revenue for the media company and become their partners.

As stated above, once you attract an audience, and keep them engaged, your online media company will have more opportunities to generate revenue.

Tools for the Job

Let’s look at some tools for successfully starting and developing a media project.

CMS (i.e. WordPress, HubSpot CMS ). Build a media website. Use their free templates, or create a customized website structure of your own.

Social media : Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Reach your target audience with all sorts of social platforms you can. Redirect users from social media to your website to generate traffic.

Video : YouTube, Vimeo. Use YouTube for hosting and monetizing your video content. Use Vimeo for live streaming, or publishing videos with no ads.

Photos : Imgur, Flickr, ImageShack. Store your photos externally to conserve disk space on your server.

Email : Aweber , Brevo , HubSpot ,  MailChimp. Email marketing systems will help you to interact with subscribers personally, inform them about offers, and track their responses.

Push notifications : Gravitec.net . Push platforms are a great way to generate return traffic to your website. Automation tools make it easy to notify subscribers about breaking news, new posts, etc.

Try Push Notifications for Free

To establish an independent, reputable media company, one that generates revenue, you have to:

• Define your target audience and niche.
• Create valuable unique content.
• Determine your core message and the benefits to readers.
• Attract visitors with SEO, SMM, guest blogging, partner with other online media.
• Interact with your audience using email marketing, push notifications, social media.
• Create audio/video versions of your content, and post them on other platforms, in order to reach a wider audience. 
• Monetize your website and YouTube channel by displaying Google ads.
• Connect to third-party ad platforms (as an extra option).
• Expand your business with crowdfunding.
• Unlock specific sections of your website to paying members.
• Promote/sell products through affiliate programs, and generate commission revenue for your company.
• Look for companies interested in your content for sponsorship.

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How to Start a Media Company | The Startup Guide

The Indian media market is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world. But, it is also one of the most competitive. 

The media industry has seen a huge change over time, and it is now more focused on digital content than print .

You just need to be creative and find the right way for you.

Things to Consider Before Starting a Media Company

To start a media company in India you need to consider the following:

• Where will you locate the office?
• What kind of content will you produce?
• How much money do you need to invest?
• What type of legal issues must be considered?
• How can you get started with the right people and the right skillset?
• What are some other important factors that should be taken into consideration when starting a media company in India?

Steps to Start a Media Company in India

Step 1 - Start with an idea and build it into a business plan

Step 2 - Get Funding

Step 3 - register your company, step 4 - find your audience, step 5 - set up and hire, step 6 - create content and build a content strategy, step 1 - start with an idea and build it into a business plan.

A media company is a business which basically provides news, information or entertainment content. 

For this purpose, you can pick either of the medium to publish, produce and share your content:

• Social Media - Instagram , YouTube, Twitter
• Mails and Newsletters
• Apps and Websites

Most importantly, a media company has to be able to provide the right kind of content for the market.

As the people, trust you and rely on you to provide the right information.

The process of starting a media company is always challenging. 

• You need to be patient and stick to your vision while also having an understanding of the challenges that you might face along the way.
• You need to be clear about what kind of content you want to create and how you will make money. 
• You should also be clear about your target audience and what they want from your content.

Media companies are a lucrative business in India. However, it can be difficult for media entrepreneurs to get funding for their startups. 

This is where crowdfunding comes into play.

You can raise funds for your media company by launching a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo and reaching your target amount. 

For this purpose, you will have to attract people with great content and an interesting pitch.

The key to raising money for a media company is to get the attraction of your audience. 

There are also other multiple sources of capital available for media companies in India, like private equity, venture capital and angel investors.

Media companies are increasingly becoming a key part of the Indian economy. 

With the rise of digital media, there is an increasing need for content creators who can create engaging and relatable content for audiences.

This is why it is equally important to register it now as well. So that, no one can steal your business idea or raise any legal conflict.

You may register your media company as:

• Private Limited Company Registration
• One Person Company
• Limited Liability Partnership
• Sole Proprietorship
• Partnership Firm

However, the registration process is not as easy as it sounds. 

There are several steps involved that may require you to seek professional help from an expert.

To get in touch with an expert, fill out the form on your right and make the right decision.

The first thing you need to do is find your audience. You must know who your audience is and what they want from you. 

This helps you create content that will resonate with them and help grow your business over time.

There are a few ways to find your audience:

• Reach out to Influencers in the industry
• Reach out to people who share the same interests as you
• Create a niche publication for an under-served community

It can be tough to find your audience to start a media company in India. But, if you have a unique idea and are passionate about it, you should be able to find your audience.

New entrepreneurs need to understand the market before they launch their own media company. 

They need to know how people consume content and what kind of content they like.

A media company can be an online or offline business. 

The foremost thing in setting up the office is to decide on a location for it and then find out about the availability of co-working spaces in your area.

Apart from the basic office setup, you will need to hire employees for different roles like writers, photographers, videographers, etc. 

You can find these people through online job portals or by networking with other people in the industry.

The best way is by using a job posting website like Monster or LinkedIn. 

You can also use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter for recruiting purposes but make sure that your ads are up to date.

In today's world, content is king .

Today, content marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote a business and grow your audience.

• The first step is to identify the audience - What are their interests, what are they looking for? What topics do they enjoy reading about?
• Next, you need to identify the target market and figure out how you can reach them. It includes figuring out which mediums they use and the channels where they spend their time.
• Lastly, you need to decide on a content strategy that will attract your target audience and help your business grow.

Further, there are many ways to build a content strategy for a company, and you must find the one that suits your business best.

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Media Planning: The Ultimate Guide

Discover the importance of media planning and how the process can save you valuable time, boost conversions, and increase engagements.

FREE MEDIA PLANNING TEMPLATE

Track and organize your media planning and media buying with this free paid media template.

Published: 08/08/24

Effective media planning is crucial for any business to succeed today.

Media content — images, videos, written content, and podcasts — keeps you top-of-mind with your target audience and helps you stand out from competitors by ensuring your brand remains visible and engaging.

That's why I always advise clients to create and share fresh media content.

However, keeping track of, planning, distributing, and analyzing all your media content can take time and effort. Effective media planning helps you manage these tasks efficiently and maintain a strong presence.

What is media planning?

Media planning templates, what is a media plan, types of media plans, benefits of media planning, media planning process, media planning strategy components, how to create a media plan, media plan examples, media planning vs. media buying, media planner.

Media planning is the process of determining how, when, where, and why your business shares media content with your audience. The process includes deciding what media will be shared and which channels you’ll use to boost reach, engagements, conversions, and ROI, among other metrics.

Media planning has many moving parts, making it tricky to master.

However, by following the right media planning steps and using media planning templates , you can simplify the process and tackle any challenges that come your way.

Free Paid Media Template

• Organize your paid media placements
• Easily calculate total spend
• Analyze performance and revenue

Download Free

All fields are required.

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

A media plan details what kind of media you'll create and where and how you'll publish it to best engage and convert your audience. Some media plans align with larger company initiatives and campaigns, following along with pre-approved messaging and content.

Buyer Persona Templates

Organize your audience segments and make your marketing stronger.

• Learn about personas.
• Conduct persona research.
• Create targetted content.
• Build your own personas.

2. Define your SMART goals.

When setting goals for your media plan, use the SMART goals framework (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound). This will help you track progress and achieve greater impact.

Moreover, establishing these goals before starting ensures your media plan has a clear direction for you and your team. It also means you can celebrate your successes when they happen.

Some examples of SMART goal-setting in media planning could look like:

• Specific : “We want to generate a greater number of qualified leads.”
• Measurable : “We want our media plan to gain 2,000 followers across Twitter, Metaverse, and Instagram.”
• Attainable : “We previously reached 70% in customer engagement online over the past quarter, so we’re aiming for 75% in the next.”
• Relevant : “We want to achieve more positive customer engagement to better the brand’s reputation and gain more fans.”
• Time-Bound : “We want our media plan to gain 2,000 followers in the next three months across Twitter, Metaverse, and Instagram.”

Once you’ve determined your goals, start exploring resources that can help you reach them.

3. Find the media planning tools best suited for you.

I‘ll share some fantastic media planning templates for your business later in this post, but first, let’s talk about software tools that can do some of the heavy lifting for you.

To start, HubSpot Marketing Hub is perfect for drafting, planning, scheduling, and collecting conversion analytics. But if you’re looking for more options, check out our list of 15 essential media planning tools for you to use.

4. Analyze historical data.

You have to know where you began before you can start moving forward. I always look back at my previous media planning strategies to analyze their impact and reach.

For example, if your brand is already on Facebook, I’d check the business page insights to see how far we got with the old posting schedule and content. I’d also look at the posts that got the most engagement, the time periods with the highest traffic, and the content that helped turn prospects into customers.

By noting the effective elements of your previous strategy, you can let that drive some of your brainstorming for your new media plan. Think of it as building on past successes.

5. Choose your media mix.

When it comes to choosing your media mix, it's important to stay informed about the most popular marketing channels, as well as the ones preferred by your buyer personas.

According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing Report , over 1,400 global marketing professionals believe the marketing channels with the highest ROI are:

• Websites/Blogs
• Social Media
• Email Marketing
• Content Marketing

In my experience, an omnichannel media plan works great to reach your target audience wherever they are. By researching which channels your buyer personas frequent the most and being open to exploring new ones, you can decide on the right mix for your brand.

6. Put your media plan into action.

When working on your media plan, keep an eye on your insights and see how they stack up against your SMART goals. Remember, you can always adjust your plan as needed. Marketing is a dynamic field, and being able to pivot is crucial.

Now that you‘re familiar with creating a plan, let’s look at some resources to make the media planning process easier.

There are plenty of media planning templates available online, both for purchase and for free. What I love about using these templates is how customizable they are; you can tailor them to fit your business’s specific needs and goals.

Depending on the media software your business uses, such as HubSpot’s (free) CRM , Marketing Hub , or Sprout Social , there may already be customizable planning templates included. I’ve often used HubSpot’s templates, which offer a great menu of options to choose from.

Of course, you can also create your own templates using Google Sheets . I’ve done this myself, and it’s a great way to ensure your planning process fits perfectly with your unique workflow.

Whatever method you choose, remember that your media planning templates should evolve as your goals and audience grow. Don’t hesitate to adjust them over time to stay in sync with your business’s changing needs.

Free Media Planning Template [Download Now]

Activity

Description

Start Date

End Date

Guest posts

Promoting our new workout pants

3 March, 2025

3 June, 2025

Press releases in known publications

Promoting our brand in general

10 July, 2025

20 December, 2025

Newsletters

Send out monthly newsletters every month

3 March, 2025

29 December, 2025

We‘ve covered media planning in detail, but there’s another crucial aspect to consider: media buying.

