Strengthening independent media for financial sustainability

The Media Viability Accelerator (MVA) is a free service designed to help independent media worldwide adapt to the diverse challenges they encounter.

Combining cutting-edge data tools with market intelligence

In partnership with Microsoft’s Democracy Forward Initiative, the MVA offers advanced data tools to help businesses thrive, providing much-needed market intelligence.

These tools are crucial for independent media, which play a vital role in democracy but often struggle with declining ad revenue and anti-democratic pressures.

By joining the MVA, media representatives gain access to a global network focused on improving financial sustainability, helping outlets grow their audience, expand reach, and boost revenue.

How to use the MVA

‘How to’ videos to get you set up on the MVA platform.

Getting started on the MVA - Descriptive Transcript

[The video opens with upbeat music playing in the background as the Media Viability Accelerator (MVA) logo appears on screen and title ‘Getting started on the MVA’ also appears. A friendly, approachable voiceover begins speaking.]

-Voiceover: Welcome to ‘Getting started on the MVA’, a short video guide to get you set up on the Media Viability Accelerator platform.

[As the voiceover continues, the screen divides into four separate windows.

Top left the MVA platform is displayed showing a plotted graph of a website’s best practices score.
Top right, a young woman of East Asian heritage looks at her laptop and smiles.
Bottom left, a man and a woman of Black African heritage, have a discussion regarding what they can see on a computer screen that they are looking at.
Bottom right, a screen capture of the MVA shows the amount of social media posts send out this month and last month, by a news outlet called ‘Newsbug’.]

-Voiceover: The MVA is a free new online platform for independent media, set up to help you measure your business success, benchmark your performance, and access an ecosystem of ideas and support.

[Screen transitions to MVA team member Zoe, speaking to the camera, in front of a neutral background. Zoe is a woman with mid-length brown hair and glasses. She has a friendly expression on her face and is wearing an MVA branded polo]

-Zoe from the MVA team: Hello! My name’s Zoe. I will guide you through the initial account setup process and we will explore the basic features of the MVA to help you become familiar with the platform and get you set up for success. Let’s dive in!

[Zoe’s face fades out]

[The title ‘Getting set up’ fades in and out on the screen]

[The screen transitions to showcase an internet browser and web address mva.net being tapped in, leading the viewer to the mva.net Homepage.]

-Zoe voiceover: To get started, first head to mva.net, select the ‘Sign in/Sign up’ button, which will lead you to the platform.

[The login page of the platform loads on screen, the mouse clicks the ‘Sign up’ button, which causes a new page to load. This page has multiple information fields that need to be filled. They are:

Email address:

New password:

Confirm new password:

First name:

Last name:

Organization name:

Property type:

URL:

Brand:

Reviewer organization:

Reviewer email:

Please send me the MVA newsletter (a check box)

I agree to the terms of use and privacy policy (a check box)

A cancel button

A create button]

-Zoe voiceover: Filling in these fields to the best of your ability makes for a smoother experience once you enter the platform.

[As Zoe speaks the mouse scrolls down and the information is typed in to each information box]

[The visual shows ‘Newsbug’ and ‘Zoe Tipler’ entered in to the name and media outlet fields].

-Zoe voiceover: You will see a space to enter a ‘property type’. On the MVA, a property is a distribution channel for your news content. Currently available types are listed here.

[The mouse clicks on a drop down menu called ‘Property type’. The available properties displayed are:

Facebook

Instagram

Website

YouTube]

-Zoe voiceover: Select one here – you can add more later, when logged in.

[Visual shows the Facebook being selected]

[The ‘URL’ information box is filled with ‘newsbug.net’, then the ‘Brand’ information box is filled with ‘Newsbug’]

-Zoe voiceover: To keep the MVA a safe space for independent media, access is currently authorized only by partner organizations.If you have previously engaged with them in some way, select your reviewer organization here, and if you have a specific contact at that organization, you should enter their email address here for faster review and access.

[The drop down menu shows the selection of ICC partners:

Free Press Unlimited

GFMD

Internews

IREX

SembraMedia

Thomson Reuters Foundation]

[The mouse selects ‘Internews’]

-Zoe voiceover: Also a reminder that Data that you enter within the platform is accessible only to you, unless you grant others access.

[The ‘reviewer email’ box is filled with [email protected]]

[The mouse selects a checkbox which says ‘Please send me the MVA newsletter’ and a checkbox which says ‘I agree to the terms of use and privacy policy’].

[The mouse selects the ‘Create button’]

-Zoe voiceover: Ok, so once you’ve applied to join the MVA platform, this application goes to the reviewer, who may take a little time to evaluate it and confirm your relationship.

