Successes
1. Sustained investment in the community media sector
Executive Order 47 triggered an immediate and dramatic shift in the city’s distribution of ad dollars. Two years prior to its implementation, community media outlets received just $2.7 million of the city’s advertising budget6. In 2020, the first full implementation year, the amount nearly quadrupled to $9.9 million.
This upward trajectory continued into fiscal year 2022, reaching $23.1 million as city agencies heavily invested in public service messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the city’s total advertising budget dropped sharply from $260 million in fiscal year 2022 to $70.4 million in 2023, and $28.8 million in 2024, community media outlets have received more than $23.6 million over the past two years.
In the five years measured in this report, New York City has allocated more than $72 million in advertising to the community media sector, an unprecedented government investment in the sector. Annual advertising dollars spent with community media ranges under $500 to more than $500,000. In fiscal year 2024, more than 180 outlets received city ad dollars, with a median of approximately $10,000.
2. More diversity in advertising agencies
Prior to Executive Order 47 and Local Law 83, the city relied on two7 ad-placement agencies that channeled most city advertising dollars to a handful of mainstream media organizations.
The creation of MOECM marked a fundamental shift. First, MOECM introduced a competitive bidding process for advertising campaigns, eliminating the undue discretion that the two vendors previously held over the city’s ad spending under the earlier system. By 2023, the city was working with 19 different ad-placement agencies, creating, according to MOECM’s 2024 report, “new business opportunities for minority- and women-owned business enterprise[s] … media placement vendors” and strengthening “the effectiveness of all city agency advertising campaigns through custom designed media strategies and streamlined processes.”
3. A more rigorous database
Before Executive Order 47 was signed, the city government relied on an outdated directory of around 400 community media outlets to select where to place advertisements; it included dozens of news organizations that were no longer in operation. In 2020, the city signed an MOU with CCM to work on a unified database, given that CCM maintained an updated directory. (The MOU also gave CCM access to the city’s media ad spending spreadsheets, which CCM used for our annual reports on the impact of Executive Order 47.)
Local Law 83 required MOECM to create its own public directory, leading to the establishment of an application process for inclusion. The process requires news organizations to submit materials specific to each platform, such as printer invoices and copies of the printed publication, quarterly analytics for digital outlets, and ratings data for radio and TV. They all have to submit rate cards, which include price lists for advertising services, and media kits, which are comprehensive packages of information including audience demographics, readership or viewership.
The MOECM team reviews applications and maintains the directory. City government agencies, with input from MOECM, decide which news organizations to include in each of their advertising campaigns. MOECM makes the final placement and budget decisions. Final decisions often depend on factors such as competitive ad rates, audience size and digital reach.
4. A model for other cities and states
Since 2023, ABI has partnered with Rebuild Local News, a nonprofit coalition that works on public policies focused on strengthening local news, to create model bills based on Executive Order 47 and Local Law 83. These have been used to create similar initiatives in states including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Vermont, as well as the cities of Chicago and San Francisco. This partnership demonstrates how targeted public policy can strengthen local media ecosystems.
As states have introduced legislation to direct ad dollars to community media, they cite the case of New York City as evidence that sustaining community media is good for not only these newsrooms, but entire communities.
For example, in 2024, a coalition of San Francisco publishers won a resolution from the city Board of Supervisors to increase advertising in community media outlets. The coalition, led by California Common Cause, referenced CCM’s research as it created its own directory of outlets and researched San Francisco’s ad spending. Their research found that only seven out of 98 community media organizations received any city advertising in the years prior to the resolution.
The policy has broad political appeal both for its support of community media, which are also small businesses, and for its cost-effectiveness, as it can be designed to require no additional budget appropriations. In Vermont, where a community media advertising bill is making its way through the legislature, Republican Lt. Gov. John Rodgers said, “It just makes sense to me and many other Vermonters that Vermont government ought to be supporting Vermont businesses at each and every opportunity.”
ABI’s approach has gained particular traction in New York State, where journalism advocates recently pushed for two complementary bills in Albany. The first established a tax credit for news employers, successfully incorporated into this year’s state budget. The second proposal—essentially a statewide version of Local Law 83—was introduced but remains under committee consideration.
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6 This figure is for 2018. All years mentioned in the report are fiscal years, which in New York City go from July 1 to June 30.
7 The FY2020 Agency Compliance Report stated that “The Mayor’s Office collects data from both the City-certified ad placement vendors (Miller Advertising and Graystone Advertising) and City agencies directly.”
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