Let’s get into it.

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What is an Audience Profile? [Steps + Examples]

15 Essential Media Planning Tools [+ Free Template]

Integrated Media Planning: What It Is and How to Adopt it In Your Marketing Strategy

What is a Media Mix & The Most Effective Types [HubSpot Blog Data]

A Plain English Guide to Real Time Bidding

The Plain English Guide to Demand-Side Platforms (DSP)

A Step-by-Step Guide to Advertising on Instagram

Paid Social Media: Worth The Investment?

Media Buying 101: What It Is and How It Works [+17 Platforms to Use]

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

Film and Video Production Business Plan [Sample Template]

By: Author Tony Martins Ajaero

Home » Business Plans » Media Sector

Are you about starting a film and video production company ? If YES, here is a complete sample film and video production business plan template & feasibility study you can use for FREE .

If you have ever come across a movie buff, chances are that you will notice the way at which they are able to analyze a movie for expertise or mediocrity. The truth is that these folks can tell when a movie has been well produced. This is one of the reasons why those who are at the helms of affair in the movie production business try their best to churn out quality stuff.

Starting a film and video production company is one of the best things that may happen to you. This is because of the promising nature of the trade. As a matter of fact millionaires are being made every time in the movie production world. Good news still remains that there are newbies every now and then.

Suggested for You

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A Sample Film and Video Production Business Plan Template

1. industry overview.

We can hardly talk about the film and video production industry without mentioning big players in the industry such as 21 st Century Fox, Time Warner, NBC Universal, The Walt Disney Company and Viacom Inc. et al. These are companies that truly define the trends in the industry.

Basically, film and video production industry is an industry that is responsible for producing and distributing motion pictures and videos. This industry does not include third-party providers such as distributors and disc manufacturers, as well as products, such as television shows and made-for-television movies, aimed specifically toward television et al.

Despite the fact that film and video production business can be expensive to run, the business is indeed a thriving business that has loads of players making huge profits from the industry. One thing is certain, if a film and video production company can successfully produce a major hit movie or musical video; it won’t be too long before video recording contracts come calling from all over the united states and beyond.

Players in the Film and Video Production industry struggled with mounting film production costs and of course the decline in theater/cinema attendance.

It is now common in recent times to find the average movie producers increasingly investing in high – end special effects hence they choose to shift their focus toward generating high ticket sales as against increasing the number of dramas and comedies, which usually generate comparatively lower revenue.

The industry is exploring now maximizing new distribution channels to continue to increase revenue generation so as to break even after spending huge sum of money to produce a movie.

Any entrepreneur who intends to start a film and video production company must be ready to pull enough cash to be able to acquire expensive film and video production gears, for location shooting equipment and professional movie editing software amongst many other expenses associated with movie production.

In other to cut cost especially when starting out, movie producers often rent shooting equipment for a fraction of its cost, which has helped limit the massive capital expenditures that would otherwise be necessary to produce major films.

For instance, in 2015 alone, for every dollar spent on labor, movie producers incur an estimated $0.22 in capital expenditures. In the last five years, capital intensity has remained fairly constant.

The Film and Video Production industry still depend on experts(highly skilled workers and artists) in all stages of the production process, and highly talented and hardworking employees are required for planning, shooting, editing and distributing films.

The Film and Video Production industry is indeed witnessing a steady growth over the years- especially in countries such as the United States, Nigeria, india and China et al. Though for some underdeveloped countries where piracy is still on rampage, the growth is a bit redundant.

Statistics has it that the Film and Video Production industry in the United States of America, is worth $34bn, with an estimated growth rate of 0.7 percent. There are about 6,527 registered and licensed film and video production companies in the United States and they are responsible for employing about 63,228 people.

One good thing about starting a film and video production business is that even if you decided to start it in the United States of America, your market would not be restricted to business opportunities in the U.S.; the world will be your target market.

Many thanks to the internet that has made the world a global village. All you need to do is to strategically position your film and video production brand on the internet and you will be amazed at the rate people will be calling you from all parts of the world.

2. Executive Summary

Film production is one art that requires a ton of skills. This is so that nothing short of the best is produced. Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company is a one stop and standard film and video production company that is fully equipped with the latest technology in the film and video production industry.

Our film and video production studio will be located in the heart of Inglewood, Los Angeles – California, U.S and we are positioned to work for a wide range of client ranging from individual clients to corporate organizations, national clients to international clients and players in the Hollywood industry et al.

Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company will engage in all aspect of business services synonymous to standard organization operating in the film and video production industry.

Our business goal is to work towards becoming one of the leading film and video production brand in the whole of Los Angeles and in the nearest future compete with the leaders in the industry not only in the United States but also in the global stage.

We are not ignorant of the fact that building a standard and world class film and video production company from the scratch requires huge capital base- essentially for the purchase of world – class and latest film and video production equipment; which is why we have perfect plans for steady flow of cash from our business partners with interest in our line of business.

We can confidently say that we have a robust financial standing and we are ready to take on any challenge that we encounter in the industry.

We will ensure that all our employees are selected from a pool of talented and highly creative people with eyes for good movies in and around Los Angeles – California (with bias from Hollywood) and also from any part of the United States.

We will make sure that we take all the members of our workforce through the required trainings that will position them to meet the expectation of the company and to compete with other players in the United States and throughout the globe.

At Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company our client’s best interest will always come first, and everything we do will be guided by our values and professional ethics.

We will ensure that we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards by meeting our client’s needs precisely and completely and of course producing movies and videos that can compete with the best in the world. We will cultivate a working environment that provides a human, sustainable approach to earning a living, and living in our world, for our partners, employees and for our clients.

Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company is owned majorly by Macqueen Reeves and other partners. Macqueen Reeves is a certified and licensed film producer, he graduated from New York Film Academy and he has well over 15 years hand on experience in the film and video production industry working for leading film and video producing companies in Hollywood prior to starting his own film and video production company.

He will build the business alongside other experienced partners who have successfully carved a niche for themselves in the industry.

3. Our Products and Services

We do not want to leave any stone unturned when it comes to producing the best products and services. So, Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company is going to offer a variety of services within the scope of the film and video production industry in the United States of America.

Our intention of starting our film and video production business in Inglewood – Los Angele is to make profits from the film and video industry and we will do all that is permitted by the law in the US to achieve our aim and business goals. Our business offering are listed below;

• Action and adventure films
• Comedy films
• Drama films
• Thriller/suspense films
• Musical Videos
• Documentaries
• Other films (Commercials and Advertisement et al)
• Creating a timeline of production for film and video and ensuring that timelines are met
• Seeking financing for film and video productions
• Producing film and video programming
• Publicizing film and video productions
• Distributing film and video (if the company is also involved in all of the above)
• Film and Video Production Merchandize (Sale of Film and Video Production Equipment)
• Film and Video Production Consultancy and Advisory Services

4. Our Mission and Vision Statement

• Our vision is to build a standard and world – class film and video production business that can favorably compete with leaders in the industry.
• Our mission is to build a world class and well equipped film and video production company that will produce standard movies that can be generally accepted in all parts of the world; we want to build a film and video production brand that can work for clients not only in the United States of America and Canada, but in all parts of the world.

Our Business Structure

The success of any business is to a larger extent dependent on the business structure of the organization and the people who occupy the available role. Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company will build a solid business structure that can support the growth of our film and video production business.

We will ensure that we hire competent hands to help us build the business of our dream. The fact that we want to become one of the leading film and video production brand in the industry in the whole of the United States of America makes it highly necessary for our organization to deliberately build a well – structured business from the onset.

We will work hard to ensure that we only attract people with the right mindset to help us achieve our business goals and objectives in record time. Below is the business structure that we will build Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company;

• Chief Executive Officer

Entertainment Lawyer/Legal Secretary

Studio Manager

Film Producer

Recording Engineer

Admin and HR Manager

Marketing and Sales Executive

Front Desk Officer

5. Job Roles and Responsibilities

Chief Executive Office:

• Increases management’s effectiveness by recruiting, selecting, orienting, training, coaching, counseling, and disciplining managers; communicating values, strategies, and objectives; assigning accountabilities; planning, monitoring, and appraising job results; developing incentives; developing a climate for offering information and opinions; providing educational opportunities.
• Responsible for providing direction for the business
• Creates, communicates, and implements the organization’s vision, mission, and overall direction – i.e. leading the development and implementation of the overall organization’s strategy.
• Responsible for signing checks and documents on behalf of the company
• Evaluates the success of the organization
• Responsible for drawing up contracts and other legal documents for the company
• Welcomes guests and clients by greeting them in person or on the telephone; answering or directing inquiries.
• Produces information by transcribing, formatting, inputting, editing, retrieving, copying, and transmitting text, data, and graphics; coordinating case preparation.
• Provides historical reference by developing and utilizing filing and retrieval systems; recording meeting discussions; maintaining transcripts; documenting and maintaining evidence.
• Updates job knowledge by participating in educational opportunities; reading professional publications; maintaining personal networks; participating in professional organizations.
• Enhances department and organization reputation by accepting ownership for accomplishing new and different requests; exploring opportunities to add value to job accomplishments.
• Responsible for managing every activities that goes on in the studio
• Responsible for managing the company’s video editing department
• Handle any other responsibility as assigned by the Chief Executive Officer
• Responsible for developing concept and producing movies from start to finish
• Responsible for choosing the right locations to shoot a movie
• Works with the accountant and other stakeholders in the company to draw – up a budget for any movie project
• Responsible for handle any picture and sound related job for the company; helps achieve certain specific sounds or feelings to portray through that matches with the movie (especially for soundtracks).
• Responsible for handling all aspect of video shooting on locations
• Responsible for overseeing the smooth running of HR and administrative tasks for the organization
• Maintains office supplies by checking stocks; placing and expediting orders; evaluating new products.
• Ensures operation of film shooting and studio equipment by completing preventive maintenance requirements; calling for repairs.
• Defines job positions for recruitment and managing interviewing process
• Carries out staff induction for new team members
• Responsible for training, evaluation and assessment of employees
• Responsible for arranging travel, meetings and appointments
• Designs job descriptions with KPI to drive performance management for clients
• Regularly hold meetings with key stakeholders to review the effectiveness of HR Policies, Procedures and Processes
• Facilitates and coordinates strategic sessions.
• Works directly with clients in a non-advising capacity, such as answering questions, scheduling appointments and making sure all training concerns are properly taken care off
• Oversees the smooth running of the daily office activities.
• Once the movie is ready, then the marketing team will go out to market and promote the album
• Identifies, prioritizes, and reaches out to new partners, and business opportunities et al
• Identifies business opportunities; follows up on development leads and contacts; participates in the structuring and financing of projects; assures the completion of music projects.
• Responsible for supervising implementation, advocate for the customer’s needs, and communicate with clients, cinema operators and movie distributors
• Develops, executes and evaluates new plans for expanding increase sales
• Documents all customer contact and information
• Represents the company in strategic meetings
• Helps to increase sales and growth for the company
• Responsible for preparing financial reports, budgets, and financial statements for the organization
• Provides managements with financial analyses, development budgets, and accounting reports; analyzes financial feasibility for the most complex proposed projects; conducts market research to forecast trends and business conditions.
• Responsible for financial forecasting and risks analysis.
• Performs cash management, general ledger accounting, and financial reporting for one or more properties.
• Responsible for developing and managing financial systems and policies
• Responsible for administering payrolls
• Ensures compliance with taxation legislation
• Handles all financial transactions for the company
• Serves as internal auditor for the company

