TheStreet.com readers are the rich and affluent

Mike Arnold of Seeking Alpha writes Monday about TheStreet.com and how it seems to have found a growth model.

Arnold writes, “TheStreet also points out that, comScore, an independent Web measurement company, ranked it first among financial media websites for delivering the difficult-to-reach mass affluent demographic. In particular, TheStreet ranked:

• #1 in Household Income over $100,000;
• #2 in Portfolio Value over $1 million;
• #1 in Trading Activity;
• #1 in Checking Stock Quotes Multiple Times Each Day; and
• #1 in Works in Finance

“As one can see, TheStreet‘s readers possess material wealth. That is not a bad customer to be selling services too, especially ones where growing that wealth is the ultimate goal. They are usually less price sensitive, and willing to pay for content that will provide actionable ideas. This is similar to Seeking Alpha’s goal, actionable and profitable ideas.

“Subscription revenues at TheStreet are growing at a fast clip. For the 6 months ended June 30, 2013, subscription revenues were $21 million, up from $17.8 million, an increase of 18% year/year. Media revenue was down; I’m less concerned with that. In fact, subscription revenues make up 80% of TheStreet‘s revenue, up from 70% in the year ago quarter (although much of that is inorganic through acquisitions). I am certainly impressed with that. The holy grail of publishing is a subscription model with a growing subscriber base, allowing for recurring revenue for consistent and predictable cash flow, meanwhile spreading fixed costs among a wider audience, thereby allowing earnings leverage to shine bright.”

Read more here.