BKLYNER Seeks Subscriptions To Save Local News Site

BROOKLYN, NY — Brooklyn could lose another local news outlet if readers don't step up to help. BKLYNER, the hyperlocal website covering large swaths of northwest and southern Brooklyn, needs about 3,000 paid subscribers to avoid shutting down at the end of the month, publisher and editor Liena Zagare announced Thursday.

With Google and Facebook eating away at its advertising revenue, online-only BKLYNER "cannot make ends meet under our current advertising-based business model," Zagare wrote in an appeal to readers posted to the site Thursday.

BKLYNER needs to get at least 3,230 paying subscribers — less than 1 percent of the site's readership — within the next three weeks or it will shut down at the end of December, Zagare told Streetfight, a website about the hyperlocal news business. Readers can pay $5 a month or a "Community Subscription" rate of $1.99 a month. Non-subscribers can still read all of BKLYNER's stories.

The subscription pitch comes about a year after BKLYNER consolidated its network of local news sites into a single publication and downsized its reporting staff. It also comes on the heels of the November shutdown of DNAinfo and Gothamist, two of New York City's most beloved hyperlocal publishers.

Nearly 300 people have subscribed so far, Zagare said in an email. If the initial push is successful, Zagare told Streetfight she hopes to run BKLYNER mostly on reader subscriptions.

"We ran the numbers and unless readers step up I simply do not see where the money is coming from," she told Streetfight. "We cannot run a more efficient business, and we cannot have fewer reporters. In all fairness, we should have at least two or three more reporters to cover Brooklyn properly."

BKLYNER started soliciting subscriptions in early November, shortly after billionaire publisher Joe Ricketts abruptly shut down DNAinfo and Gothamist. In a letter to readers then, Zagare pledged to hire one reporter for every $60,000 in subscription revenue.

Published by Corner Media Group, BKLYNER started as a group of eight hyperlocal sites that were founded as early as 2008. The company consolidated them under the BKLYNER banner in January. The site attracts 354,000 users and 863,000 pageviews each month, according to Corner Media.

BKLYNER currently covers a stretch of northwest Brooklyn from Downtown Brooklyn to Park Slope and a swath of south Brooklyn that includes Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Sheepshead Bay, Sunset Park and other neighborhoods.

The site has struggled to garner advertising revenue, as local businesses are turning to Facebook and other online services to buy cheaper targeted ads, Zagare told Streetfight.

Zagare, who has been a fixutre in Brooklyn community news since she started the Ditmas Park Blog in 2007, told Streetfight she likely won't impose a limit on the number of stories readers can view for free because BKLYNER's audience is still growing. The site may consider becoming a nonprofit if the subscription drive keeps it open, she told Streetfight.

BKLYNER won four Independent Press awards this year, including first-place honors for in-depth reporting and social issues reporting. Zagare worked briefly for Patch before leaving for Corner Media in 2012, according to her bio.

"I think we have done an excellent job reporting on issues that matter along with some fun items and need-to-know stuff," Zagare told Streetfight. "It would be great to keep going and grow financially to be able to add more reporters."

See BKLYNER's post for information about how to subscribe.

(Lead image by Niek Verlaan via Pixabay)