Does the future belong to boutique media companies?

Budding entrepreneurs are often advised to focus their efforts on something that they are passionate about and dominate their niche. It’s good advice that many media companies should also take to heart.

Too many large (failing) media companies are busily pointing their fingers at social media channels and news aggregators and blaming them for their woes. Meanwhile, smaller and more agile companies are looking at the new media landscape and spotting opportunities.

Hyper-local newspapers are putting journalists back in their communities and online publishers are serving the needs of niche audiences who provide a profitable foundation to build new businesses upon.

One man who has seen both sides of the coin is Rafat Ali, who back in 2002 founded the (now defunct) media blog PaidContent.org which was acquired by The Guardian in 2008 for £4 million.

Ali abandoned ship following the acquisition and has since launched the business travel news site Skift.com.

Skift.com now has 29 employees, is profitable and is very comfortable with its size.

In an interview with Recode Media, Ali said:  “My argument is, there’s another way to build a company.

“It doesn’t have to all be about the worship of bigness. Small is beautiful. We are proud to be called a boutique media company.”

Following his experience with The Guardian, Ali is critical about attempted growth via mergers and acquisition in the media world suggesting the buyer never makes money.

Ali said; “In media it’s particularly difficult because media isn’t rocket science, media is sensibility or brand, so in most cases cultures don’t work…”

So if big media cannot buy their way into the future media landscape, what’s the answer?

Perhaps they need to think smaller, get more focused and start thinking about niches.

Instead of one big brand, can we expect to see multiple brands (operating under an umbrella organisation), led by experts and focusing on very specific audiences.  It’s not too difficult a concept to understand. It’s how the regional press used to be before centralised subbing offices and non-local news (listicles) became the norm.

Could big media’s biggest threat come from not thinking small enough?