Christian Science Monitor Serves Breakfast Video

The Christian Science Monitor is standing fast and betting that people will pay for quality digital content, including well-produced video. Its latest foray, with FORA.tv, is called The Monitor Breakfast.

The new Web series invites the public into the longstanding Monitor-hosted power breakfasts in Washington, featuring journalists and others engaged in lively debate and candid conversation about the issues of the day.

The media brand's partnership with FORA.tv offers a hybrid model: same-day highlights will be available as free clips (such as the James Carville segment above) on both the Christian Science Monitor's website and on FORA's site. Full-length videos of each session are available on a subscription basis for $14.95/month or $99.95/year.

Advertising sponsorships are available, both as pre-roll video within the webcasts on both sites and standard ad units on the Monitor’s web video page.

According to FORA.tv CEO Blaise Zerega, “The Christian Science Monitor is now at the forefront of online video in terms of selling subscriptions, pushing distribution across multiple platforms, and promoting this one-of-a-kind a weekly event.”

Since 1966, when the first Monitor Breakfast was held and Charles Percy, Illinois Senator tipped his hat on a Presidential run, Beltway cognoscenti have been guests, including four presidents and five vice presidents. Most recently, attendees include Nancy Pelosi, Newt Gingrich, Rahm Emanuel and Tom Kane. The program is consistently timely and bipartisan.

Continuing to cross the digital divide, this latest foray comes after the venerable newspaper closed its print edition after more than 100 years, and successfully created a weekly print edition to go hand in hand with a revamped website. Circulation for the weekly has grown to 77,000 since April 2009, and web traffic doubled to 14 million page views.

Christian Science Monitor editor John Yemma commented on the premium video, “We are committed to explaining the news and foreshadowing what’s next.”

With a masthead mission established by its founder Mary Baker Eddy in 1908, “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind,” the Monitor brand is once again parlaying its reputation for integrity and diligence in a swirling media world. It will be interesting to see if consumer demand meets the Monitor's expanding supply of its core values.