A central part of the involved building a set of tools for other researchers, journalism support organizations and newsrooms to use when studying and considering mergers of this kind. You can use the tools below to support the consideration, diligence, and execution of a newsroom merger at your outlet. Click on the images of each tool to download a copy.
Business Model Calculator
This template was created by Erin Moran and Evran Kavlak at Public Media Company as a tool to assess the financial viability of a newsroom merger. It is based on over 200 business models that Public Media Company has created over the past two decades. It should be noted that the scope and the extent of the financial model might vary depending on the overall vision, size of the newsrooms, type of the organizations (commercial versus noncommercial, broadcast versus online), and the intended reach (local, regional, national, or international). If you have any questions about the template, please contact Evran Kavlak at evran@publicmedia.co.
Documents
Due Diligence Checklist

Implementation Checklist

Structuring a Newsroom Merger

Sample Timeline

Market Map
This map of public media and digital news site locations was created by NPR’s Christina Macholan and independent researcher Emily Roseman in August 2019. Macholan provided data on locations (including zip code level data) of NPR member stations around the country. We layered this data set along with locations of INN (Institute for Nonprofit News) and LION (Local Independent Online News) members by city/state level data. In sum, this map provides a look at the more or less crowded geographic areas for high-quality, local digital news and broadcast news in the United States. This map should be seen as a snapshot in time and will not be updated regularly.
Webinar about study’s findings
Dr. Elizabeth Hansen reviews major findings from the Public Media Mergers Project study here, in a webinar during PMVG’s CEO summit in September 2020.