Client Service Executive

• Ensures that all contacts with clients (e-mail, walk-In centre, SMS or phone) provides the client with a personalized customer service experience of the highest level
• Through interaction with clients on the phone, uses every opportunity to build client’s interest in the company’s products and services
• Manages administrative duties assigned by the manager in an effective and timely manner
• Consistently stays abreast of any new information on the company’s products, promotional campaigns etc. to ensure accurate and helpful information is supplied to clients when they make enquiries
• Receives Visitors/clients on behalf of the organization
• Receives parcels/documents for the company
• Handles enquiries via e-mail and phone calls for the organization
• Distribute mails in the organization
• Handles any other duties as assigned my the line manager

6. SWOT Analysis

Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company engaged the services of a core professional in the area of film and video production consulting and business structuring to assist the organization in building a standard and world – class film and video production company that can favorably compete with other leading film and video production brands in the United States of America.

Part of what the business consultant did was to work with the management of the company in conducting a comprehensive SWOT analysis for Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company. Here is a summary from the result of the SWOT analysis that was conducted on behalf of Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company;

Our core strength lies in the power of our team and the latest film and video production equipment that we have. We have a team that can go all the way to give our clients value for their money; a team that can produce world class movies that can favorable compete with movies produced by leaders in the industry.

We are well positioned in the heart of Inglewood, Los Angeles and we know we will attract loads of clients from the first day we open our film and video production company for business.

As a new film and video production company based in Los Angeles – the headquarter of film production in the world, it might take some time for our organization to break into the market and attract some well – established artist and bigger corporations and investors; that is perhaps our major weakness. Another weakness is that we may not have the required cash to pump into the promotion our business the way we would want to.

• Opportunities:

The opportunities in the film and video production industry is massive especially in a place like Los Angeles – California where we have Hollywood, and we are ready to take advantage of any opportunity that comes our way.

We like other brands in the industry, have our own fair share of threats. Hence, technology and the internet which of course is a major tool for the advancement and gains achieved in the film and video production industry can also poses a threat to the industry.

The truth is that with the advancement of technology, it is now easier for individuals to produce home videos and musical videos without the help of professional film and video production companies. So also, just like any other business, one of the major threats that we are likely going to face is economic downturn.

It is a fact that economic downturn affects purchasing / spending power. Another threat that may likely confront us is the arrival of a new film and video production company in same location where our target market exist and who may want to adopt same Business model like us.

7. MARKET ANALYSIS

• Market Trends

Online video is one major trend in the film and video production industry. Recent statistics from Comscore show that on an average day in 2011, over 100 million Americans viewed online video content. This represents growth of 43 percent over the previous year.

Well over 43.5 billion videos were streamed in December 2011 alone; a 44 percent increase over the previous year. This growth shows no signs of dwindling, as people increase the absolute number of videos they watch, in addition to viewing longer form content on leading video sites such as Netflix and Hulu.

Entrepreneurs that are venturing into the film and video production industry are coming in with creativity and good business skills. The fact that it is highly competitive in the industry does not in a way stop some film and video production companies from declaring profits year in year out.

Another known trend in the film and video production industry is that most film and video production companies are trying as much as possible to recreate themselves on a regular basis and also to be on top of their game.

8. Our Target Market

When it comes to film and video production business, there are no exemptions to who you can market your services products to especially finished movies. Your movies can be market to adults, children, teenagers, corporate organization, government and everyone who can afford to purchase a movie et al.

Over and above, our target market as a film and video production company cuts across people of different class and people from all walks of life and corporate organizations. In view of that, we have created strategies that will enable us reach out to various corporate organizations and individual who we know will need our products and services.

We have conducted our market research and survey and we will ensure that our film and video production company attracts the kind of artists and clients we would love to work with. Below is a list of the people and organizations that we have specifically market our services to;

• Advertising Agencies
• Corporate Organizations (Branding and Advertising Agencies et al)
• Teenagers, Adults and Children
• TV stations

Our Competitive Advantage

We are mindful of the fact that there are stiffer competition in the film and video production industry in the United States of America; hence we have been able to hire some of the best business developer to handle our sales and marketing.

Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company might be a new entrant into the film and video production industry in the United States of America, but our competitive advantage lies in the power of our team and the latest film and video production equipment that we have.

We have a team that can go all the way to give our clients value for their money; a team that can produce world class movies that can favorable compete with movies produced by leaders in the industry.

Lastly, our employees will be well taken care of, and their welfare package will be among the best within our category (startups film and video production companies) in the industry meaning that they will be more than willing to build the business with us and help deliver our set goals and achieve all our aims and objectives.

9. SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGY

• Sources of Income

Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company is established with the aim of maximizing profits in the film and video production industry and we are going to go all the way to ensure that we do all it takes to attract our target market.

Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company will generate income by offering the following services and products;

10. Sales Forecast

One thing is certain when it comes to movies and documentaries; they never dies and the demand for good movies and documentaries will continue to grow. This goes to show that any film and video production company that is known to always produce good movies will continue to attract talented artists, corporate organizations and clients and that will sure translate to increase in revenue generation for the business.

We are well positioned to take on the available market in Los Angeles California and beyond and we are quite optimistic that we will meet our set target of generating enough income / profits from the first six month of operations and grow the business and our clientele base beyond Los Angeles – California to other cities in the U.S. and even the global market.

We have been able to critically examine the film and video production market and we have analyzed our chances in the industry and we have been able to come up with the following sales forecast. The sales projection is based on information gathered on the field and some assumptions that are peculiar to startups in Los Angeles – CA.

Below is the sales projection for Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company, it is based on the location of our business and other factors as it relates to film and video production start – ups in the United States;

• First Year-: $1M
• Second Year-: $1.75M
• Third Year-: $2.5M

N.B : This projection is done based on what is obtainable in the industry and with the assumption that there won’t be any major economic meltdown and there won’t be any major competitor offering same services as we do within same location. Please note that the above projection might be lower and at the same time it might be higher.

• Marketing Strategy and Sales Strategy

Our sales and marketing team will be recruited based on their vast experience in the film and video production industry and they will be trained on a regular basis so as to be well equipped to meet their targets and the overall goal of the organization.

We will also ensure that our excellent movies and videos speaks for us in the market place; we want to build a standard and well equipped film and video production company that will leverage on word of mouth advertisement from satisfied clients/artists.

Our business goal is to build Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company business to become one of the leading choice in the whole of Los Angeles – California which is why we have mapped out strategy that will help us take advantage of the available market and grow to become a major force to reckon with not only in the U.S but in the world stage as well.

Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company is set to make use of the following marketing and sales strategies to attract clients;

• Introduce our business by sending introductory letters alongside our brochure to organizations and key stake holders in the film and video industry (movie distributors and cinema operators) in Los Angeles and other parts of the U.S.
• Advertise our business in relevant entertainment magazines, newspapers, TV stations, and radio station.
• List our business on yellow pages ads (local directories)
• Attend relevant international and local film festivals, expos, seminars, and concerts et al
• Create different packages for different category of clients in order to work with their budgets and still produce top notch videos or movies for them
• Leverage on the internet to promote our business
• Engage in direct marketing approach
• Encourage word of mouth marketing from our loyal and satisfied clients

11. Publicity and Advertising Strategy

We are aware that there isn’t any business that despises new clients. This the reason why we have been able to work with brand and publicity specialist to help us map out publicity and advertising strategies that will help us walk our way into the heart of our target market.

We are set to take the film and video production industry by storm which is why we have made provisions for effective publicity and advertisement of our recording studio company. Below are the platforms we intend to leverage on to promote and advertise Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company;

• Place adverts on both print and electronic media platforms
• Sponsor relevant TV shows and radio programs
• Maximize our official website to promote our business
• Leverage on the internet and social media platforms like; YouTube, Instagram, Facebook ,Twitter, LinkedIn, Badoo, Google+ and other platforms (music online forums) to promote our business.
• Offer Pro Bono services as part of our community social responsibility
• Ensure that our we position our banners and billboards in strategic positions all around Los Angeles – CA
• Brand all our official cars/buses and ensure that our trademark label is boldly printed in all our movies and videos (DVDs) et al

12. Our Pricing Strategy

At Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company we will keep our fees and prices of videos a little below the average market rate for all of our clients by keeping our overhead low and by collecting payment in advance. In addition, we will also offer special discounted rates to start – ups, nonprofits, cooperatives, and small social enterprises who engage our services to help to produce movies or short videos especially for advert purposes.

• Payment Options

At Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company, our payment policy will be all inclusive because we are quite aware that different people prefer different payment options as it suits them. Here are the payment options that we will make available to our clients;

• Payment by via bank transfer
• Payment via online bank transfer
• Payment via check
• Payment via bank draft
• Payment via mobile money
• Payment with cash

In view of the above, we have chosen banking platforms that will help us achieve our plans with little or no itches.

13. Startup Expenditure (Budget)

The cost of setting up film and video production business can be quite expensive especially if you are all out to start a standard film and video production company. Aside from the money required to purchase the latest film recording and production equipment, you would also need a huge cash base to be able to attract and pay well established film actors to act in your movies.

