Revenue Management: #9 Revenue Recognition in Media & Publishing

   

Media & Publishing industry has evolved in recent times. It offers subscriptions, bundles digital and print access, runs sponsored content, and sometimes even sells ad spaces. If you run a media or publishing business, you will always get into a situation where you get paid in advance, but how do you determine what part of the money is earned today versus what needs to be deferred for the future? Can you recognize all of them upfront? Or should it spread across issues or impressions?

How do publishers and media platforms handle revenue?      

Revenue Recognition Scenarios in Media & Publishing

Subscriptions, advertising contracts, bundled content, and sponsored campaigns often complicate revenue recognition in media and publishing. Though accounting guidelines like ASC 606 and IFRS 15 apply, how you use them varies based on how you deliver content.

Subscription Revenue

When a customer pays for a weekly, monthly, or annual subscription, the revenue must be spread across the subscription period, as content is delivered over time rather than upfront.

Example: A $120 annual magazine subscription should be recognized at $10 monthly over 12 months.

Bundled Offerings

You may offer print+digital access, or magazine+e-book bundles. Each component should be recognized separately based on delivery schedules and relative values.

Example: A $240 subscription includes $180 of weekly print magazines and $60 for e-book access. Revenue is recognized $15/month for print and $60 once access is granted.

Advertising Revenue

Advertising may be sold per issue, impressions, or based on clicks. You can recognize revenue only after delivery of an impression or publication, not when the ad is sold or paid for.

Example: A $5000 ad campaign for 1,00,000 impressions recognizes revenue only as impressions are delivered (say $500 for every 10,000)

Sponsored Content or Paid Articles

Sponsored stories or influencer placements should be recognized on publication date or campaign completion, depending on the agreement.

Example: A $2000-paid article is published on July 5th, and revenue is recognized on the same day.

Cancellations & Refunds

If a subscriber cancels mid-cycle and gets a partial refund, revenue must be adjusted with only the earned portion as recognized.

Example: $120 yearly subscription cancelled after 3 months. Only $30 will be considered recognized.

These scenarios highlight how delivery, not payment, drives revenue recognition. With multiple formats and monetisation models in place, manual revenue recognition handling is a huge task prone to errors and misstatements.

Scenario: 

Your publishing company sells an annual subscription package at $240. This subscription covers weekly print magazine work of $15 and on-demand access to the digital library, which is valued at $60. The customer pays upfront on the 1st of January.  

Zoho Billing for Media Revenue Recognition

Publishers and content creators will be able to work with Zoho Billing to define revenue recognition rules based on content delivery and access architecture.

For the scenario above, you may go with the following revenue recognition rule configuration,

Component	Recognition Frequency	Recognition Method	Recognition Time
Print Magazines	Monthly	Evenly Distributed Prorated	Period Start
Digital Library	Once	One-Time (Daily)	Period Start

 

Even though the $240 is received upfront, revenue must be split evenly for the subscription-based service.

Reports in Zoho Billing

Let's say you are checking the reports during March.

i) Recognized Revenue Report

Component	Recognized Revenue	Description
Digital Library	$60	Fully recognized on the subscription start date
Print Magazine	$45	$15x3 issues delivered
Total Recognized	$105	recognized at the end of three months

 

ii) Deferred Revenue Report

After three months of offering, nine print issues are still pending delivery.

Component	Deferred Amount
Digital Library	$0
Print Magazine	$135 (9 months of deliverables)
Total Deferred	$135

 

iii) Revenue Waterfall Report

Month	Digital Library	Print Magazine	Total
Month 1	$60	$15	$75
Month 2	----	$15	$15
Month 3	----	$15	$15
Month 4 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 5 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 6 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 7 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 8 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 9 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 10 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 11 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 12 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Total (after 3 months)	$60	$45	$105

 

Only at the end of one year will the full payment you received be considered recognized revenue.

