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Strengthening independent media in Central Europe
13 June 2024
- Jeff Lovitt
- Chief of Party, CEMP
A thriving independent media is essential to sustaining and invigorating democracy and to holding public officials accountable for their actions. The Central Europe Media Program (CEMP), delivered by Zinc Network in partnership with IREX, supports independent media to grow audiences and develop sustainable revenue streams.
From 2023 onwards, Zinc Network has been providing a mix of grant support, hands-on training workshops, and expert guidance and mentoring to independent online news outlets across Central Europe.
Exploring new revenue models, reaching new audiences
The CEMP approach is to combine grant and non-grant support to form a partnership with each media outlet (grantee) to identify achievable paths to financial sustainability, working together to:
- build a sustainable revenue model;
- strengthen their outreach to build awareness of their brands;
- improve their understanding and use of audience data;
- increase their ability to target high-quality content to their audiences through the most effective channels;
- engage and build loyal audiences through effective use of news products.
In the first 18 months, CEMP has:
- inspired partner media outlets to shape branding and audience strategies: by conducting and presenting representative polling on media consumption habits in five countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia), Zinc Network identified different types of media consumers in each country as potential target audiences. In so doing, the CEMP project team improved the partners’ understanding of their audiences and the potential for improved outreach. Most had never had access to quality, countrywide research. With Zinc Network’s guidance, the partners have drawn on the polling research to shape their brand positioning – to engage younger audiences in several cases, and in one case to launch a new thematic vertical on health as a result of the audience preferences identified in the polling.
- provided partners with targeted support in designing audience dashboards, social media best practice, newsletter development, and short-form video, reaping results, including on average 12% growth in monthly website users.
- held a series of workshops in Bulgaria, resulting in a number of media outlets exploring reader revenue models, others launching audience surveys and improved audience engagement strategies.
- launched CEMediaTrends, a new annual event providing panels, debates and presentations on the latest trends and tools available to online media outlets, and in the first event in December 2023 hands-on workshops for more than 70 representatives of CE media outlets. The event, organised by Zinc Network and the Center for Sustainable Development in partnership with Google, included attendees from more than 30 representatives of funders and implementers of media development, including USAID, UK FCDO, the Media Development Investment Fund, IREX and Internews.
The Central Europe Media Program (CEMP) has been made possible with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
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