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Media monitoring software is unaffordable for many organisations. But is it possible to build a news tracking app that is affordable and meets a need that big tech has long ignored?
In today's digital landscape, effective media monitoring is essential for organizations driving social change or concerned about their brand. However, SMEs, nonprofits and smaller campaigning groups face a significant barrier: the cost of big tech media monitoring software.
We recently carried out a price research exercise for a client who was in the market for media monitoring. They wanted a platform that could:
Record news clippings and mentions of the organisation's name and spokespeople
Monitor key issues relevant to the narratives that are key to their work
Provide a data dashboard showing how many times the client had been mentioned in the media, by which outlets and journalists.
We contacted 12 providers and their quotes for media monitoring software ranged from £5,000 to £25,000 +VAT a year. Too much for our client, a small start-up with less than five employees.
That's too much for an organization turning over less than £500,000 a year. This leads to an uneven playing field with smaller organizations struggling to measure their impact, unable to respond to emerging narratives, or make data-driven decisions about their communications.
We wanted to research the possibility of developing an affordable alternative. Our conclusion was that it is possible to deliver a media montoring app at almost half the price of the cheapest big tech solution out there (£250-£350 / month +VAT). But there are significant barriers too. (Below is a short demo showing our software. In terms of functionality it's every bit as good as the commercial tools out there).
Barriers: news harvesting and licensing
If you use a media monitoring service, it's unlikely that your provider physically goes out their and harvests the news for you. Instead they will likely rely on either a specialists that can harvests web data, or else they will pay a licensing fee to distribute of news content through organisations like the Newspaper Licensing Authority.
The NLA charges media monitoring companies a licensing fee of £27,000 to £102,000 (+VAT) a year for legal access to UK newspaper content (more on the NLA in a moment). However, not all UK newspapers are part of the NLA. For example, access to the FT's content requires a direct licensing agreement with them. And these are just the costs of media monitoring for print news.
What about broadcast?
TV Eyes is a North American company that harvests broadcast media clips and is widely used by the big tech media monitoring companies to harvest radio and TV news. If you're a media monitoring platform and you want to distribute broadcast news content via TV Eyes, that will set you back as much as £55,000 a year!
That brings the total yearly cost of harvesting and sharing licensed print and broadcast content to at least £100,000 a year! Of course, there are other ways to "harvest" news, such as web scraping. But that's neither a practical option for scaling purposes, nor ethical for organisations that want to stay on the right side of the law!
Could economies of scale lower the price of media monitoring software for smaller organisations and NGOs?
One solution would be for a charitable foundation or philanthropist to underwrite the cost of starting up a new media monitoring platform with a remit to provide a lower price point for smaller organisations.
With startup costs covered and enough smaller organisations willing to sign up at at a more affordable price, it might well be feasible to fill a the gap in the market left by the big tech providers who don't seem interested in serving the smaller end of the market.
Looking Forward: Scaling Impact Through Partnership
At Campaign Salience we are always looking for partnerships with forward-thinking organisations who share our vision of democratizing access to media intelligence tools. And we are always willing to chat to others who have an interest in creating lasting change in how social sector organizations compete in the digital media landscape.
Take Action
If you are a foundation or philanthropic with an interest in media and communications infrastructure for social change then get in touch!
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