Media Viability Accelerator (MVA)

The MVA is designed for media outlets (entities publishing fact-based news and information) and solution providers (organisations - including funders, media development organisations, software providers, consultants, and researchers - that can increase media outlets' viability). It is based on the belief that a wide range of independent media is essential to democracy but that many struggle to survive when they are faced with a loss of ad revenue and anti-democratic pressures. To reverse this trend, media need:

• insights on what strategies will actually work to sustain their efforts;
• partners to help implement those solutions; and
• access to funding to turn ideas into improved viability.

To meet this need, MVA has two primary components:

MVA Insights: The project's multilingual data-based platform collects (from media organisations that sign up to the MVA) and provides market intelligence to help newsrooms with their business models. This will allow media outlets to:

• Analyse, visualise, and track business performance by organisation, brand, and distribution channel (e.g., website, social media, mobile app, print, broadcast).
• Benchmark performance against peers across the world, using segments based on markets and media outlet characteristics (not organisation-specific data, as performance data collected from media organisations is anonymous unless the organisation gives permission).
• Get customised actionable alerts based on what organisers describe as thousands of market and media sources to improve performance. This information may include lessons learned about how to stay viable in rural communities or examples of what worked in the context of local changing economic conditions.

MVA Solutions: This aspect of the MVA offers a diverse marketplace of government, non-profit, and business solutions and services that media can use to find investors, funders, advertisers, technology solutions, and advisors. By simplifying these connections to potential partners, independent newsrooms and media organisations are able to more easily implement new and innovative solutions. Participants in the MVA, including Microsoft and Internews, provide regular updates to the solutions marketplace to maintain its usefulness and to make sure content is relevant and that connections can be made. In addition, independent media organisations can use the platform to share solutions, which others in the media ecosystem can replicate.

The roles of the three main partners in the MVA are as follows:

• USAID supports the development and growth of the MVA platform and sets and monitors high-level objectives for the project.
• Microsoft contributes expertise in data analysis, visualisation dashboards, cloud services and artificial intelligence (AI) and provides in-kind technical support to develop and sustain the MVA platform.
• Internews, in concert with other media development organisations (see list of partners below), has been tasked with registering up to 500 media outlet users, with a focus on media from low-resource countries and emerging democracies.

Following over two years of development, the MVA was publicly announced during the 2023 Summit for Democracy in March 2023 (see video of the launch event below). By November 2023, more than 1,000 journalists, editors, content producers, and other media makers had registered interest in access to the MVA; 260 news outlets signed up to the platform in the soft launch stage. The online tool was launched on September 26 2024. Click here to learn more and to find out how to join.

In addition, small grants will be made available to independent media outlets addressing financial sustainability challenges, and a Flexible Response Fund will address emergent needs.

Click here for "Media Viability Accelerator: Overview" [PDF] or visit the MVA website for more information.

Media Development

The following extract from the MVA Overview document explains the rationale behind the MVA and how it is structured:

"Business models for independent media have changed profoundly in recent decades, and the rate of change is only increasing. Major digital and entertainment platforms - with their huge audiences, data pools, and AI-driven amplification - capture most of the global market's advertising and subscription spend, while fact-based, independent media are being outcompeted and threatened. Only by preserving independent media can people hold power to account, make informed decisions that affect their lives, and preserve democracy. The MVA will help media outlets compete for audiences and revenues more effectively.

Better Decisions - Just as the facts are essential for audiences in making informed decisions, they are also essential for media outlets to survive and thrive. The MVA will support data-informed decision making with a focus on embedding data into daily and weekly routines.

Focus on Context and Action - With so much data available, it is essential to identify what is relevant and actionable. The MVA will enable advanced segmentation and action-driven alerts, so that media outlets can be inspired frequently by how others, with similar market and organizational characteristics, behave.

Collaborative Competition - Individually, independent media lack large data pools to learn from, so it can be hard to know how to adapt and grow. By pooling data from multiple media organizations, the MVA will enable them to discover what works for others globally. The MVA will never offer benchmarks on how media outlets in the same country perform, or reveal individual performance data without explicit permission from the media outlet. Comparisons are always offered by media outlet and market characteristics.

Recognizing Excellence, Finding Solutions - There are many organizations offering investment, funding, training, tools, and services that can help independent media become more resilient but finding the right partners is difficult, and there are few standards for demonstrating the benefits of those solutions. The MVA will make this simple, by connecting those who need help, with those who can offer it. Funders and implementers of media development programs have already expressed an interest in joining the MVA. Any MVA User can become a Solution Provider."