Zetland (company)

Zetland is a Danish media company founded in 2012. Headquartered in Copenhagen, it publishes three to four news articles daily, focusing on long-form stories and in-depth articles.[1][2] A subscription-based organization, it had more than 18,000 subscribers as of November 2020.[1] The editor-in-chief is Lea Korsgaard, formerly of Berlingske and Politiken,[3] who co-founded Zetland along with Jakob Moll, Silke Bock, and Hakon Mosbech.[4]

Zetland
Type of site
News
Available inDanish
Created by
  • Jakob Moll
  • Silke Bock
  • Hakon Mosbech
  • Lea Korsgaard
EditorLea Korsgaard
URLwww.zetland.dk
RegistrationYes
Users18,000
Launched23 March 2012 (2012-03-23)
Current statusOnline

Founded in 2012, Zetland originally created single long-form stories, called e-singles, delivered monthly to subscribers. Journalists would also read their works at public events, similar to Pop-Up Magazine in the U.S.,[5] which have become central to Zetland's business model.[1][4] The company name derives from a hybrid between a zebra and Shetland pony.[1] In 2015, Zetland initiated a relaunch with a crowd-funding campaign which raised over 530,000 kroner (kr.), and additional investments of 8 million kr. The relaunch occurred in March 2016, with Zetland offering daily news articles.[4][6] In 2016, revenue was 6.2 million kr.[1] In 2018 Zetland is to receive 1.8 million kr. for editorial production services from the Danish cultural board Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen.[7]

Since the relaunch, notable pieces have included conversations with Justice Minister Søren Pind and British sociologist Anthony Giddens.[8] In 2017 Zetland won a trio of awards from the Society for News Design Scandinavias, including gold and "Best of Show" in the digital news category for front page, and silver in the website category.[9][10]

Zetland has been offering its stories in audio format as well as text, and that has rapidly become the most popular aspect of the site, with 60% of members now consuming their content in audio.[11] In 2021, it switched from MP3 to Opus for its articles' audio recordings, which attained a 35 percent reduction in bandwidth and reduced climate footprint.[12][13]

Korsgaard attributes the growth of the title to its focus on a membership model as a community, and a constrained number of stories per day, making the site "finish-able" each day.[14]

Zetland achieved financial stability in 2020, with the help of a member-get-member campaign in 2019 that contributed to a 25 percent growth in the span of a month. The campaign was later awarded several awards, including Best Idea to Grow Digital Readership or Engagement from INMA Global Media Awards and Best Digital Marketing Campaign for a News Brand from WAN-IFRA European Digital Media Awards.[15][16]

In May 2020, former Head of Product Tav Klitgaard replaced co-founder Jakob Moll as CEO, with the latter pursuing academic studies abroad.

References
  1. Lichterman, Joseph (July 25, 2017). "Start your meetings with a folk song — and other ideas from the community-driven, crowdfunded Danish news site Zetland". Nieman Lab.
  2. Ciobanu, Mădălina (13 April 2017). "How live journalism brings people together to build trust and excitement around stories". journalism.co.uk.
  3. Hansen, Kartin L. (31 August 2016). "Journalism startup Zetland will be at SNDS16". snds.org.
  4. Pontes, Angela (23 February 2017). "Danish startup Zetland spreading the love with its membership model". blog.wan-ifra.org. World News Publishing Focus by WAN-IFRA.
  5. Sillesen, Lene Bech (March–April 2015). "The power of Pop-Up Magazine's live journalism". Columbia Journalism Review.
  6. Cobben, Ingrid (23 August 2016). "Innovation in Denmark: building a community willing to pay for quality journalism". blog.wan-ifra.org. World News Publishing Focus by WAN-IFRA.
  7. Andreassen, Andreas Marckmann (12 December 2017). "Tre nye medier får støtte – Zetland får 1,8 mio. kr". Journalisten.dk (in Danish).
  8. Holm, Adam (18 March 2016). "Anmeldelse: Turen går til Zetland". Politiken (in Danish).
  9. Hedegaard, Anne-Laura (28 September 2017). "Zetland vandt guld for hjemmeside. Nu laver de en ny" [Zetland won gold for website. Now they are doing a new one]. Journalisten.dk (in Danish).
  10. Hansen, Kartin L. (27 September 2017). "Finnish and Danish media houses top Scandinavian news design". snds.org. Society for News Design Scandinavias.
  11. "Zetland's members asked for an audio version — and now it's more popular than their written stories". Nieman Lab. Retrieved 2018-05-10.
  12. "Audio formats and their climate footprint". Sustainable Web.
  13. "How a tip from a member made our audio files 35 percent greener". Zetland (in Danish).
  14. "Zetland: journalism as (profitable) community service". One Man & His Blog. 2017-04-24. Retrieved 2018-05-10.
  15. "INMA unveils Global Media Awards winners, COVID campaigns get top nod".
  16. "Strong Nordic performance as WAN-IFRA European Digital Media Awards announced". 23 April 2020.


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