Best Practices for the Media Industry while recognizing revenue

• Break Down Subscriptions: Separate print, digital, access, ads, and events into individual deliverables.
• 
  Match Revenue to Delivery: Recognize only when issues go out, impressions are served, or access granted.
• 
  Account for Returns & Refund: Handle cancellations by adjusting the deferred revenue schedules automatically.
• 
  Monitor Reports Monthly: Revenue Waterfall and Deferred reports ensure timely recognition tracking. 

Up Next: Common Mistakes while Recognizing Revenue

• Topic Participants

• Hari | Zoho Billing

  

• Sticky Posts

• Community Learning Series | Digest #5 — September 2020

  Dear customers, We're happy to bring you the September edition of our #CommunityDigest! Keep track of your subscription KPIs right from your smartphone: Last month, we enhanced our Android mobile app to help our customers get daily updates on their business health. We got to know from a lot of customers that this has made their job much more easier because they no longer have to keep a reminder to manually check on the previous day's revenue or activations. If you have not downloaded it yet, here's

• Community Learning Series | Digest #4 - August 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. I'm happy to bring you the fourth edition of our #CommunityDigest with some brand-new updates from us. 1. Daily Business Updates (for Android users) The Zoho Subscriptions Android app has got a cool new update: You can now get a push notification to your smartphone that lets you know how many activations and cancellations have taken place, and what's the net revenue for the previous day. The best part is, you can tell the app when exactly you

• Community Learning Series | Digest #3 - July 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. We're glad to bring you the July edition of our #CommunityDigest. New community members can view our previous newsletters here. This time, we have two major updates and three interesting topics for you: 1. Zoho Subscriptions Developer Community Since the inception of Zoho Subscriptions, our team believed that the recurring billing platform we provide should be able to offer an extensive API library that empowers businesses to automate most

• Introducing: Community Learning Series | Digest #1 - May 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you are staying safe and healthy. Helping businesses manage their customer subscriptions more efficiently has always been, and always will be, our goal at Zoho Subscriptions. We strongly believe this is possible if we grow together as a community and share what we know with each other. To nurture this shared learning experience, here is our brand-new Community Learning Series! ​ Welcome to the first edition of our digest! Each edition of our community digest includes guides

• Recent Topics

• Create, collaborate, and manage agreements with Zoho Sign

  Agreements drive business. We launched Zoho Sign in 2017 as a simple digital signature tool to sign agreements from anywhere, at any time. Over the years, we've learned that most agreements go through last-minute changes before they're signed. Our users

• Function #25: Automatically generate purchase orders from a sales order

  We kicked off the "Function Fridays" series with the goal of helping you automate your everyday accounting tasks. As we delve into today's post, I'm delighted to announce that we're here to present the 25th custom function in this series. While it is

• hiding a topic from all but one segment (or list)

  My organization sends out a number of newsletters using Zoho Campaigns. One of those newsletters is for volunteers. In order to become a volunteer, a person has to first go through our volunteer orientation (training). After that, they can receive newsletters

• How do I set up this automation correctly?

  When contacts enter my Subscribers list, I want it to reference a custom field to see if it is empty. Then I want it to do two things: If empty: Assign a tag based on a different custom field. If that custom field is empty, assign a different tag. If

• Function #62: Display associated Quote on Invoice details screen

  Hello everyone! Today, we are sharing a Related List script that makes it easy to view and access the quote from which an invoice was created right from the invoice details screen. This Related List displays the Quote number and Amount, allowing you to

• Desk x CRM Integration

  Howdy! We currently use SalesIQ but we are considering moving across to Desk as it seems to have more functionality that we want. One of the pulls is the ability for our customers to self serve. But, I might be getting over excited and not actually need

• Issue with Save & Share Link – Works for Others but Not Creator

  I’ve enabled the "Save and Share" feature in Zoho Forms, and it works correctly for all users accessing the public link—except for me (the form creator). Issue Details: When I save and share the link, recipients see a “no permission” error. The form is

