Big News Targets Education - But in Different Ways

It's no secret that "big news" needs to diversify out of their core product: print - everyone knows the subscription base + ad sales have declined over the years for the traditional giants of print media. Not diversifying leads to fire sales (see Businessweek and Newsweek for recent examples) or outright bankruptcies (see 100's of magazines in the last year).

In my opinion, the options for a big branded print publication:

1) Adapt traditional news product to new media world

2) Leverage media brand and installed base and diversify offering

3) Take your cash or leverage your business and buy some other business that makes money

#1 - The economics don't really make sense - even for the very successful NYT.com (pre pay-wall), digital subscription revenue was only 28% of print ad revenue, and circulation revenue totaled 43% of total revenue. Social media strategies are tough to build a case around as well.

#3 - What's a recent example of a Big News firm buying up a dynamic growing company successfully?

#2 - Among other things, some of these old line media firms have decided to dip their toe in online education - which is smart as they see an industry in the midst of disruption, making money, and can leverage their brand in the right way.

NY Times:http://www.nytimesknownow.com/index.php/fdu-nytimes/

Strategy: Partner with mid-tier colleges and co-brand their course within the "NYT Knowledge Network." Really a lead gen network and advertising play in my opinion.

The Economist Education: http://www.economisteducation.com/

Strategy: Build out proprietary content and target managers who are looking to add both knowledge and credentials to their resume.

NBC: http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/learn

Strategy: Take their own videos and sell them on a subscription basis as a supplement to other learning (K-12, higher education, integrates with Blackboard)
Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberginstitute.com/bat/start/

Strategy: Build an standardized high finance exam to filter candidates in the investment banking/financial services world.

Obviously, we at the CBL Exam like the Bloomberg business model best, but it will be interesting to see if any of these companies can execute - or if they choose to go another route, an outright acquisition of for-profit education firm.

It worked out pretty well for Washington Post:

Edit: Conde Nast just opened up a fashion college