Essentially, this is the area we are looking towards spending our start – up capital on;

• The Total Fee for incorporating the Business in Los Angeles, California – $750.
• The budget for Liability insurance, permits and license – $2,500
• The Amount needed to acquire a suitable Office facility with enough space for standard movie production studio in a business district 6 months (Re – Construction of the facility inclusive) – $200,000.
• The Cost for equipping the office (computers, printers, fax machines, furniture, telephones, filing cabins, safety gadgets and electronics et al) – $2,000
• The cost for equipping the movie production studio with the required video gears – $150,000
• The Cost of Launching our official Website – $600
• Budget for paying at least 5 employees for 3 months and utility bills – $100,000
• Budget for paying actors and taking care of logistics in movie locations – $500,000
• Additional Expenditure (Business cards, Signage, Adverts and Promotions et al) – $2,500
• Miscellaneous – $20,000

Going by the report from the research and feasibility studies, we will need about $1 million to set up a medium scale but standard film and video production company in the United States of America. Here are some of the key film and video production equipment and gear that we would need to set up our film and video production company;

• Standard Video Cameras
• Camera lights/Three-Point Lighting Kit
• Shotgun Mic with boom pole accessories
• Audio (XLR) Cables
• Wireless Microphone
• Lenses: Wide Angle, Clear “Protective” Lens, Polarizer, Zoom Lens, Macros, etc.
• Light Reflector
• DSLR Shoulder Mount Rig
• Video Editing Software and Video Editing Computer (MacBook Pro Laptop / Apple MacBook Pro Laptop)
• External Hard Drive
• Digital video workstation

Generating Funding/Startup Capital for Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company

Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company is going to start as a partnership business that will be owned and managed by Macqueen Reeves and his business partners. They are the financial of the business, but may likely welcome other partners later, which is why they have decided to restrict the sourcing of his start – up capital to 3 major sources.

These are the areas we intend generating our start – up capital;

• Generate part of the start – up capital from personal savings
• Source for soft loans from family members and friends
• Apply for loan from my Bank

N.B: We have been able to generate about $500,000 (Personal savings plus funds from business partners) and we are at the final stages of obtaining a loan facility of $500,000 from our bank. All the papers and document has been duly signed and submitted, the loan has been approved and any moment from now our account will be credited.

14. Sustainability and Expansion Strategy

The future of a business lies in the numbers of loyal customers that they have the capacity and competence of the employees, their investment strategy and the business structure. If all of these factors are missing from a business (company), then it won’t be too long before the business close shop.

One of our major goals of starting Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company is to build a business that will survive off its own cash flow without the need for injecting finance from external sources once the business is officially running.

We know that one of the ways of gaining approval and winning customers over is to ensure that every movie that we produce is a hit back to back and it appeals to the needs of the society we intend selling the movies

Moonlight™ Film and Video Production Company will make sure that the right foundation, structures and processes are put in place to ensure that our staff welfare are well taken of. Our company’s corporate culture is designed to drive our business to greater heights and training and re – training of our workforce is at the top burner.

As a matter of fact, profit-sharing arrangement will be made available to all our management staff and it will be based on their performance for a period of five years or more. We know that if that is put in place, we will be able to successfully hire and retain the best hands we can get in the industry; they will be more committed to help us build the business of our dreams.

Check List/Milestone

• Business Name Availability Check:>Completed
• Business Incorporation: Completed
• Renting of Office Facility: Completed
• Setting Up Of The Recording Studio: In Progress
• Intellectual Property Protection and Trademark: Completed
• Opening of Corporate Bank Accounts various banks in the United States: Completed
• Opening Online Payment Platforms: Completed
• Application and Obtaining Tax Payer’s ID: In Progress
• Application for business license and permit: Completed
• Purchase of All form of Insurance for the Business: Completed
• Conducting Feasibility Studies: Completed
• Generating part of the start – up capital from the founder: Completed
• Applications for Loan from our Bankers: In Progress
• Writing of Business Plan: Completed
• Drafting of Employee’s Handbook: Completed
• Drafting of Contract Documents: In Progress
• Design of The Company’s Logo: Completed
• Graphic Designs and Printing of Packaging Marketing / Promotional Materials: Completed
• Recruitment of employees: In Progress
• Purchase of the Needed studio / musical gadgets, furniture, office equipment, electronic appliances and facility facelift: In progress
• Creating Official Website for the Company: In Progress
• Creating Awareness for the business (Business PR): In Progress
• Health and Safety and Fire Safety Arrangement: In Progress
• Establishing business relationship with key players in the industry: In Progress

J. V. Stalin

The Tasks of Business Executives

Speech delivered at the first all-union conference of leading personnel of socialist industry 1 february 4, 1931.

Source : Works, Vol. 13, 1930 - January 1934 Publisher : Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954 Transcription/HTML Markup : Salil Sen for MIA, 2008 Public Domain : Marxists Internet Archive (2008). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit "Marxists Internet Archive" as your source.

Comrades, the deliberations of your conference are drawing to a close. You are now about to adopt resolutions. I have no doubt that they will be adopted unanimously. In these resolutions — I am somewhat familiar with them — you approve the control figures of industry for 1931 and pledge yourselves to fulfil them.

A Bolshevik's word is his bond. Bolsheviks are in the habit of fulfilling promises made by them. But what does the pledge to fulfil the control figures for 1931 mean? It means ensuring a total increase of industrial output by 45 per cent. And that is a very big task. More than that. Such a pledge means that you not only pledge yourselves to fulfil our five-year plan in four years — that matter has already been settled, and no more resolutions on it are needed — it means that you promise to fulfil it in three years in all the basic, decisive branches of industry.

It is good that the conference gives a promise to fulfil the plan for 1931, to fulfil the five-year plan in three years. But we have been taught by "bitter experience." We know that promises are not always kept. In the beginning of 1930, too, a promise was given to fulfil the plan for the year. At that time it was necessary to increase the output of our industries by 31 to 32 per cent. But that promise was not kept to the full. Actually, the increase in industrial output during 1930 amounted to 25 per cent. We must ask: Will not the same thing occur again this year? The managers and leading personnel of our industries now promise to increase industrial output in 1931 by 45 per cent. But what guarantee is there that this promise will be kept?

What is needed in order to fulfil the control figures, to achieve a 45 per cent increase in output, to secure the fulfilment of the five-year plan not in four, but, as regards the basic and decisive branches of industry, in three years?

Two fundamental conditions are needed for this.

Firstly, real or, as we term it, "objective" possibilities.

Secondly, the willingness and ability to direct our enterprises in such a way as to realise these possibilities.

Did we have the "objective" possibilities last year for completely fulfilling the plan? Yes, we had. Incontestable facts testify to this. These facts show that in March and April of last year industry achieved an increase of 31 per cent in output compared with the previous year. Why then, it will be asked, did we fail to fulfil the plan for the whole year? What prevented it? What was lacking? The ability to make use of the existing possibilities was lacking. The ability to manage the factories, mills and mines properly was lacking.

We had the first condition: the "objective" possibilities for fulfilling the plan. But we did not have in sufficient degree the second condition: the ability to manage production. And precisely because we lacked the ability to manage the factories, the plan was not fulfilled. Instead of a 31-32 per cent increase we had one of only 25 per cent.

Of course, a 25 per cent increase is a big thing. Not a single capitalist country increased its production in 1930, or is increasing production now. In all capitalist countries without exception a sharp decline in production is taking place. Under such circumstances a 25 per cent increase is a big step forward. But we could have achieved more. We had all the necessary "objective" conditions for this.

And so, what guarantee is there that what happened last year will not be repeated this year, that the plan will be fulfilled, that we shall use the existing possibilities in the way that they should be used, that your promise will not to some extent remain a promise on paper?

In the history of states and countries, in the history of armies, there have been cases when there was every possibility for success and victory, but these possibilities were wasted because the leaders failed to notice them, did not know how to take advantage of them, and the armies suffered defeat.

Have we all the possibilities that are needed to fulfil the control figures for 1931?

Yes, we have such possibilities.

What are these possibilities? What is needed in order that these possibilities should really exist?

First of all, adequate natural resources in the country: iron ore, coal, oil, grain, cotton. Have we these resources? Yes, we have. We have them in larger quantities than any other country. Take the Urals, for example, which provide a combination of resources not to be found in any other country. Ore, coal, oil, grain — what is there not in the Urals? We have everything in our country, except, perhaps, rubber. But within a year or two we shall have our own rubber as well As far as natural resources are concerned we are fully provided. We have even more than necessary. What else is needed?

A government desirous and capable of utilising these immense natural resources for the benefit of the people. Have we such a government? We have. True, our work in utilising natural resources does not always proceed without friction among our leading personnel. For instance, last year the Soviet Government had to conduct a certain amount of struggle over the question of creating a second coal and metallurgical base, without which we cannot develop further. But we have already overcome these obstacles and shall soon have this base.

What else is needed?

That this government should enjoy the support of the vast masses of workers and peasants. Does our government enjoy such support? Yes, it does. You will find no other government in the world that enjoys such support from the workers and peasants as does the Soviet government. There is no need for me to refer to the growth of socialist emulation, the spread of shock-brigade work, the campaign and struggle for counter-plans. All these facts, which vividly demonstrate the support that the vast masses give the Soviet Government, are well known.

What else is needed in order to fulfil and overfulfil the control figures for 1931?

A system that is free from the incurable diseases of capitalism and has great advantages over capitalism. Crises, unemployment, waste, destitution among the masses — such are the incurable diseases of capitalism. Our system does not suffer from these diseases because power is in our hands, in the hands of the working class; because we are conducting a planned economy, systematically accumulating resources and properly distributing them among the different branches of the national economy. We are free from the incurable diseases of capitalism. That is what distinguishes us from capitalism; that is what constitutes our decisive superiority over capitalism.

Notice the way in which the capitalists are trying to escape from the economic crisis. They are reducing the workers' wages as much as possible. They are reducing the prices of raw materials as much as possible. But they do not want to reduce the prices of food and industrial commodities for mass consumption to any important extent. This means that they want to escape from the crisis at the expense of the principal consumers, at the expense of the workers and peasants, at the expense of the working people. The capitalists are cutting the ground from under their own feet. And instead of overcoming the crisis they are aggravating it; new conditions are accumulating which lead to a new, even more severe crisis.

Our superiority lies in the fact that we have no crises of overproduction, we have not and never will have millions of unemployed, we have no anarchy in production, for we are conducting a planned economy. But that is not all. We are a land of the most concentrated industry. This means that we can build our industry on the basis of the best technique and thereby secure an unprecedented productivity of labour, an unprecedented rate of accumulation. Our weakness in the past was that this industry was based upon scattered and small peasant farming. That was so in the past; it is no longer so now. Soon, perhaps within a year, we shall become the country of the largest-scale agriculture in the world. This year, the state farms and collective farms — and these are forms of large-scale farming — have already supplied half of all our marketable grain. And that means that our system, the Soviet system, affords us opportunities of rapid progress of which not a single bourgeois country can dream.