• Save the pdf report from a registration form in a Folder

  Through Zoho Forms I created a registration form with quite a lot of rules to handle different variables (TEAM types, payment in installments, etc.), and the result is pretty good. The automatic PDF that is sent to the respondent upon submission is already

• zoho forms integration to zoho work drive

  Scenario: A user fills out a Zoho Form, entering details such as email, mobile number, and other required information, and uploads supporting documents like PAN, Aadhaar, etc. Upon submission, the data is available in Zoho Forms Reports. Requirement:

• Zoho Forms to Zoho CRM Integration failed - can I restart it?

  The integration of Zoho Form to Zoho CRM has failed. Is there a way for me to restart it for the impacted entry?

• insert an equation, but in document, it shows an image not available.

  I'm new to Zoho writer and used Zoho writer in desktop app version . When I inserted an equation, I got an image not available sign. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Charles

• Zoho Desk Android app update - Swipe action customization

  Hello everyone! We have brought in support for the swipe action customization in latest version(v2.9.13) of the Zoho Desk Android app update, enabling you to configure left and right swipe gestures on tickets to carry out the actions swiftly without opening

• Import KB template OR Export template for zoho desk?

  Greetings. Can you tell me if there is a way to get an EXPORT of my KB articles? OR is there a template you supply for importing KB articles into my zoho desk? I am looking for a method of understanding what fields can be imported, and what their possible

• XML format to import knowledgebase into Zoho Desk

  Hi, We just started to use Zoho Desk and want to import our knowledgebase from our old support system (Freshdesk) to Zoho Desk. Can anyone give us information about the format of xml file to import? There is no explanation on the related page.

• Arranging Ticket Templates

  Is there any way to arrange our ticket templates? It doesn't look very organised when it's just arranged according to when they were created. We want the list to look more organised, by arranging/grouping them by topics, or even just by alphabetical

• What they mean with "Portal"?

  I just downloaded this app to take my personal notes on digital art studio because it seemed to me the most comfortable app to do it, I use it very often, what do they mean by “no activity on your portal”? I have about 1 year of work here and I don't

• favorites no longer listed

  Hello, I can no longer navigate to my Favorites from the pulldown at the top of my grid view (see attached screenshot). I wasn't able to find it anywhere! Please help me display my Favorites. Thank you!

• Notecards Disappeared

  Got a new phone. Downloaded and signed in Zoho Notebook. Not finding the Note cards. Just Empty Note books. Frustrating.

• Table Errors

  Hello, I'm new to Zoho Notebook and using it on several Mac/Apple devices. My question is regarding tables: Why do they become broken, and how to fix the error without retyping all my data? (Please see the screenshot attached.)

• Online Calculator with Zoho Forms?

  I'd like to build a custom calculator on my website. Zoho Forms seems to offer all the fields for basic calculations performed live without pressing any "Calculate" buttons. Unfortunately, there is still that "Submit" button at the bottom. There is nothing

• Zoho Tables instead of Zoho Creator Spreadsheet reports <3

  That would make my day for sure. Zoho Creator is create, but miss data entering as AirTable/Spreadsheet can. Seeing Zoho putting effort in this makes me think maybe one day we could see a similar interface for Zoho Creator spreadsheet reports. B.

• Notebook Stack

  Hi Everyone I Hope you´re fine, I´m sorry if this idea was posted before (I made a search but I haven´t find anything related). So, Having the possibility of stacking notebooks would be an interesting way to order notebooks that correspond to the same

• Writing on sketch cards is bugged when zoomed in

  When zoomed in, it writes a noticeable distance above or to the side of where you're actually trying to write. The further you're zoomed in, the more noticeable it is. Zooming is also entirely absent on the desktop version.

• Swipe between notes on iPhone

  It'd be convenient if I could move from one note to the next in a notebook simply by swiping left to right.

