The lack of a separate commercial department and a separate person focused on business processes is perhaps the biggest blunder of regional media. Only half of the media have commercial departments, which is 2% more than last year. The absence of a commercial director and a "glass wall" between the editorial office and the sales department is the back door through which "jeansa" or hidden advertising usually comes to the editorial office, especially on the eve of local elections.
Only 8% of the media said they had a full team with all the necessary employees. At the same time, media managers who point out the lack of human resources indicate that they would like to hire an SMM specialist, designer, operator, i.e. specialists who are in the cost chain, and not specialists who help to earn. This in turn leads to a negative budget balance and dependence on investment.
The study revealed a significant improvement in the separation of the roles of CEO and editor-in-chief. According to the survey, 54% of the media now hire two separate specialists to share responsibility for business processes and the product. This immediately had a "cumulative effect" on the work of the commercial department and the editorial office - 50% of the surveyed media implemented KPIs for commercial department employees, which is 17% higher than last year.
Developing commercial departments is a complex process that is never fast, and the implementation of commercial KPIs , i.e. conscious decision-making based on collected data, is an important stage in the development of media organizations.
Striking changes took place regarding introduction of KPIs in newsrooms - 80% of surveyed media managers confirmed the use of metrics related to the work of journalists. Journalists' understanding of the goals of media organizations and the ratio of their indicators to organizational ones is the same "Chinese wall" on which many media managers who tried to introduce KPIs crashed. Thus, the regional Ukrainian media almost passed the stage when they worked blindly or trusting only the "journalistic instincts".