How the Next Audience Is Rewriting the Media Business Model
# Product-led growth
# Subscription revenue
# Media business models
# Audience strategy
# Digital media economics
What product-led growth, owned channels, and disciplined economics reveal about where media is actually headed
Heather Holst-Knudsen
For years, media leaders have framed disruption as a distribution problem. Social platforms changed. Algorithms shifted. Attention fractured. The instinctive response was to push harder, publish more, and chase scale wherever it appeared.
But the companies that are actually building durable growth are solving a different problem entirely. They are redesigning their business models around how modern audiences want to engage, learn, and commit.
RocaNews is one of the clearest examples of this shift. Built initially as a simple Instagram experiment, it has grown into a profitable media company with more than three million followers across social, newsletters, a gamified mobile app, and YouTube. It crossed one million in annual recurring revenue with a team of roughly eleven people. That outcome did not come from volume. It came from focus.
From Reach to Relevance
Billy Carney did not set out to disrupt legacy media. He started RocaNews because, as a consumer, he felt there was nothing that spoke to him in a way that felt readable or approachable. The problem was not a lack of information. It was how much assumed knowledge traditional media required just to get started.
That insight shaped everything that followed.
Instead of overwhelming readers with dozens of headlines, RocaNews designed a simple daily experience. Four stories. Clear context. Language that respected the reader’s intelligence without requiring years of background. Their flagship Instagram product meets audiences where they already are, using short, structured content as an entry point rather than a destination.
This is not a social media strategy. It is a product strategy.
Social channels serve as the introduction, not the end state. The goal is not endless reach. The goal is progression into owned environments where trust, habit, and value compound.
For many media companies, monetization discussions start too early and focus too narrowly on advertising. RocaNews took a different path.
For its first years, the business was entirely ad-supported. But as the market shifted and capital tightened, the team made a deliberate decision to rebalance toward recurring revenue. Today, subscriptions and video account for the majority of the business, with advertising treated as additive rather than foundational.
What made that transition possible was product depth.
The mobile app does not simply deliver news. It turns learning into an experience. The paid newsletter is not a longer version of the free one. It is a daily deep dive designed for readers who want analysis, not headlines.
Audiences are not paying because the news suddenly costs money. They are paying because the product respects their time and delivers something distinct.
The Economics of Focus
One of the most striking aspects of RocaNews' model is operational discipline. With a small team, founders remain deeply involved in content, product, and distribution. Growth is measured through clear signals like subscriber velocity and audience progression across channels.
This is not accidental. It is the result of choosing simplicity over sprawl.
By limiting the number of core products and designing them to work together, the company avoids the overhead that cripples many media organizations. Revenue growth is tied directly to audience engagement, not sales headcount expansion.
For established media leaders, this is a critical lesson. Sustainable growth today is less about adding more lines of business and more about aligning product, audience, and economics with precision.
What Legacy Media Often Misses
In our conversation, Billy made an observation that should give every CEO pause. Many media companies talk about younger audiences without ever meeting them. Strategy is built from research reports, internal assumptions, or narrow anecdotal feedback.
The most effective operators do the opposite. They leave the bubble. They talk to people directly. They design with, not for.
Equally important is dialogue. Modern audiences expect interaction, transparency, and response. Media is no longer a one-way broadcast. It is a relationship. Brands that feel distant or inaccessible struggle to earn trust, regardless of how strong their reporting may be.
The Real Shift Underway
This is not about age. It is about expectations.
The next audience values clarity over volume, experience over exposure, and consistency over hype. They are willing to pay when value is obvious and delivered repeatedly. They reward brands that respect their attention and invite participation.
That is the business model shift playing out quietly across media.
Where This Conversation Continues
The leaders who succeed in this environment are those who understand that audience behavior shapes revenue design, operating models, and long-term enterprise value. They build businesses that are resilient because they are intentional.
That conversation continues inside Revenue Room™ CXO and live at RevvedUP 2026, March 23–24 in St. Pete, where the future of revenue leadership takes center stage. These are not conferences or communities built on theory. They are working rooms for CEOs and senior leaders who want clearer strategy, stronger operating systems, and peers who challenge their thinking.
If this discussion reshaped how you think about audience, product, and growth, you belong in the room where those ideas are actively being built.
