B2B information. The Wrap, the California-based movie and media super-blog, is acquiring a video subscription service which will get struggling digital media bosses everywhere thinking about the way to go. The Wrap News Inc announced an un-priced, all-share deal with the six-year-old Videolnk (yes, that’s the right spelling), the $30/month subscription source for business news about the digital video industry. The two will eventually be combined into a new subscription site called Wrap Pro. The Wrap was founded nine years ago by Sharon Waxman, the author and esteemed foreign correspondent (for the New York Times and Washington Post). It self-describes as “a multiplatform news and information network covering the entertainment and media industries, from an anchor of high level, original content, that leads to the engagement of a vibrant community of users – entertainment professionals and enthusiasts – around the globe.” With more than 19 regular contributors and with guest commentary from industry heavyweight “Hollybloggers”, The Wrap is great reading. The logic for adding a subscription business to the free site, which apparently attracts 10m visitors a month, is based on the familiar fear that the digital advertising business is going bad unless you are Facebook, Google and Amazon. Waxman says she’ll keep her main site free but will use Wrap Pro for “premium” content plus she is planning subscriber access to her growing slate (currently 75) of events including screenings, influencer events and conferences. The site earns revenue from advertising, sponsored content as well as the events. Most insiders believe that the slew of exclusive content would have long ago enabled it to convert some thousands of its readers into subscribers, even without Videolnk. “It’s our job to make what we’re offering really worthwhile, really valuable, and really produce a benefit to our members,” says Waxman who last year hit the headlines by disclosing that, in 2004, the New York Times spiked her expose of Harvey Weinstein’s history of sexual harassment. The Wrap strategy may soon come to resemble that of former Wall Street Journal tech reporter Jessica Lessin whose five-year-old The Information is now believed to have some 20k subscribers paying $500 a year. It also runs subscriber events and has many of the personal touches perfected by Sharon Waxman. There are not too many other similarities between the scoop-laden The Wrap and the two-stories-a-day jewels of The Information. But we bet that Waxman will also be able to show that – for all the doom and gloom of legacy news brands – readers will pay for insightful, well-targeted content they can’t find nowhere else. Just make sure it’s exclusive content, and do have the nerve to charge what it’s worth to readers who want it. That’s all.
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The Wrap subscriptions ‘merger’.