[The sign-up page of the MVA fades out]

[‘MVA first look’ fades in and out on a branded MVA background]

-Zoe voiceover: Once your application to join has been approved, you’ll receive an email notifying you that you can now enter the platform. So let’s login and take a look!

[The MVA platform login page appears, and the visuals show ‘[email protected]’ being written in to the ‘Email address’ box and hidden characters being entered in the the ‘Password’ box. The platform loads and the dashboard of the MVA platform is visible.]

-Zoe voiceover: The first time that you enter the platform you will see the option to go on a tour of the MVA.

[Tour option is clicked on the mouse. Dialogue boxes pop up, describing different sections of the platform to the viewer]

-Zoe voiceover: You can return to ‘tour’ at any time for a reminder of what each area of the platform does.

[‘MVA general set-up’ fades in and out]

[Mouse drags to Manage button]

-Zoe voiceover: Let’s explore setting yourself up on the platform when you log in. That’s in the Manage section. The Manage section is where you will add more details on your independent media outlet and also add user profiles of people in your organization.

[As the narrator speaks, ‘Organization’ and ‘Users’ in the Manage section are hovered over by the mouse]

[As narrator speaks, the screen shows different details of a fictitious outlet, called Newsbug, which have been filled in:

Organization name: Newsbug

Organization type: Nonprofit

Year of foundation: 2010

Base currency: EUR

Number of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) staff: 8

Number of female FTEs: 5

Number of customer-facing FTEs: 2]

-Zoe voiceover: You’ll see here that you can fill in details of your organization, whether it is ‘non profit or for profit’.

[Screen stops on other details that can be filled in:

‘Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility

On a scale of 1 to 5, to what extent does your organization understand, and work to improve, the diversity of its audience?

Audience diversity: 3

On a scale of 1 to 5, to what extent does your organization set up to operate and produce content in a way which promotes the best practices of Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Accessibility (DEIA) as described below?

Operations and productions: 2]

-Zoe voiceover: Much of this information can be used to anonymously compare your media outlet to relevant others, so complete as much as you can.

[Mouse clicks over to ‘Properties’ button. The title at the top of the page reads ‘Manage brands and properties’.]

[More details on the news outlet’s brand have already been filled in:

Brand name: Newsbug

Operates in exile: yes/no]

-Zoe voiceover: You can now set up an independent media brand. Some independent media operate more than one brand. If your media brand operates in exile, you can indicate that here [indicating ‘operates in exile’ question] again so your performance benchmarks are more relevant to you.

[Properties are shown underneath the ‘exiled media question. Mouse clicks on ‘https://newsbug.com’ and a side panel emerges from the right hand side. The mouse scrolls down the list of details collected on the website.]

-Zoe voiceover: Within each brand, you can set up multiple properties.

[Details shown on property side panel:

Title Property

Property type: Website

URL: https://newsbug.com

Primary language: English

Primary country: Belize]

-Zoe voiceover: In this case, this means filling out the information for the website that you entered when you registered. I can give it a name, select the primary language, select what the geographic reach is and also decide to track this property (the website). The same goes with the financial performance.

[The mouse clicks on ‘Primary country’ which opens a drop-down menu, and then selects ‘Antarctica’. The ‘Yes’ option has already been selected for ‘Track this property’. Underneath is the questions ‘Track financial performance?’. The mouse selects ‘yes’.]

[The ‘Properties’ side panel is closed and the view is of the main Brands page once more, as Zoe speaks]

-Zoe voiceover: So I can do this as many times as I like, to include all my properties – perhaps my media outlet’s YouTube channel or Facebook page that the MVA currently tracks. I am doing this to track my own properties, not those of other organizations.

[The mouse selects the ‘Data links’ section on the left hand side navigation. The website indicates it is loading.]

-Zoe voiceover: Alongside this, let’s speak briefly about the ‘Data links’ section of the platform.

[The visual shows the Data links page, where the subtitle displayed is ‘Websites’. Underneath this title ‘https://newsbug.com’ is listed and then underneath this, Google Analytics and Google Search consul integrations are visible.]

-Zoe voiceover: This is where I can connect my account to third party services for simple, automated weekly data collection. Once you make the connection, your data will soon be available to you automatically and you won’t have to do anything further to track it other than check in to the MVA periodically to see the latest information on your properties.

[Visual fades in to a data report on the MVA platform. The mouse scrolls down and Facebook ‘Posts per month’ and ‘Reach’ are displayed with amount of posts for last month and two months ago.]

-Zoe voiceover: We’ll go more into the navigation of the site and the data you can review in a later video.

[The visual fades to the ‘Users section’ of the platform. The heading at the top of the page reads ‘Manage users’.]

