Quartz is on track to lose money this year

Financial news site Quartz is on track to lose money this year because it is not meeting its membership goals, reports Lucia Moses of Business Insider.

Moses reports, “The $100 a year (increasing to $150 in year two) membership program was pitched as a suite of extra benefits above and beyond the site’s daily, free content. Members get exclusive content such as subject-specific deep dives called Field Guides and the ability to have contact with other members at events and access to journalists on conference calls.

“Internally, the goal was to get 20,000 members by the end of 2019; multiple sources said as of this summer, it was less than halfway there.

“While the company sought new revenue from membership, the core business had its own headwinds. Quartz, which lost $7 million in 2018 (it reportedly took in $28 million in 2017), was on track to lose money again this year, and laid off a handful of people on the sales side, insiders said they were told by leadership.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.