• Sales IQ chat is not working in signed android apk

  I have integrated ZOHO sales IQ support chat and i have followed each step and its working fine in my development build but when i create signed APK for it. Chat does not work in it and showing awaiting for detail. I previously asked the same query but

• COQL order by COUNT not working

  Dear community, I am trying to get a list of deal amounts per planner working on it and sorted to get see who has the least amount of deals. For some reason, I am unable to use sort by in combination with a COUNT. My original code was: query = "select

• I want to duplicate a report and name it something else

  Hi, I have created a report, and now want to reproduce it and call it something else. so that I will end up with TWO separate reports with different titles. Please tell me how do I copy / reproduce a report please

• Zoho CRM: Sales Rep Professional Certification Program on Coursera

  We are happy to share that we have published the Zoho Sales Representative Professional Certificate in partnership with Coursera, a leading platform for online learning and career development that offers access to courses and degrees from leading universities

• OS X Notebook quits immediately upon launch

  NoteBook for OS X (Sequoia, but also under Sonoma) always quits immediately upon launch (so I cannot use the "Attach user log" option). I've restarted my MacBook but the problem persists. If it helps, attached is a diagnostic report from Library>Log

• Can External users upload files or images to WorkDrive?

  I want to know if it is possible for someone externally through a link and PW be able to upload files and images onto WorkDrive?

• Multi-line fields character limits

  Is there a way to set the character limit higher on multi-line fields so that we are not losing information pasted into the field? When the text is entered or pasted, there is no error to say that the text is too large. After saving and going back to view most of the text is gone.   Also, when viewing the resume, the text is not wrapped in the multi line fields and can t be read without scrolling across the page.

• Taz bot not working — What should I do to resolve this issue?

  I am experiencing issues with the Taz bot in Zoho Cliq—not receiving responses or it does not seem to work as expected. Could you please explain why the Taz bot might not be functioning and what steps I should take to resolve this issue? Thank you!

• OneNote Migration

  I am trying to migrate two notebooks from OneNote. For five days now I have had no notification that migration has completed and the migration page show 50% complete - one notebook completed one not finished. It just stays like this. I am unable to cancel

• Set various time slot reminders for task and event

  Hi I would like known if there is possibility to set various time reminders for a task or event like we have the possibility to do in google calendar or google task. For example I'am creating an event or task and I want to be alerted before 30min and

• Zoho Calendar not functioning---cannot edit, add attendees, etc.

  Hello, My calendar is acting strange. I'm using Chrome as my browser and pop ups are not blocked (the calendar worked fine yesterday). When creating an event, I'm not able to "edit" the event and add attendees, etc. The link is non-responsive. I cannot

• Spilt Axis for stacked column and line graph

  Each month around this time I prepare a business review deck. One of the biggest annoyances I have with Zoho, also happens to be something that most other platforms have provided for a long time now, and that is being able to create a chart with stacked

• Pin a note on top

  Dear Zoho Notebook Team, Please highly consider adding ability to pin a note on top and arrange pinned notes. I have a lot of notes that I want to pin important ones on top and this feature is missing badly. Thank you.

• Windows 11 app ver 2.2.8

  I have been trialing Zoho Notes syncing between my PC and iphone. No problems with iphone but the Windows 64 bit app ver 2.2.8 was very buggy and would lock up completely, needing a Control Alt Delete etc to close it down. It seemed to be connected to

• Deluge Script: Onboarding → Access Form

  Hello everyone, Edit: Sorry, I think I put this topic in the wrong section. I’ve recently run into an issue that’s been giving me a bit of a headache for the past few weeks. Context: This is my first time using Deluge to create a script, but it’s not

• Windows Device Authentication

  We have recently started using ManageEngine, and my boss saw a device management feature in the Zoho One directory. We thought it would either help give us more intergration into Zoho one through bringing ManageEngine services through Zoho one. Or, it

• Next Page