What else is needed in order to advance with giant strides?

A party sufficiently solid and united to direct the efforts of all the best members of the working class to one point, and sufficiently experienced to be unafraid of difficulties and to pursue systematically a correct, revolutionary, Bolshevik policy. Have we such a party? Yes, we have. Is its policy correct? Yes, it is, for it is yielding important successes. This is now admitted not only by the friends but also by the enemies of the working class. See how all the well-known "honourable" gentlemen, Fish in America, Churchill in Britain, Poincare in France, fume and rave against our Party. Why do they fume and rave? Because the policy of our Party is correct, because it is yielding success after success.

There, comrades, you have all those objective possibilities which assist us in realising the control figures for 1931, which help us to fulfil the five-year plan in four years, and in the key industries even in three years.

Thus we have the first condition for fulfilment of the plan — the "objective" possibilities.

Have we the second condition, the ability to use these possibilities?

In other words, are our factories, mills and mines properly managed? Is everything in order in this respect?

Unfortunately, not everything is in order here. And, as Bolsheviks, we must say this plainly and frankly.

What does management of production mean? There are people among us who do not always have a Bolshevik approach to the question of the management of our factories. There are many people among us who think that management is synonymous with signing papers and orders. This is sad, but true. At times one cannot help recalling Shchedrin's Pompadours. Do you remember how Madame Pompadour taught the young Pompadour: "Don't bother your head with science, don't go into matters, let others do that, it is not your business — your business is to sign papers." It must be admitted to our shame that even among us Bolsheviks there are not a few who carry out management by signing papers. But as for going into matters, mastering technique, becoming master of the business — why, that is out of the question.

How is it that we Bolsheviks, who have made three revolutions, who emerged victorious from the bitter civil war, who have solved the tremendous task of building a modern industry, who have swung the peasantry on to the path of socialism — how is it that in the matter of the management of production we bow to a slip of paper?

The reason is that it is easier to sign papers than to manage production. And so, many economic executives are taking this line of least resistance. We, too, in the centre, are also to blame. About ten years ago a slogan was issued: "Since Communists do not yet properly understand the technique of production, since they have yet to learn the art of management, let the old technicians and engineers — the experts — carry on production, and you, Communists, do not interfere with the technique of the business; but, while not interfering, study technique, study the art of management tirelessly, in order later on, together with the experts who are loyal to us, to become true managers of production, true masters of the business." Such was the slogan. But what actually happened? The second part of this formula was cast aside, for it is harder to study than to sign papers; and the first part of the formula was vulgarised: non-interference was interpreted to mean refraining from studying the technique of production. The result has been nonsense, harmful and dangerous nonsense, which the sooner we discard the better.

Life itself has more than once warned us that all was not well in this field. The Shakhty affair 2 was the first grave warning. The Shakhty affair showed that the Party organisations and the trade unions lacked revolutionary vigilance. It showed that our economic executives were disgracefully backward in technical knowledge; that some of the old engineers and technicians, working without supervision, rather easily go over to wrecking activities, especially as they are constantly being besieged by "offers" from our enemies abroad.

The second warning was the "Industrial Party" trial 3 .

Of course, the underlying cause of wrecking activities is the class struggle. Of course, the class enemy furiously resists the socialist offensive. This alone, however, is not an adequate explanation for the luxuriant growth of wrecking activities.

How is it that wrecking activities assumed such wide dimensions? Who is to blame for this? We are to blame. Had we handled the business of managing production differently, had we started much earlier to learn the technique of the business, to master technique, had we more frequently and efficiently intervened in the management of production, the wreckers would not have succeeded in doing so much damage.

We must ourselves become experts, masters of the business; we must turn to technical science — such was the lesson life itself was teaching us. But neither the first warning nor even the second brought about the necessary change. It is time, high time that we turned towards technique. It is time to discard the old slogan, the obsolete slogan of non-interference in technique, and ourselves become specialists, experts, complete masters of our economic affairs.

It is frequently asked: Why have we not one-man management? We do not have it and we shall not get it until we have mastered technique. Until there are among us Bolsheviks a sufficient number of people thoroughly familiar with technique, economy and finance, we shall not have real one-man management. You can write as many resolutions as you please, take as many vows as you please, but, unless you master the technique, economy and finance of the mill, factory or mine, nothing will come of it, there will be no one-man management.

Hence, the task is for us to master technique ourselves, to become masters of the business ourselves. This is the sole guarantee that our plans will be carried out in full, and that one-man management will be established.

This, of course, is no easy matter; but it can certainly be accomplished. Science, technical experience, knowledge, are all things that can be acquired. We may not have them today, but tomorrow we shall. The main thing is to have the passionate Bolshevik desire to master technique, to master the science of production. Everything can be achieved, everything can be overcome, if there is a passionate desire for it.

It is sometimes asked whether it is not possible to slow down the tempo somewhat, to put a check on the movement. No, comrades, it is not possible! The tempo must not be reduced! On the contrary, we must increase it as much as is within our powers and possibilities. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the workers and peasants of the U.S.S.R. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the working class of the whole world.

To slacken the tempo would mean falling behind. And those who fall behind get beaten. But we do not want to be beaten. No, we refuse to be beaten! One feature of the history of old Russia was the continual beatings she suffered because of her backwardness. She was beaten by the Mongol khans. She was beaten by the Turkish beys. She was beaten by the Swedish feudal lords. She was beaten by the Polish and Lithuanian gentry. She was beaten by the British and French capitalists. She was beaten by the Japanese barons. All beat her — because of her backwardness, because of her military backwardness, cultural backwardness, political backwardness, industrial backwardness, agricultural backwardness. They beat her because it was profitable and could be done with impunity. You remember the words of the pre-revolutionary poet: "You are poor and abundant, mighty and impotent, Mother Russia." 4 Those gentlemen were quite familiar with the verses of the old poet. They beat her, saying: "You are abundant," so one can enrich oneself at your expense. They beat her, saying: "You are poor and impotent," so you can be beaten and plundered with impunity. Such is the law of the exploiters — to beat the backward and the weak. It is the jungle law of capitalism. You are backward, you are weak — therefore you are wrong; hence you can be beaten and enslaved. You are mighty — therefore you are right; hence we must be wary of you.

That is why we must no longer lag behind.

In the past we had no fatherland, nor could we have had one. But now that we have overthrown capitalism and power is in our hands, in the hands of the people, we have a fatherland, and we will uphold its independence. Do you want our socialist fatherland to be beaten and to lose its independence? If you do not want this, you must put an end to its backwardness in the shortest possible time and develop a genuine Bolshevik tempo in building up its socialist economy. There is no other way. That is why Lenin said on the eve of the October Revolution: "Either perish, or overtake and outstrip the advanced capitalist countries."

We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under.

That is what our obligations to the workers and peasants of the U.S.S.R. dictate to us.

But we have yet other, more serious and more important, obligations. They are our obligations to the world proletariat. They coincide with our obligations to the workers and peasants of the U.S.S.R. But we place them higher. The working class of the U.S.S.R. is part of the world working class. We achieved victory not solely through the efforts of the working class of the U.S.S.R., but also thanks to the support of the working class of the world. Without this support we would have been torn to pieces long ago. It is said that our country is the shock brigade of the proletariat of all countries. That is well said. But is imposes very serious obligations upon us. Why does the international proletariat support us? How did we merit this support? By the fact that we were the first to hurl ourselves into the battle against capitalism, we were the first to establish working-class state power, we were the first to begin building socialism. By the fact that we were engaged on a cause which, if successful, will transform the whole world and free the entire working class. But what is needed for success? The elimination of our backwardness, the development of a high Bolshevik tempo of construction. We must march forward in such a way that the working class of the whole world, looking at us, may say: There you have my advanced detachment, my shock brigade, my working-class state power, my fatherland; they are engaged on their cause, our cause, and they are working well; let us support them against the capitalists and promote the cause of the world revolution. Must we not justify the hopes of the world's working class, must we not fulfil our obligations to them? Yes, we must if we do not want to utterly disgrace ourselves.

Such are our obligations, internal and international. As you see, they dictate to us a Bolshevik tempo of development.

I will not say that we have accomplished nothing in regard to management of production during these years. In fact, we have accomplished a good deal. We have doubled our industrial output compared with the pre-war level. We have created the largest-scale agricultural production in the world. But we could have accomplished still more if we had tried during this period really to master production, the technique of production, the financial and economic side of it.

In ten years at most we must make good the distance that separates us from the advanced capitalist countries. We have all the "objective" possibilities for this. The only thing lacking is the ability to make proper use of these possibilities. And that depends on us. Only on us! It is time we learned to make use of these possibilities. It is time to put an end to the rotten line of non-interference in production. It is time to adopt a new line, one corresponding to the present period — the line of interfering in everything. If you are a factory manager — interfere in all the affairs of the factory, look into everything, let nothing escape you, learn and learn again. Bolsheviks must master technique. It is time Bolsheviks themselves became experts. In the period of reconstruction, technique decides everything. And an economic executive who does not want to study technique, who does not want to master technique, is a joke and not an executive.

It is said that it is hard to master technique. That is not true! There are no fortresses that Bolsheviks cannot capture. We have solved a number of most difficult problems. We have overthrown capitalism. We have assumed power. We have built up a huge socialist industry. We have transferred the middle peasants on to the path of socialism. We have already accomplished what is most important from the point of view of construction. What remains to be done is not so much: to study technique, to master science. And when we have done that we shall develop a tempo of which we dare not even dream at present.

And we shall do it if we really want to.

Pravda, No. 35, February 5, 1931

Collected Works Index | Volume 13 Index Works by Decade | J. V. Stalin Archive

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Floor plans reveal layout of house where killer knifed university of idaho students to death: report.

The killer of four University of Idaho students likely entered through a sliding door and stalked through three bedrooms carrying out their knife rampage, records indicate.

Floor plans of the off-campus house where the slain students lived show two bedrooms on the third floor and two on the second, all accessible through a glass screen door.

Police said the stabbings of Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, took place in the early hours of Nov. 13 while roommates  Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen  slept on the first floor.

The house plans of 1122 King Road obtained by the Daily Mail show provide a clearer layout of the split-level property in the city of Moscow.

Chapin and Kernodle, who were dating, are thought to have been sleeping together in a bedroom on one floor — while Mogen and Goncalves would have been in separate bedrooms on the other.

The house has a split-level layout, with a lower first floor accessed by a door with a code lock. The other two roommates — Bethany Funke and Dylan Martensen — unknowingly slept through the carnage on the lower level.

