Hybrid business models key to the adaptation and sustainability of Ecuadorian media in the new reality

Abstract

The search for an ideal business model for a media is the search for the survival of media. It is life itself. In times of pandemic, innovation is key to the sustainability of a media and reinvention is more than adaptation and even resilience. This is an analysis of some Ecuadorian media changes (digital and written press). An analysis of what they have been undergoing in order to adapt to new times, especially in a time of global health crisis, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. We analyze aspects such as the collapse of newspapers in the pre-pandemic era, challenges of finding an "almost magic" formula for designing the ideal business model for each media in time of crisis, the construction of sustainable organizational structures in media thought from the journalistic point of view but now are changing. We also analyze reduced advertising revenue as well as the opportunities that have arisen after this inadvertent panorama. We talk about not only the capacity of journalists and media to continue in the profession despite all adversity, but also to new forms of financing as a key trough the adaptation and sustainability of the media, in the current era. Also about the possibility of thinking of hybrid business models that guarantee their economic stability, as well as -if it is the case- their editorial independence.