Crikey, an electronic magazine centering on Australian politics, was not the first to leverage the democratic characteristics of the Internet. However, simply by its very presence, it reinforces an undeniable shift seen in communication businesses. This in turn questions the viability of traditional media, its relationship with various stakeholders and its role in these changes.

Founded in 2000 by Stephen Mayne, a journalist and former staffer of Liberal Victorian Premier Jeff Kennet (The Age, 2005), Crikey carved out a niche by positioning itself as an Australian pioneer of a sensationalistic brand of citizen journalism. Crikey quickly became known as a website that break stories concerning Australian media, business and politics.

Crikey was acquired in 2005 by Private Media Partners (PMP), headed by Eric Beecher, an experienced professional with traditional media background, for A$1 million (The Age, 2005).  This acquisition garnered attention in the industry as it was the first time in Australia that online media had been acknowledged through the significant exchange of dollars (The Age, 2005).

Crikey is largely run on a subscription model where “users are charged a periodic fee to a service” (Rappa, 2010). In this case, the service offered is business, media and political news and opinion with “a maverick edge” (The Age, 2005) unseen in mainstream media. Offering an initial 21-day free subscription, Crikey offers a wide range of flexible payment plans to readers to continue enjoying full access to its articles. Paid subscribers receive Crikey Daily Mail, a selection of articles delivered to their inboxes on weekdays while non-subscribers have limited access to articles.

Crikey’s ability to sustain a subscription model with minimum advertising has plenty to do with its marketing strategy combining Mayne’s public persona in its early stages as well as its clever use of the Internet. For instance, its successful search engine optimization (SEO) places it fourth after ABC and The Australian when “media news Australia” is entered on Google Search. This is a feat considering that Crikey exists entirely online.

Crikey succeeds in differentiating itself from traditional media through a number of ways. It uses sensational headlines, blatantly disregards embargos and whistleblows. But more important to Crikey’s success is its medium. It utilizes the speed and spread of the Internet to get information out faster and wider than any form of traditional media. The advantage in receiving exclusive information before anyone else equates as value to Crikey’s readers.

Although Crikey is an online business, it is humanized through the public faces that represent it. Mayne courted the press with his outrageous behaviour and Beecher is a well-regarded figure in the traditional media industry. A sense of community is fostered in Crikey, with readers able to freely, and anonymously if needed, express opinions on sensitive subjects moderated by traditional media.

The rapid rise of online technology plays a key role in Crikey’s success. In 2000, Australia had 3.9 million Internet subscribers (ABS, 2001). This leaped to 8.4 million subscribers by mid 2009 (ABS, 2009). With the largest increase of Internet usage seen in those with higher incomes (IbisWorld, 2009), it shows the influence that online technologies have in the way that top executives conduct business. Crikey’s content is well positioned to accommodate the increasing dependence for business news online.

Crikey’s credibility was often challenged in its early years before PMP’s takeover. With critiques such as Raymond Hosser (Rationalist Society of Australia, 2010) and Steve Price (The Australian, 2010) crippling Crikey, it took the ban from the 2005-2007 Budget (IFEX, 2007) to fully demonstrate how influential Crikey had become within mainstream media.

What are the competing factors of Crikey’s business model?

With a Nielson report claiming that traditional media consumption is growing simultaneously with the rise of Internet consumption (mUmBRELLA, 2010), it challenges the notion that traditional media is under threat. Keeping in mind that traditional media such as The Age, SBS and ABC are available online, one difference to Crikey is that these websites do not charge. These websites, run primarily on the advertising model (Rappa, 2010), are extensions of their traditional mediums.

This is set to change in 2009 when Murdoch’s News Corporation announced that it would start charging for online news content within a year (The Australian, 2009). While specialist areas such as financial news succeed in charging for online versions of information, industry observers doubt that News Corporation’s approach is sustainable as it covers general news available for free elsewhere (ABC, 2010).

However, if successful, how does this transformation affect Crickey, for an example, when Seven Network’s Kerry Stokes jumps on the bandwagon (The Age, 2009)? Will this preemptive attack blunt the edges of Crikey’s style of citizenship journalism as consumers carefully weigh the growing options of where to spend their time and dollars online?