Here’s the latest coverage on the brutal killings of four college friends:

• New book makes bone-chilling revelations about real target in University of Idaho murders
• Bryan Kohberger’s lawyers call surprise witness to try to disprove evidence that he was at grisly University of Idaho murder scene
• Idaho murder victims’ former roommate speaks out after the bloodshed

A TikTok video of Goncalves with her pet dog was shot in a room on the third floor with the balcony visible, indicating that was where she lived.

To confront the victims on the third floor, the suspect would have passed through multiple common rooms, including the living room, on the second level.

Police declined to say Wednesday if the suspect entered through the front door or the sliding door.

The 2,300 square feet home also has three bathrooms and was most recently rented in June for $2,498 per month.

Advertisement

“One of the top campus housing options available! — Sought after location within close walking/biking/driving distance to campus and Greek Row,” the previous listing states.

Moscow police have ruled out several people as suspects, including the roommates and an ex-boyfriend of Goncalves. A man seen in security footage near the Mogen and Goncalves at a food truck on the night they died has also been ruled out, police said.

No murder weapon has been recovered. The FBI and state police are also part of the homicide probe. 

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Inside James Brown’s House: Can It Become the Next Graceland?

Nearly 18 years after his death, Primary Wave is planning to reinvigorate his legacy — starting with the place he called home.

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Mr. David Washington stands on the grounds that he has tended for decades, amid the Georgia Pines that flood much of the property, as the early-morning June heat creeps across the lawns. Now in his 70s, he’s quick to laugh and does so often, each one punctuating his thick, Southern drawl as he tells the story of the day, some 35 years ago, when Mr. James Brown called out to him and changed his life.

“ ‘You go back down to that plant and tell them you’re putting in your two-week notice — what you make down there, I’ll pay you double if you come work for me,’ ” Mr. Washington recalls the boss saying before breaking out in another laugh. “I said, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Brown!’ ”

James Brown Estate: Photos From the Billboard Shoot

More than 17 years after he made the drive back to Beech Island alone, Mr. Washington is still here. He has kept watch over Brown’s house through a succession of three estate trustees, a Christie’s auction, a 15-year legal battle among Brown’s heirs over his assets and, now, under the stewardship of Primary Wave , which purchased the assets of his estate in December 2021 for a reported $90 million. Primary Wave — the publishing , marketing, branding and content firm that touts itself as being in the “icons and legends” business and also has stakes in the rights of Whitney Houston, Bob Marley, Prince and more — acquired Brown’s publishing, master-royalty income, name and likeness rights and the Beech Island property, with its 60-plus acres, the mansion in which Brown lived since the late 1970s and everything in it, including a dozen cars, two tour buses and even the food that had remained in the cabinets since his death. The company also retained Mr. Washington to look after the place. “He’s our resident historian,” says Donna Grecco, Primary Wave’s asset manager who has overseen the cataloging and archiving of the estate. “He’s a treasure.”

Primary Wave, founded by veteran label executive Larry Mestel in 2006, has a long history of reinvigorating the intellectual property of music’s giants, both living and departed, whether through new remixes, samples or interpolations of their work, partnerships with brands (its first major success, in 2008, was a sneaker deal with Converse that featured Kurt Cobain lyrics on a line of shoes) or big-ticket content plays like the 2022 Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody . Several estate and asset deals the company has done came with troves of personal items and memorabilia that took months to sift through and organize.

To walk through its rooms is to step into a moment frozen in time: big, clunky TVs and VCRs by brands long out of business; Christmas decorations on the mantel; a matching collection of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books in his office; phone books on the shelves. Mirrors, elephant motifs, bamboo poles and marble are everywhere. Inside Brown’s personal hair salon there’s a basket of dozens of hair curlers, with bottles and cans of hair product lining the shelves. A mix of cultural artifacts — African, Native American, Indian, East Asian — adorn every room; each light switch cover is a photo of Brown holding a street sign with his name on it. Grecco, with her team’s help and Mr. Washington’s expertise, has been working to restore everything to precisely where it was during Brown’s life, before a series of museums (including the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame) and the one-time auction resulted in some items shifting around and being moved in and out.

At the same time, the rest of Primary Wave got to work, and the executive team went down to Beech Island to walk through the property. “When we are stepping into the full gamut of an artist’s life and you can touch the cars and go on the tour bus, it helps us with our ideation and what we’re going to do on a marketing level and a content level,” says Ramon Villa, Primary Wave’s COO. “The closer we are to the assets and we see how the artist lived, it helps us ideate more.”

In fact, one of the challenges Primary Wave faces as it looks at content opportunities for the Brown estate is that so many things have already been done. In 2014, a biopic starring Chadwick Boseman, Get On Up , was released to positive reviews. Around a dozen other documentary-style or live performance-based films on Brown have come in the past 20 years. “There’s been a lot done,” Primary Wave partner/chief content officer Natalia Nastaskin says. “But there are so many stories that are part of Mr. Brown’s life.”

Nastaskin cites films such as 2023’s Air , about the creation of Michael Jordan’s Nike empire, and 2020’s Academy Award-nominated One Night in Miami… , centered on a meeting between Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown, as examples of how a figure like Brown could appear in a major film without making another cradle-to-grave biopic. “It’s about isolating these very important moments in time and focusing on them, and focusing on ways that they haven’t been dissected before,” she says. A live-theater project is also in the works.

The first thing most people notice when they get to Augusta is the heat. The summer has barely begun, but the heat already wraps the city like a cocoon, standing at 98 on the thermostat but more like quicksand on Broad Street. Anyone in their right mind is indoors, giving the streets an almost Potemkin feel, though one man lounging in the shade with a trumpet outside an empty club called The SOUL Bar hints at the history that thrums below the surface.

Brown was born in South Carolina but raised in Augusta, and the murals, statues and soul references that permeate the city reflect his continuing influence. He’s an icon, a genius and means many different things to many different people. “Entrepreneur, self-made, proud, confident,” says Bennish Brown, president/CEO of Destination Augusta, which promotes tourism in the city. “A lot of Augusta’s history and progress is tied to the way James Brown lived his life: constantly innovating, evolving and always looking for opportunities that made sense.”

Though the Brown house is technically in South Carolina, Augusta lies just 8 miles away. And the city will be an important partner in Primary Wave’s ultimate vision for the house: a Brown version of Elvis Presley’s home-turned-museum, Graceland.

In pursuit of that, Primary Wave will document the continuing restoration process through a development deal with Page Turner, the licensed real estate agent/TV producer who hosts HGTV’s Fix My Flip . “We want people to be able to come and peek behind the curtain of James Brown’s home and have a space with some creative and educational opportunities, too, because education was pretty important to him,” says Primary Wave’s Songhay Taylor, who runs point on all things house-related.

To many, Augusta is most synonymous with The Masters, the crown jewel of global golf tournaments, played each April at Augusta National Golf Club. But Brown’s story aligns better with how locals see themselves and their city than The Masters, the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business a better avatar than the golfers who visit once a year to play an exclusive course. Brown, after all, pulled himself up from sharecropping roots to the top shelf of culture; from picking cotton to shaking hands with the Pope; from dropping out of school to working with a half-dozen successive American presidents on free education initiatives for kids across the country. (His estate stipulates that his master-­recording royalties support educational opportunities for Georgia and South Carolina youth; Primary Wave has honored this by contributing a portion of all revenue to a permanent trust.)

If things go to plan, Augusta will soon be even more widely known as the home of James Brown — the City of Soul, perhaps, or of Funk — where his legacy and influence are on full display. (As Brown put it in an interview featured in the A&E docuseries, “I created funk. God and me.”) “In order to create an overall immersive experience, we need the city of Augusta to help tell those stories,” Taylor says. “Where he shoeshined, where he buck-danced, where he would do shows, where he went to church — all of those things that are part of the overall story.”

And for some, that story is not entirely in the past. Mr. Washington recounts that long, lonely drive back to Beech Island from the hospital on Christmas Day, passing through the wrought-iron gates for the first time since the boss had gone.

He has other memories, too — driving back-and-forth with Mr. Brown to Atlanta, going down to church on Sundays and then visiting Mr. Brown’s mother in the nursing home afterward, stopping for fried chicken on the way back. “I’ve got a lot of good memories of him,” he says. “Any time he’d crack a joke or something…” Mr. Washington trails off, then laughs again. “I could visualize his face right there. I know it’s been some years, but it seems like he’s been gone just yesterday.”

For more exclusive photos of the James Brown home, read here .

This story will appear in the Aug. 24, 2024, issue of Billboard.

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Why Tipping Is Everywhere

In the united states, many say tipping is expected in more places these days. here’s how tipping culture exploded..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

Hello. Excuse me?

My name is Sabrina. This is Claire. We’re journalists. Could we ask you a question?

You just did.

[LAUGHS]: Another one. [UPBEAT MUSIC]

What is your view of tipping?

I think it’s become excessive. Whatever they do, they got that jar and they’re wanting you to put a tip in there.

They have the iPad. And it’s like, all right, how much you want to tip? And it’s like you bought a $5 coffee. It’s like, all right, well, tip $3.

There’s a lot of pressure. You feel like you have to tip. And I feel like people are watching you at that moment.

Yeah, yeah. I feel a lot more pressure to tip more. Wages haven’t kept up, so I feel like I should be tipping more. And it’s annoying because my wages haven’t gone up either, so it’s annoying.

The other day I just bought a loaf of bread, and the tip thing came up, gave me the option of 15 percent or 20 percent. Do I really have to tip somebody to buy a loaf of bread?

I went to the self-service machine. And it was like, add a tip. And it’s like add a tip for what? I’m the one that did the work, you know what I’m saying?

You’re like, I should be tipping myself.

I actually am a tip worker. We’re literally paid less wages in order for the customers to pay us.

What do tips mean for you and your work?

It’s how I feed my family.

Yes. 100 percent.

Unless you work in the service industry, you don’t really understand how crucial tipping is.

Tips mean a lot. They are 60 percent, 50 percent of my paycheck. And my hourly is pretty low to begin with.

Whatever I get at the end of the night goes towards dinner. Or for example, I didn’t have money for sanitary pads one time. And then that tip, grabbed it.

I feel like a lot of people feel like you did nothing for me. You just put a cup on the counter and I took it. Like, why should I pay you extra for that?

What do you say to someone who says that? You didn’t do anything, you just put my food in a bag.

If you knew what my paycheck looked every week, you would think different. Or maybe not, maybe you don’t feel bad for me and you’re like, get a different job. But like, this is a job I’m good at and the job I like. And I’d like to be able to make a living off of it. That extra dollar or two really makes a difference.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise and this is “The Daily.”

