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The Hill

'The Hill' to expand as digital traffic grows

Roger Yu
USA TODAY
Jimmy Finkelstein owns "The Hill," the political news agency.

Heightened interest for all things political this season — thanks in no small measure to a certain voluble real estate mogul with a combover — has been a boon for political news organizations.

Few have lapped it up with more gusto than The Hill, a political newspaper widely read on Capitol Hill but, until recently, considered mostly a policy geeks-only publication.

But the leveling of the online media playing field — engendered by social media, smartphones and the emergence of loyal-to-no-brand Millennial readership — has emboldened niche publications including The Hill, Roll Call, Vox.com and Politico to broaden their target markets, trusting that their content will be found quickly and nationally with stepped-up editorial production and a bit of search engine optimization razzle-dazzle.

A new era looms for Politico

The Hill had 10.7 million unique visitors in January, a 178.1% jump from a year ago, according to Comscore. SimilarWeb, a Web analytics company, said in December that The Hill had the biggest year-over-year increase in traffic among all U.S. publishers last year through November.

The Hill’s bag of tools ranges from the usual — punchier headlines, weekend stories, broader-interest features, tweeting early and often, beefing up the breaking news desk — to expensive expansions in hiring more staffers and getting reporters out in the field, says Bob Cusack, The Hill's editor in chief. “The biggest change is that we’ve gone after a broader national audience. We’ve become less of a niche publication."

Jimmy Finkelstein, the New York-based businessman who owns The Hill, told USA TODAY he plans to accelerate the momentum by boosting staffing by 25% this year. Video production also is a priority, and he has thought about expanding it beyond politics and policy. And its print product, he speculates, will likely be gone in five years. Here are excerpts from the interview. Finkelstein's comments have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: You operate in a crowded field. How would you assess your competitive advantage?

A: Politics is a very competitive field. But I think the difference is we have a very serious policy area. And we’re going to add significantly to the editorial staff in the coming year. You go hunting where the ducks are. Now ducks are the election. But there’s life after the election. And our budget calls for us growing over 100% in traffic this year and conservatively 50% the following year. I think we’ll beat it significantly. We’ve done this without clickbait. We did this with serious journalism, which is something all on The Hill are very proud of.

Q: Can you put a figure on how much you will spend in the newsroom?

A: I can, but I won’t. We’re going to ... have many more contributors. We are going to add to our healthcare and finance areas. Our editorial staff will increase by 25% over the course of this year, which would exclude the major initiatives we’re taking.

Q: Such as?
A: A major initiative is in video. We already (make) simple videos to describe stories. Model Two might be a series on things that we write about normally. Model Three is like Vice Media, where you do serious documentary that appears on the site and appears elsewhere. The documentaries would have to have a political handle. So if you write about Syria, that clearly has to do with our foreign policy. And that’d be fair to do. If you write about cancer, you do what’s going on in cancer (research) and you’d do what the government efforts are.

Q: Can we expect The Hill to go beyond politics and policy?

A: We’ve thought about (expansion beyond politics and policy). Our plan right now is to make sure we run for Congress before we went for the presidency. We want to first be well on our way before we even turn in that direction. I think eventually that'll be the case.

Q: What kind of expansion areas?
A: If I gave you an answer it would be made up. Call me back in six months.

Q: Has The Hill’s online traffic growth translated into revenue growth? If so, can you share the numbers?

A: Revenue growth is significant.

Q: Is The Hill profitable?
A: The Hill is profitable, and we intend to invest all this money in the future.

Q: Will you continue to print?

A: Five years from now, there will be very little print for anybody. Print is still profitable for us. It’s liked by Congress and congressional aides. We’re well distributed, so we will continue it for the time being. But there is no question that it’s not going exist in a serious way five years from now.

Roger Yu on Twitter: @RogerYu_.

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