-Zoe voiceover: Let’s also look briefly at adding other users from your organization.

-Zoe voiceover: The MVA has been designed to be used by multiple users of the same organization, in order to give the organization that weekly overview of the organization’s metrics and have your colleagues all speaking the same language, with regards to the data.

[The visual scrolls down the users who are already listed on the platform for Newsbug. It is evident that there are many, but their names are blurred for anonymity. Mouse selects ‘Invite user’ button and ‘Invite user’ panel opens on the right hand side.

In the ‘First name’ box, ‘Sofia’ is entered.

In the ‘Last name’ box, ‘Jones’ is entered

Email box – [email protected]]

-Zoe voiceover: Simply add the relevant organization staff members using the ‘invite user’ button, either as an ‘Organization Administrator’, with the same access and permissions as you,

[The mouse clicks on ‘Select a role’ and selects ‘Organization user’ from the drop down menu].

-Zoe voiceover: or ‘Organization User’, meaning that they will have read-only access.

[Screen fades to ‘Manage organization’ again.]

-Zoe voiceover: So a reminder tat the ‘Manage’ section of the MVA platform is where you go to add organizational information – go to the ‘Organization’ tab. Add or manage the organization’s brands – and properties – go to the ‘Properties’ tab.

[Mouse clicks on ‘Properties’ and the Properties page loads.]

-Zoe voiceover: Connect to third party platfors for automated data collection – go to the ‘Data links’ tab.

[Mouse clicks on ‘Data links’ tab and the Data links page is visible.]

[Mouse clicks ‘Users’ and the User page with registered users is displayed.]

-Zoe voiceover: Add more users from your organization in ‘Users’ and also manage your profile and the accounts that you have access to, go to ‘User profile’.

[Mouse clicks on ‘User profile’ and User profile page is displayed.]

[Visual then returns to MVA platform Homepage.]

-Zoe voiceover: Now it’s time for you to have a go! Feel free to watch this video again as a reminder of how to sign up for the platform.

[Mouse selects ‘Contact’ button on left hand side navigation and a Microsoft contact form is displayed].

-Zoe voiceover: Remember that if you are feeling really unsure – or you would like to reach out to us, you can contact product support for their assistance, via the ‘contact’ button.

[Video fades out of platform and Zoe’s appears again]

-Zoe: Thank you for watching and we hope that this video is useful in getting started on the MVA.

[Upbeat music increases in volume, Zoe fades out]

[Text appears on the screen:

‘Keep an eye out for more videos to come on topics like…

Website and Social media reports
Creating segments]

[Text wipes away]

[Credits appear:

‘Getting started on the Media Viability Accelerator

Featuring

Zoe Tipler – Narrator

Sophie Vandyck – Film production/Intro voiceover’]

[Words wipe away and screen fades to black]

END

Generating website and social media reports - Descriptive transcript

[The video opens with upbeat music, showing the Media Viability Accelerator (MVA) logo and title, ‘MVA Website and Social Media Reports’. The voiceover begins.]

Sophie [voice]: “Welcome to this guide on getting your website and social media reports on the Media Viability Accelerator.

[As the voiceover continues, the screen divides into four separate windows.

Top left the MVA platform is displayed showing a plotted graph of a website’s best practices score.
Top right, a young woman of East Asian heritage looks at her laptop and smiles.
Bottom left, a man and a woman of Black African heritage, have a discussion regarding what they can see on a computer screen that they are looking at.
Bottom right, a screen capture of the MVA shows the amount of social media posts send out this month and last month, by a news outlet called ‘Newsbug’.]

Sophie [voice]: The MVA is a free platform for independent media, designed to help you measure your business success, benchmark performance, and access support. Let’s explore the ‘Website’ and ‘Social’ sections to see how the platform can support your work.”

[Transition to Sophie, MVA team member, speaking to the camera. Sophie is a woman with long brown hair and she is wearing earrings. She has a friendly expression on her face and is wearing an MVA branded polo]

Sophie: “Hello! I’m Sophie. If this is your first time logging into the platform, check out the ‘Getting Started on the MVA’ video to set up your account. In this video, I’ll guide you through the Website and Social sections to help set you up for success. Let’s get started!”

[Screen transitions to a sped-up login on the platform.]

Sophie [voice]: “So, you’re already registered on the platform and have filled in your organization, brand, and property details. You’ll have connected your account to third-party services for automated weekly data collection. Each brand has separate properties, which you can link to services like Google Analytics or Google Search Console.”

[The screen shows the data link section, connecting a brand property to Google Analytics.]