Tipping, once contained to certain corners of the economy, has exploded, creating confusion and angst and now even becoming an issue in the presidential campaign. Today, economics reporter, Ben Casselman, cracks open the mystery of this new era of tipping.

It’s Thursday, August 29.

So Sabrina.

Can I ask you a personal question?

What is your philosophy on tipping?

[LAUGHS]: Exactly.

Sabrina, I think I’m a sucker. Look, I’ve always tried to be a good tipper in restaurants. It feels like part of the deal.

I worked as a waitress for many years. That was the only way I actually made money. If there’s no tip, there’s no salary. Restaurants, it’s a rule.

Absolutely. But now tipping is everywhere. You see these tip screens in places you never would have tipped before. I mean, never mind the coffee shop, you see it at the fast food place. You see it at the oil change place. I’ve heard stories of people seeing it at the self-checkout line. Who’s even getting that tip?

And every time a tip screen pops up, I always tip.

Oh, my god, Ben, so do I.

It’s totally irrational. I hate it. But there’s some part of me, and I don’t love this about myself, that is just convinced somebody is going to be sitting there judging me or I’m terrified that they’re going to. And, oh, my god, if I click No Tip, am I a bad person?

And someone behind me in line might see that.

I can’t click that No Tip button.

I am exactly the same. Every single time I’m presented with this iPad screen thingy, the tips come up. I press max, 30 percent. My husband, an economist, thinks this is ridiculous.

He says, you’re tipping 30 percent on a bottle of water someone just handed you. Don’t do that. That is crazy. But I keep doing it because I can, so I should. I don’t know, I have guilt about it.

Your husband is objectively correct. This is crazy. But tipping is not about objective cold economic logic. It’s emotional. It’s cultural.

There are norms around it. And right now, we have no idea what those norms are. And so we’re all stuck in this panicked moment of trying to decide which button you press and whether you should be expected to tip in this circumstance.

OK, so we are both suckers. We’ve established that. What we need to do now is figure out this panicked moment. I want you to explain this to me, Ben. Why has tipping exploded?

I think there are three reasons. The first of these is just technology. Several years ago, we started to see these tablet-based checkout systems everywhere. And it’s very easy to just add a tip screen onto there, that little, do you want to add a tip, 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent.

Right. And as I had less cash and then no cash in my wallet, this was always the way I paid for things.

Yeah, so it became very easy technologically to add tipping. But then the real shift came in the pandemic.

If you think back to that moment, many of us were lucky enough to be able to work from home and to be relatively safe. And we felt a lot of gratitude for the people who weren’t able to do that, who were bringing us food and delivering groceries. And so there was an explosion in tipping. And an explosion in tipping, even in places where we didn’t used to tip.

If you go and pick up takeout at a restaurant, you probably always tip your delivery driver. But if you went to the restaurant and you picked it up, you didn’t tip there. But now in the pandemic moment, they add a tip screen saying, would you like to tip? And yeah, of course, I’d like to tip. These people are risking their lives out there to make my chicken tikka masala.

Right. You basically wanted to tip the UPS guy.

Yes. And so we were tipping everybody. And so that allowed tipping to spread into these new areas. It got a beachhead in places where it didn’t used to be.

And maybe if the story ended there, it would have been this moment in time and then it all would have gone back to the way it always used to be. But that didn’t happen because we had this intense worker shortage when things started to reopen.

And how does that fit into this?

Businesses start to reopen. They need workers. They’re having a hard time finding them. Workers are reluctant to come back for all sorts of reasons. And tipping became a way of attracting workers.

Businesses were paying more, but they were also looking for other ways to get workers. And saying, we’ll add a tip screen that’ll boost your pay further. And if there’s one coffee shop where there’s a tip screen and there’s another coffee shop where there isn’t, you can be pretty sure which one you’re going to go work at.

Completely. I mean, we were talking to workers yesterday, and they were very specific about which chain stores allowed tips and which ones didn’t. And they much preferred working for the ones that allowed tips. I mean, it makes sense.

And I asked them, as a proportion of your earnings, how much are tips? Tips are a lot. Does that mean you make less in the place that doesn’t have the screen that allows it? Absolutely.

We saw workers demanding this. In fact, when some Starbucks stores were unionizing, one of the things they demand is, we want to be able to take tips on credit card payments.

Interesting, yeah.

This became a source of negotiation between businesses and their workers. And the thing is, once that happens, it’s really hard to put the genie back in the bottle.

But why? I mean, this all sprung up into our lives in the matter of a couple of years. So why can’t it go back to the way it was just as quickly?

Imagine that coffee shop worker that you were talking to yesterday, who’s now making, in many cases, 20 percent, 30 percent, even 40 percent of their earnings in tips. The business can’t just say, never mind, we’re going to get rid of the tip screen. Maybe, we’ll put out a tip jar and people can leave $1 or $2 when they want to. That’s a huge pay cut for that worker.

OK, they could instead say we’re going to get rid of tipping and we’re going to raise your pay. Instead of paying you $15 an hour and $5 in tips, we’ll give you $20 an hour. But now the business is going have to raise prices as a result.

And you, Sabrina, the coffee-drinking public are going to say, no way, I’m not going there and paying $8 for my latte or whatever the price may be. And so for the business, they can’t just get rid of the tip, because they can’t just cut off the pay and they can’t raise prices enough to raise pay accordingly.

Right. Nonstarter for the business.

Can’t work for them. And the worker is certainly not going to stick around if they try to do that.

So has there been some experimentation with this? I mean, have restaurants actually tried to go tipless?

Yeah, so we’ve seen an example of exactly this. A few years back, Danny Meyer, a big New York restaurateur, and a bunch of other restaurants as well tried getting rid of tipping completely. They said, this system is unfair, it’s unequal. We’re going to raise wages for everybody, for waiters, but also for cooks.

We’re going to raise our prices, accordingly, to pay for that. And customers will understand. They’ll understand that they’re paying the same amount at the end of the day, it just is in the form of a direct cost instead of a cost plus a tip. And it didn’t work.

For a bunch of reasons. But mostly because customers looked at the price on the menu and people didn’t want to pay it. I also think, look, we all complain about tipping. But customers also kind of like the tip. They kind of like looking generous.

You get to show off to your date or to your father-in-law. And, of course, you can, at least in theory, express your dissatisfaction by withholding a tip or by tipping less. Not you and me, we apparently don’t do that. But some people do, I hear.

The restaurant’s like, suckers, OK, great. Yeah, we don’t even have to worry about them.

Customers rebelled against the idea of not tipping. And most of those restaurants eventually went back to the old model.

Interesting. So we do have this love-hate relationship with tipping.

Yes. We hate being asked, but we like the control. And I think that is part of why all these changes feel so difficult for so many people, because it doesn’t necessarily feel like you have the control anymore.

That screen in front of you with the barista watching you, with the person in line behind watching you —

Oh, my gosh, I’m sweating already.

— you don’t feel like can press the No Tip button. Or at least suckers like you and me don’t.

Exactly. The choice is gone.

The choice is gone. Or the choice, at least, is sort of psychologically more taxing.

Right. [LAUGHS]

You feel pressured to do it.

OK, so that’s the customer experience. But with this new uptick in tipping, one question I always have is, is the worker on the other side of the screen getting this tip or will the business owner pocket it?

The worker is getting the tip with some caveats. By law, the business owner or the managers, they can’t take the tips. If you click a Tip button or you leave $1 in the tip jar or you tip in any way, if that ends up in the pockets of the business owner or the general manager or what have you, that is wage theft. It happens. We certainly hear stories about it happening, but it’s certainly not legal and it’s certainly not the norm.

That doesn’t mean that the worker, the person who hands you your latte, is the person getting your dollar. It often gets pooled across all of the workers who are working that shift or even all of the workers who work over an entire week. But it’s going to the workers.

People like us can rest assured that the workers are getting the full benefit of that tip that you’re pushing.

In many ways, what you are doing as the customer is you are subsidizing the wage. If you, you coffee shop worker, want to get $25 an hour, you don’t care whether that’s $20 in pay and $5 in tip or $25 in pay or any breakdown of that.

$25 is $25.

$25 is $25. When I leave a tip of $1, on some level, that’s $1 less that coffee shop has to pay you, the barista. Tips are helping the business pay their workers. They’re shifting. The business is shifting some of the burden for paying its workers off of its revenue onto its customers.

In other words, you and I, Ben, we are kind of helping foot the bill for these wages.

Absolutely. And from the businesses’ perspective, that’s a pretty great deal, because they basically get to charge, say, $4 for the latte and then for the customers who are willing to pay more, they’re basically charging more. Those people throw on the tip.

It’s a way of the business getting the maximum dollars that it can out of the maximum number of customers that it can attract.

But for workers, this system where they’re increasingly reliant on customer tips carries some real risks.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

We’ll be right back.

Tell me about these risks of our tipping system.

Look, tipping has always had a lot of problems associated with it. If you think in restaurants, they’re often really big pay disparities where the servers at the front of the house, who are getting tipped, often make a lot more money, especially at a nice restaurant, than the cooks and dishwashers and all of the people at the back of the house.

You hear these stories of people going to cooking school and then basically bailing on the cooking career and becoming waitresses and waiters because it’s just more money.

Yeah. And then within tipped occupations, there’s a lot of inequity here. There have been studies that have shown that a pretty young woman gets tipped better than other people, that white people often get tipped better. There are tons of problems around sexual harassment, because if your earnings are dependent on the table that you’re serving liking you, then maybe you put up with things that workers shouldn’t have to put up with.

Those are the problems that have always existed in this system. But then as tipping spreads, the risk is, first, just more workers have to deal with this, but also that more workers become more dependent on tips for their earnings.

In the short term, this has all worked out pretty well for workers. This has been a period where they’ve been in hot demand, and so their wages have been rising. And at the same time, they’ve gotten all these tips on top of that. And that’s been really great.

But it’s not clear that that’s true over the longer term. Over the long run, you could imagine that all of these businesses get to just raise wages more slowly, that tips sort of eat away at wages over time. And then if we ever see customers pull back a little bit, tip less, then all of a sudden, all of these workers could really suffer.

Basically, you’re describing a system in which the earnings are just more vulnerable, more dependent on the kindness of strangers.

Yeah. And more at risk if those strangers become a little less kind.

Yes. And this issue has become so much a part of the national conversation that it’s actually entered the presidential race. Both former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have announced policy plans to help service workers. And essentially, they’re calling for no tax on tips.

