Think of the last time you have tried to read an article online. Chances are, you were hit by a paywall, or asked to subscribe to the outlet, even if for a free trial. That happens because media outlets largely rely on the subscription model. But what about you, a consumer, who happens to want to read this particular article or listen to this one episode of a new podcast?

Well, Stockholm-based Sesamy hopes to offer an answer for you. It is an AI-powered platform that allows users to pay for single purchases – an episode of a podcast, an audiobook or a long-read article of your choice. And the founders hope this model might just be the solution to the media industry’s many long-standing problems. The Fix sat down with one of Sesamy’s founders, Måns Ulvestam to find out how.

Inspiration behind Sesamy

Måns Ulvestam, Karl Rosander and Markus Ahlstrand had been in the media business since the beginning of this century. In their native Sweden, they helped numerous companies find footing in the newly emerging digital world. They were also behind Acast, a pioneering podcast platform that is now the biggest marketplace for podcasts worldwide.

Before Acast, the only way to monetise a podcast was if the host read a sponsorship message, Ulvestam told The Fix. “Those are good, because they are podcast-specific. But they are also not great, because you might not want your journalist to read a Coca-Cola ad when you are reporting on Pepsi.”

To diversify ad options, Acast introduced dynamic advertising that changes content to show each individual user the most relevant results – that meant that two listeners of a same podcast would hear ads based on their location.

By 2021 Ulvestam and his collagues left Acast to explore the full potential of podcasting. The trio ventured to found Sesamy – with the goal of putting tailored, consumer-specific content at its heart.

How Sesamy works

Think of Sesamy as a retailer that sells single items only, instead of selling them in bulk. An average subscription to a news outlet costs €10-15 per month. With Sesamy consumers pay up to €2 for an article or a podcast episode, with no recurring payments. This approach creates less stress and obligation for consumers that would prefer to engage with media only occasionally. Ulvestam explains that with the traditional subscription model, most consumers just cancel at the end of the free trial, while with Sesamy, they come back if they really like the content. In Ulvestam’s experience, this approach ultimately drives loyal subscribers – 15% users come back and choose full subscriptions to the outlets they had been following on Sesamy.

*Screenshot of the product demo for Sesamy. Courtesy of Sesamy*

Sesamy unites 40 publishers from Sweden, Norway, the UK, Italy and Poland. New members of the platform can opt for a revenue share system, or pay a fixed monthly price of €1900 to get full access to Sesamy’s tools. Once incorporated into it, publishers are given plug-ins on their content management systems, including WordPress and Spotify. Once integrated, they have full freedom to decide what they want to put behind Sesamy’s “soft paywall” which can be unlocked by providing a user’s personal information.

With the freedom of tailoring content to interested consumers, publishers actually want to work harder and put out better media products, says Ulvestam. In Sweden – the biggest market for Sesamy – publishers like Fokus have already rolled out exclusive podcasts and longer reads that can only be accessed through the platform.

Challenges

The on-demand system is not without its faults when it comes to media. Publishers might not risk aiming for “hits” – individual articles that will get enough clicks to generate income per single user. Rather, big publishers see their products as bundles, where subscribers often get access to different forms of media and even some branded products, like mugs and totes. A single new subscription might be worth hundreds of dollars of annual revenue, according to Columbia Journalism Review. With the single-purchase model, however, “if a subscription is worth a hundred dollars a year to a publisher, then even one person clicking on the twenty-cent button instead means the publisher needs five hundred people to buy articles to make up for the lost revenue.”

Ulvestam sees reason in the reluctance. He admits that Sweden, the birthplace of Spotify, is an unusually ripe market for media innovation – it only made sense to start a venture like Sesamy there. Expansion into Poland, for example, is trickier – Ulvestam knows podcasting is relatively new there and it might take time before consumers start paying for content. Yet, Sesamy chooses to remain both hopeful and bold, trying to replicate the success of Sweden and its Scandinavian neighbours, where publishers keep offering new, consumer-oriented approaches.

Cover photo: Founders of Sesamy say they plan to expand to more European markets. Courtesy of Sesamy

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Sweden's pay-per-content solution for media’s subscription problem