Ironically, Crikey published an article that questioned the success of Murdoch’s plan to charge for online content (Crikey, 2010), generating almost a hundred comments by readers who feel that Murdoch’s news is not worth paying for. However, commentators are willing to pay for Crikey’s content as they believe that they are getting value in return.

With the advertising dollar playing a large role in generating income for traditional media, Crikey’s minimum advertising suggests that it is unshackled from bias journalism. In comparison, the admission of Vogue Australia that it deleted negative comments about advertisers (NineMSN, 2010) demonstrates that vested interests rule the way communication businesses reliant on advertising are run. This works in Crikey’s favour as the value it provides to readers is unedited news and opinion.

Through a subscription model, Crikey is able to measure its success as a communication business clearly. Additionally, by making subscribers pay a fee, Crikey is able to gauge the commitment of readers. This is important as it provides Crikey with a measurable way of monitoring its success. This is significant, in a business sense, as Crikey is quantifiably able to demonstrate its value to its various stakeholders.

Although Crikey states on its website that it relies on both subscription and advertising to sustain itself, its limited number of advertisers suggests two things. First, that it is intentionally rejecting advertisers to remain true to its position as the fourth estate. Second, that advertisers are not approaching Crikey for fear of the implications of being associated with its incriminating content.

How does Crikey compare to its contemporaries?

A successful online newspaper to have crossed over to mainstream media is US-based Huffington Post (Media Bistro, 2010), started by Arianna Huffington, a socialite with liberal leanings. Similar to Crikey, Huffington Post is known for breaking news not found in mainstream media. It is sophisticated in its optimization of social networks and appeals with its broad range of interactive and comprehensive coverage and content, primarily for the American market.

News on Huffington Post is reported on New York’s international resource for media professionals, Media Bistro (Media Bistro, 2010) along with industry updates on major traditional media. This success of crossing over to be included in mainstream media shows the potential that Crikey has in Australian media. Crikey however, has a long way to go to demonstrate the level of professionalism and depth of content that Huffington Post currently offers. Crikey is also restrained both in resources and subject matter compared to US-based Huffington Post.

A local entrant, The Punch, an Australian website “loosely modelled on the Huffington Post” (mUmBRELLA, 2009), interestingly owned by Murdoch’s News Limited, uses “Australia’s best conversation” as its caption. With a blog template that navigates similarly to Crikey, articles in The Punch however is moderated to appeal to mass public. Due to its relatively mainstream content and higher number of advertisers, The Punch proves that its similarity to Crikey is only skin-deep.

The Punch’s understanding of the symmetric communication model and objectivity has consistently been questioned by Crikey (Crikey, 2009) under its Pure Poison section. Not impartial to, albeit, constrained mud-slinging, The Punch reveled in its higher number of hits (206, 281) compared to Crikey (179, 069) in the same period (The Punch, 2009).

Where Mayne was successful in getting the publicity needed for a start-up like Crikey ten years ago, Beecher has taken Crikey higher into the wider public with integrity and credibility. In an interview with ABC, Beecher shares his admiration for Rupert Murdoch as “the greatest media entrepreneur probably in the history of the world and media” (ABC, 2007). This mirrors Beecher’s ambition and suggests the potential of Crikey’s future growth.

Mayne said in an interview, “Crikey has always been a far bigger brand than it has been a business” (Smart Company, 2009). However, I believe that Crikey is poised to become a leading resource of Australian business and political news. Reinforcing this idea is a letter by the Australian Consumer and Competition Association (ACCC) acknowledging Crikey’s contribution to mainstream media on its tenth year (Crikey, 2010). Whether it continues sustaining itself depends on its ability to excel in its specialized content by not spreading itself too thin across broad subject matters and by consistently upholding its role as the fourth estate. When I asked Beecher what his thoughts are on the outlook of a communication business such as Crikey, he summed up my argument, “Anyone can harness technology and to sell content, technology has to work. But the key element to a successful communication business such as Crikey is to create true journalism.” (E. Beecher, personal communication, March 31, 2010)

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