Yeah, that’s right. So President Trump announced this several weeks ago as his big new “no taxes on tips” proposal. Kamala Harris followed up and basically endorsed that proposal, again, a little while later. We don’t have a lot of details on how this would work. But essentially, it would mean that if you earn tips, those tips are exempt at least from federal income tax.

What would that mean?

Let me tell you, economists hate this idea. Left-wing economists and right-wing economists, this is one point they can kind of all agree on.

And why do they hate it?

Because they say it’s unfair. It singles out this one group of workers for special treatment. The person who works at McDonald’s who doesn’t get tipped, they don’t benefit from this. The retail worker doesn’t benefit from this. It’s just this one group of workers who get this special treatment where they don’t have to pay taxes.

Right. Right.

But there’s also maybe an even more fundamental issue, which is that if you think you hate tipping now, if these proposals go through, you’re going to see so much more tipping.

Uh-oh, I’m holding on to my hat.

Because it’s basically a subsidy for tips.

As a worker, we said before, you don’t care whether you make, $25 an hour or $20 plus $5 an hour in tips, except that if some of that money isn’t taxed, you want more of that. You want more tips.

Basically, you want your entire salary to be a tip.

Ideally, right? And so that works great for the business perspective. Great, I don’t need to pay my workers.

[LAUGHS]: Wee!

It’s all tips now. Workers happy about that. What that means is you’re going to see more businesses looking for ways to have their workers count as tipped. Maybe you start to see tips in places that we’re not seeing them at all. Maybe you really do start to pay tips at a retail outlet, at a gas station.

Grocery store?

At a grocery store, why not? And the issue there, beyond just it being annoying for you and me, is that it further ingrains this system. All those problems that we were talking about in tipping now involves even more workers across the economy. And they’re even more vulnerable to that possibility that you and I start tipping a little bit less.

Ben, how would you describe where we are in this tipping moment? Is this just the new normal?

I think we’re still in a period of transition here. The fact that we’re having this conversation on some level tells you that we’re not totally in a new normal yet. You don’t leave a restaurant and say to yourself, man, I can’t believe I was asked to tip. But we’re still all the time having this conversation about, you wouldn’t believe I got asked to tip at the self-checkout.

Right. The bakery, for god’s sake.

It’s still a transition. It’s still happening. Over time, norms will develop. We’ll figure out the places where we tip and the places where we don’t, and how much and all of that.

But the dust hasn’t quite settled yet.

It hasn’t settled. But I think what we do know is that we’re not going back. We’re now going back to a world where we only tip in those set of circumstances where we used to. And remember, this whole transition has happened during a period of relative economic strength, when people have had money to go out and spend and to tip. The question is, what happens when that’s no longer true?

Right. When there’s a recession, people are going to be nervous about their pocketbooks and probably won’t be as generous.

Whenever we get to the next recession, it will be the first one in this new era of tipping.

And there’s a whole new group of workers who are going to lose out when that happens, who are dependent on tips and will suffer when customers start pulling those tips back.

Ben, thank you.

Sabrina, thank you so much. And the screen is just going to ask you a couple of questions at the end here.

[LAUGHS]: Ben, 30 percent.

Here’s what else you should know today. On Wednesday, at least 10 Palestinians were killed when hundreds of Israeli troops launched major raids overnight in the occupied West Bank, targeting Palestinian militants, after what Israel said was months of rising attacks. The operation, the largest since 2023, followed months of escalating Israeli raids in the occupied territory, where nearly three million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule.

And the Supreme Court maintained a temporary pause on a new plan by President Biden to wipe out tens of millions of dollars of student debt. The plan was part of the president’s approach to forgiving debt after the Supreme Court rejected a more ambitious proposal last year that would have canceled more than $400 billion in loans. The scaled-down plan was directed at certain types of borrowers, including people on disability and public service workers. The court’s decision leaves millions of borrowers enrolled in the new plan in limbo.

Today’s episode was produced by Mooj Zadie, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Eric Krupke, and Clare Toeniskoetter. It was edited by Lisa Chow and Brendan Klinkenberg, contains original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Rowan Niemisto, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

[THEME MUSIC]

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

• Apple Podcasts
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Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Featuring Ben Casselman

Produced by Mooj Zadie Asthaa Chaturvedi Eric Krupke and Clare Toeniskoetter

Edited by Lisa Chow and Brendan Klinkenberg

Original music by Dan Powell Marion Lozano and Rowan Niemisto

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow ‘The Daily’ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Tipping, once contained to certain corners of the economy, has exploded, creating confusion and angst. Now, it is even becoming an issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.

Ben Casselman, who covers the U.S. economy for The New York Times, cracks open the mystery of this new era of tipping.

On today’s episode

Ben Casselman , a reporter covering the U.S. economy for The New York Times.

Background reading

How to deal with the many requests for tips .

Former President Donald J. Trump called Vice President Kamala Harris a “copycat” over her “no tax on tips” plan.

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2025 the year house price rises revert to normal, BNZ says

By Susan Edmunds of RNZ

House prices are likely to stay flat through this year but increase 7% over 2025, BNZ says.

In an update on Tuesday, chief economist Mike Jones said demand and housing activity would pick up from here as interest rates fell.

But at first, that demand would just soak up some of the increased number of houses for sale and avoid further price falls.

Real Estate Institute data shows there were almost a third more properties listed for sale in July than at the same time a year earlier.

But Jones said towards the end of the year, there would be a “modest upswing” in prices.

Although the labour market might deteriorate for another year or so, he said, sharp falls in mortgage rates would probably boost the housing market as other economic activity improved.

“Anecdotal evidence points to a lift in prospective buyer inquiry and confidence. No doubt some of this reflects borrowing capacity estimates getting a small uplift and people being able to draw a line under prior concerns that interest rates may yet go higher.”

Jones said the switch from flat house prices to 7% per year growth might seem like a leap. “But the context is that by the end of this year, we think we will have had two years of basically flat house prices. All we’re really talking about is a return to some sort of average, which tends to be 6 or 7% [per year] over the long run. You’re not getting house prices back to anywhere near the peaks we saw almost three years ago. The context is still one of a slow and low sort of housing market.”

He said affordability had improved a little in recent years as prices fell, household incomes increased and now interest rates were dropping.

Jones said it would normally take about six months for changes in mortgage rates to feed through to house prices.

BNZ expects floating home loan rates to be in the 6% range by the middle of next year, from about 8% now.

Jones said the wholesale market had already factored in an official cash rate of about 3% by the end of next year.

That meant it was reasonable to assume that declines in retail interest rates would not be as rapid in future as the falls experienced over the past month-and-a-half, he said.

“Shorter-dated mortgage rates - floating out to 18 months - which, by their nature incorporate less of the expected easing cycle, have more room to fall than longer-term mortgage rates.

“These considerations are important inputs into our broad interest rate view. Altogether it implies, at a high level, a two-year fixed mortgage rate closer to 5% by mid-2025 with a five-year fixed rate a little higher than that around 5.4%.

“If correct, this would amount to a steepening of the mortgage curve and a return to the ‘normal’ situation of an upward-sloping curve - longer-term rates sitting above shorter-term rates.”

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Supreme Court Keeps Biden Student-Loan Relief Plan on Hold

(Bloomberg) -- The US Supreme Court refused for now to reinstate President Joe Biden’s latest push to reduce student-loan bills for millions of people, keeping the multibillion-dollar plan on hold while a fresh legal fight over educational debt plays out.

The court turned away an administration request to lift a pause a federal appeals court imposed on the program in a lawsuit by Missouri and other Republican-led states. The order didn’t indicate that any justices dissented.

The court gave no explanation, saying only that it expected the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals to issue a definitive ruling in the case “with appropriate dispatch.”

The high court order is likely to mean months of additional uncertainty for eight million borrowers who were already enrolled in the so-called SAVE plan. The Department of Education placed those debtors, who collectively owe more than $400 billion, in temporary forbearance after the appeals court intervened. Other borrowers are currently not allowed to sign up for the program.

“We are disappointed in this decision, particularly because lifting the injunction would have allowed for lower payments and other benefits for borrowers across the country,” the Education Department said in an emailed statement. “The department will work to minimize further harm and disruption to borrowers as we await a final decision from the 8th Circuit.”

The Supreme Court last year threw out an earlier Biden plan to make a one-time cut to the debt of more than 40 million people, saying Congress hadn’t authorized such a far-reaching step.  

“This is the second time the Supreme Court has sided with my office against one of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ unlawful student loan cancellation schemes,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in an online statement. “This court order is a stark reminder to the Biden-Harris Administration that Congress did not grant them the authority to saddle working Americans with $500 billion in someone else’s Ivy League debt.”

In blocking the SAVE plan, the 8th Circuit said it was “even larger in scope” than the earlier approach. The appeals court pointed to a private estimate that SAVE would eventually eliminate $475 billion in debt.

The SAVE plan would augment some of the broad metrics by which repayment amounts and timelines are tabulated. SAVE initially capped a borrower’s monthly payments at 10% of income over a certain threshold, later bringing that rate down to 5%. 

Borrowers would also also be able to bank on reaching forgiveness sooner than the typical 20 or 25 years, depending on how much they initially borrowed for school. Other provisions would prevent ballooning interest, on the condition that borrowers made their monthly payments on time.  

Parts of the SAVE plan had been in effect, reducing millions of monthly bills, before the 8th Circuit intervened.

The Supreme Court action comes as borrowers face the renewed prospect of penalties if they don’t make payments. When payments on federal loans resumed last September after the pandemic freeze, the Biden administration instituted a 12-month “on-ramp” period, during which borrowers would not be reported to credit bureaus or collections for missing a payment. That grace period ends next month.

As of July, the Biden administration has forgiven some $168.5 billion in student loan debt, primarily through a program for borrowers working in qualifying public service jobs. That’s less than half of the $400 billion price tag placed on the one-time debt forgiveness program, which promised at least partial relief to a broader swath of borrowers.

The Biden administration is battling two sets of states that say the SAVE plan is as legally flawed as the one the Supreme Court rejected last year. In the case before the 8th Circuit, states led by Missouri said the plan constituted a “major question,” meaning under Supreme Court precedent that clear congressional authorization was required.

The administration contends that the states lack legal standing to challenge the program and that Congress gave the Education Department explicit authority to set repayment schedules and use income to determine payment levels. The administration says the Education Department and its loan servicers have spent months updating their computer systems and notifying borrowers of their new payment amounts. 

The case is Biden v. Missouri, 24A173. 

(Updates with Education Department, Missouri statements starting in fifth paragraph.)

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

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