Funny thing, but 2020 has been pretty big for this little business to date.
How?
Simple: Our subscription revenue is down only 5.1% year over year.
I'm sure it sounds crazy to sound upbeat about any decline in any business, but the combination of a very much unwanted reduction in our expenses -- we've done less than a quarter of our usual travel -- and the stability of our main source of income ... yeah, trust me, that's a W in this environment. Really is. I'll bet most businesses would love to have a figure like the one up there.
That's not to suggest we didn't have our scary spots, nor that we haven't had to adjust along the way. But every time we were sure we were about to hit a month where the lack of sports, the lack of page views, the lack of any sense of fun in society was about to hit us in the subscription category ... everything just stayed steady. In fact, if not for the ugly 43% decline we just had in September, we'd still be in plus territory for the year.
(Feel free to blame the local NHL franchise for September, by the way. The Penguins have played a grand total of four bad games since early March, and there's still no firm feel for when they'll return. That was bound to catch up.)
We're grateful to you, our subscribers, for all of this. We have developed other ways to make money, but none compare to this one, and we'll never, ever claim otherwise. We're a subscription site based on the written word, that's what we'll always be, and this only underscores why.
But ... let's talk about finishing in the plus, huh?
It sure won't be easy.
On the down side:
• Obviously, the general economy isn't now what it was then.
• December of 2019 was the biggest month we've ever had, and I can't foresee anything challenging that.
• Again, we have no idea when we'll have hockey again. This is Pittsburgh, and it's a hockey town. We need our hockey back to feel whole.
On the up side:
• We still haven't done the big public launch for the app, while working to complete it internally with the help of our subscribers. We're expecting that'll have a significant impact.
• The Steelers are 3-0, I'm betting you've heard. And we've never had a football staff alongside me that compares to Dale Lolley, Chris Carter, Ramon Foster and Tom Reed. We're liking our chances of growth in that area.
• We're hopeful about a drive to gain support for our revived Penn State and Duquesne coverage. See full item just below.
• More merch?
I'll never coax She Who Is Boss to tie subscriptions into merchandise because it'd mean we do the shipping ourselves. (Which I have on good authority will happen never, ever again from She Who Has Done Shipping By Hand.) But maybe there's a path here that I'm just not seeing at the moment.
• We can still get ... creative.
To repeat, I haven't fully thought this out. Maybe there's a way we can push something special from the Black Friday period all the way through New Year's, one that entices both existing and new subscribers. Maybe there's a way we can make it easier via the app to get gifts or do trials.
We'll see.
Bottom line: The bottom line's way better than it should've been this year. We aren't exactly killing it, but we've done well enough to make some vital additions to the staff, the coverage and, of course, the technology. And there's nothing rarer than a media company that's honestly, legitimately expanding without adding debt, so we're happy with that, too.
As ever, thank you.
PENN STATE, DUQUESNE PAGES!
As part of resuming full coverage of Penn State football and Duquesne basketball in 2020, we've brought back dedicated team pages for both. On the app, open your slide-out menu. On the website, check for the schools' logos on the big bar across the top.
Continuing our policy of transparency, we can't afford to cover either without the proper support. So that'll involve our subscribers coming through, primarily through reading and sharing but also, ultimately, buying gift subscriptions we'll soon be offering attached to each school. From there, it'll involve getting support from a sponsor for each one.
Could that be your business?
We've updated our Media Kit, but you also can just reach out directly to She Who Is Boss: Dali@DKPittsburghSports.com
MILITARY STRUGGLE
I haven't mentioned Moon Golf Club's Military Drive to 1,500 in a while, and any such silence almost always means it's going along really well. The past month ... hasn't gone well. The backlog of military requests vs. buys isn't that bad -- only about 100 now -- but if it grows much more than that, it can spiral.
Also, we'd been on a pace to blow away the 1,500 figure for the year, but now that we're still at 1,157, that's not as certain.
If you'd like to contribute to veterans seeking a free annual subscription -- we take care of all active-duty ourselves -- those are $19.99 per veteran, or half-price. The only way to get those is to email me directly at DK@DKPittsburghSports.com
WEIRD ADVICE ... THAT WORKS
Delete your app. Then reinstall it.
While working through this building phases, our developers are constantly making fixes and upgrades. Some of them will reach you via formal updates and others, just by virtue of quirks in the Apple/Android worlds, won't. And the one way to guarantee they do is to delete and reinstall.
It's not a must. It's not something to do all the time or every time something doesn't go the way you expect. But it's a safe way occasionally to ensure you're working with the latest, smoothest version.
If you have an issue, the only way to get help, coincidentally enough, is to email Help@DKPittsburghSports.com ... and please, not in the comments accompanying this piece. I'd love to have this discussion be about some of the items above. We've been a bit behind on Help emails since Dara left for college, but we're close to caught up. We'll get to you!
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our daily page views, averaged out over the past week, were 156,845 ... maybe. We're honestly not sure at the moment, since we've only just recently reconnected to Google Analytics. Our goal forever has been to just average 100,000, and now suddenly we're way over that. I'm skeptical if this is accurate, but we'll see.
• Our most-read original article was my column from PNC Park on the Pirates at season's end, at 20,341. Broken down by team, we had 272,605 for Penguins, 180,352 views for Steelers, 123,326 for Pirates, 22,097 for Pitt, 3,420 for Penn State, 306 for Duquesne.
• Our podcast downloads for DK Sports Radio original content were 53,823. That included a day of 10,731, our second-biggest yet. Our initial goal had been to top 50,000 per week, but we've now achieved that three times in five weeks, so it might be good to adjust.
• We're at 37,377 (+105) followers on Twitter, we're at 36,783 (-3) followers on Facebook, we're at 14,771 (+15) followers on Instagram. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
• Get our free newsletter with a simple signup. We send out a new one Monday-Friday at 7 a.m.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email Help@DKPittsburghSports.com