Sophie [voice]: “Once connected, your data will be available automatically. You can then check in regularly to track performance. Properties that can be tracked by the MVA include Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Data is collected every Monday at 11:00 UTC for the previous week.”

[A chart displays weekly growth comparison.]

Sophie [voice]: “The MVA is designed for independent media, catering to those familiar or unfamiliar with data. Your entire team—from editorial to operations—can use the MVA to identify areas for improvement and take action. You don’t need to be an analyst; the numbers are clearly explained, and color-coded to highlight where performance is improving or slipping.”

[Screen transitions to a ‘Website reports’ section.]

Sophie [voice]: “Let’s begin with the Website section. It’s divided into subsections: ‘Content’, ‘Structure’, ‘Search’, ‘Audiences’, ‘Advertising’, and ‘Explorer’. Each section provides automated weekly reports to give you insights into performance over different timeframes.”

[The screen displays the ‘Content’ section with its timeline breakdown.]

Sophie [voice]: “In the ‘Content’ section, I can view the number of posts published over the last week, two weeks ago, last month, and two months ago.”

[Screen transitions to the ‘Structure’ section, showing different reports.]

Sophie [voice]: “In ‘Structure’, the report explains website performance, accessibility, meta title descriptions, and offers SEO best practices. The ‘Search’ section focuses on your website’s effectiveness in Google search, showing search impressions, clicks, and click-through rate.”

[Screen transitions to the ‘Search’ section, showing data on impressions and clicks.]

Sophie [voice]: “For example, Google search impressions may show an increase of 2% from the previous week. I can check the ‘Content’ and ‘Structure’ reports to see if the growth is due to posting more content or making technical improvements. Understanding how changes affect performance is a core benefit of the MVA.”

[Screen transitions to the ‘Audiences’ section, showing various metrics.]

Sophie [voice]: “The ‘Audiences’ section provides insights into website visitors, while the ‘Advertising’ section tracks your ad performance. Having all this data in one place makes it easier to track trends in your website’s growth.”

[Screen transitions to the ‘Explorer’ tab.]

Sophie [voice]: “The ‘Explorer’ tab lets you compare two metrics over time. Here, we can see how an increase in Google search click-through rate correlates with an increase in the average engagement time on the website.”

[Screen transitions to the ‘Social reports’ section, specifically Instagram.]

Sophie [voice]: “Now, let’s walk through the ‘Social’ section, starting with Instagram. You’ll find metrics like post frequency, follower growth, impressions, and engagement rates. These insights help you track the performance of your social content over time.”

[Sophie clicks through Instagram metrics, showing different report sections.]

Sophie [voice]: “Facebook and YouTube reports function similarly, offering valuable insights into engagement and content performance on those platforms.”

[Screen shows the ‘Contact’ button at the bottom of the platform.]

Sophie [voice]: “Remember, if you’re unsure about anything, you can reach out for support via the ‘Contact’ button. Thanks for watching, and we hope this video helps you get started on the MVA!”

[Video fades out with upbeat music continuing.]

The problem

Diverse, fact-based, independent media are essential to democracy, but many outlets struggle to survive due to loss of ad revenue and anti-democratic pressures.

To reverse this trend, independent media need:

Insights on successful strategies to sustain their efforts.

Partners to help implement those solutions.

Access to funding, if needed, to turn ideas into improved viability.

The solution

To address those needs, the MVA provides:

MVA Insights

A data platform to track media outlet’s business performance and learn from others with similar market and organization characteristics. In one place, the platform presents and benchmarks weekly content output, audience and revenue data for websites and three social media platforms.

MVA Solutions

A demand-driven marketplace for products and services aimed at media viability. Providers offer a wide range of solutions, and media can select those they most value.

Financial Support

Multiple funding opportunities of up to $25,000 to help organizations design new strategies for viability and incorporate those into business operations. Additional funds are also available for media support programming that incorporates the MVA, and for the development of MVA Solutions offerings.

MVA Insights can analyze a media outlet's social media reach against its output for previous weeks and also (anonymously) in comparison to other media outlets registered with the MVA.

Equipping media outlets with useful information

Helping independent media adapt, grow, and connect with key partners

Media outlets using the MVA will access and gain data insights to adapt to market changes and connect with media support organizations. Developed with input from media development organizations and media outlets, the MVA ensures independent media can survive, thrive, and grow as businesses.

Full table of benefits

A context-driven platform to track, benchmark and optimize media outlets’ business performance.

Key Benefits
For Media Outlets

Survive | Thrive | Adapt | Grow

Key Benefits
For Solution Providers

Discover | Design | Innovate | Reward

Insights

Analyze, visualize, and track business performance by organization, 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.
Get customized alerts to improve performance.