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Membership / Why join DCN?

Membership Overview

DCN membership is open to any organization that demonstrates a commitment to publishing high-quality digital content and meets DCN membership criteria. Organizations that support the digital publishing industry but are not, themselves, publishers, are eligible to become a Supporter.

Become a Member

Members must demonstrate a commitment to publishing high-quality digital content and meet DCN membership criteria.

Become a Supporter

Supporters must provide services to the digital publishing industry and endors

Supporter Benefits

DCN Supporter status is available to vendors that support the digital publishing industry but are not, themselves, principally in the business of publishing their own editorial content.

Becoming a Supporter of DCN sends a strong signal to our premium publisher members that your company is aligned with DCN’s agenda to advance the future of trusted content and supports high-quality, digital content companies.

DCN provides Supporters a variety of benefits including the following:

  • Affiliation with DCN, the only trade association that exclusively serves the unique and diverse needs of high-quality digital content companies that manage trusted, direct relationships with consumers and marketers.
  • Opportunity to make two special offers a year in Inside DCN, the monthly newsletter distributed to more than 2500 executives at DCN members
  • Two ads quarterly in DCN’s weekly InContext newsletter that reaches 9000+ digital media influencers (eight total ads each year)
  • Exclusive sponsorship opportunities at DCN publishers-only events to reach senior executives from DCN members
  • Featured listing on the DCN Web site as a supporter and ability to feature the DCN logo on your company site

Supporter Criteria

DCN Supporter status is available to vendors that support the digital publishing industry but are not, themselves, principally in the business of publishing their own editorial content.

  1. DCN Supporters must endorse the publishing principles espoused by the DCN:

    Publishing Principles – Members of DCN ascribe to the highest standards in Online publishing with respect to editorial quality and integrity, credibility and accountability. Members of DCN support publishing principles that reflect the traditional values separating editorial and commercial messages, including:

    • Never using advertising content as editorial.
    • Never creating editorial content for an advertiser without clearly labeling such content as advertising.
    • Clearly labeling any advertising, advertorial or promotional content as such.
    • Clearly labeling the source of content.
  2. The applicant must provide products or services that support the businesses of DCN members and must not engage in practices that are detrimental to the Members’ abilities to commercially market their content. DCN Members must use, or contemplate using, the types of products or services offered by the applicant as part of their normal business operations.
  3. The applicant must submit the names of three (3) current DCN members with which it is acquainted and for whom it provides, or contemplates providing, its services.
  4. The DCN requires that all applicants be nominated and approved by either a majority of current DCN members or the DCN Board Membership Committee following submission of their application. The DCN reserves the right to accept or reject any application in its discretion.
  5. The applying organization must not use marketing or promotional techniques DCN deems confusing or misleading to consumers.

Supporter Dues

Supporter dues are $6,000 per year.

Supporter Application

If your organization meets the above criteria and you are interested in becoming a Supporter of the DCN, please fill out our online application.

Step 1: Application Information

Step 2: Company Information

(If different from the information provided in step 1)
Please check the following before submitting
  1. All of the information I have provided is accurate to the best of my knowledge.
  2. I have read the membership criteria and determined that my company meets all of the defined criteria.
  3. I am aware of the annual dues which are a condition of membership in the DCN

Member Benefits

Join DCN —the only trade association that exclusively serves the unique and diverse needs of high-quality digital content companies that manage trusted, direct relationships with consumers and marketers.

Voice for Premium Digital Content Brands

DCN serves as the voice for high-quality, trusted digital content brands in the marketplace. In the consumer and trade press and in industry and policy forums, DCN ensures premium publishers have a seat at the table and their views are represented in the interest of fostering fair competition. See DCN Trust Principles and press page for recent quotes and bylines.

Media Strategy Research

DCN undertakes major research initiatives in support of the digital publishing industry. Some research is publicly available to the marketplace and some is proprietary for DCN members only. Most recently DCN conducted research into:

  • Consumer perceptions of ad blocking and publisher best practices
  • Distributed content revenue benchmark and best practices
  • Content distribution impact on publisher brands
  • Business models that support niche publishing
  • Bot benchmark for premium publishers

For a complete listing of DCN research, visit the DCN Research area of this web site. Though top-line findings of most DCN research are made public, DCN members receive the complete research results, as well as company-specific results for custom projects.

Suite of Benchmarking Reports

DCN’s benchmark reports are the only marketplace intelligence analyses exclusively focused on premium digital content. No other competitive reports like these exist in the marketplace. Annual and quarterly revenue benchmarks, plus deep dives into distributed content and paid content models, provide powerful insights that help our members make strategic business decisions.

Members-only Events

DCN hosts a series of public and private events in support of its members’ businesses on topics important to the current and future digital business, from technology and product innovation to the art and science of creating powerful content experiences. DCN also produces an annual two-day summit for its members’ senior executives. To view a list of DCN publisher members-only events, please click here.

Industry Intelligence

DCN InContext is a weekly e-mail newsletter that provides insights into the business of digital content. To sign up, click here.

Legal/Legislative Strategies

DCN acts as a center of gravity for its member organizations with respect to policy matters that affect digital publishing, such as online privacy, net neutrality, data policies and native advertising. DCN provides a forum for legal counsel and develops positions in conjunction with other industry trade groups with whom we share common cause to serve the business interests of digital content companies.

Powerful Network

DCN’s membership represents a powerful network of executives from leading digital content brands who are working together to advance the future of trusted content.

Membership criteria are as follows:

  1. Applicants must create and distribute online content and commercially market such content through advertising, subscription sales, or sponsorship sales. Applicants may be public companies, private companies, not-for-profit companies, or divisions within companies.
  2. The applicant’s principal business must be the creation of original content by a dedicated professional editorial and content production staff for the purpose of online publishing. The size and composition of the staff may vary, but generally editorial and content production personnel will represent a significant portion of the total organization.
  3. The applicant’s online content must not be inappropriate, obscene or otherwise unlawful.
  4. The applicant must dedicate a portion of its staff to revenue generating activities whether they are ad sales, subscription sales, or sponsorship sales.
  5. Members must have demonstrated a commitment to the highest standards of online publishing for at least one year.
  6. Once admitted, members must demonstrate an on-going, scrupulous commitment to best practices for Online Publishing with respect to editorial quality and integrity, credibility and accountability.
  7. Applicants must agree that, upon acceptance, they will appoint the senior digital executive within their organization to serve as their DCN representative.
  8. The applicant must not market itself using techniques that DCN deems confusing or misleading to consumers.

Membership Dues (publisher)

For 2019:

  • $79,000 for companies with total annual revenues greater than $65MM
  • $34,000 for companies with total annual revenues between $25MM and $65MM
  • $17,000 for companies with total annual revenues less than $25MM

In addition, a company that has common corporate ownership or is a division of a large company that is already a paying member may join as an affiliate member at a lower rate based on total company annual revenues.

DCN dues are based on annual total company revenues and not solely on revenues attributable to digital. Dues for companies that are owned or controlled by larger entities are based on the total annual revenues of the owner or controlling company.

Membership Application

If your organization meets the above criteria and you are interested in joining DCN, please submit the brief application for consideration.

Join DCN - the only trade association that exclusively serves the unique and diverse needs of high-quality digital content companies that manage trusted, direct relationships with consumers and marketers.

Step 1: Application Information

Step 2: Company Information

Step 3: DCN Representative

(If different from the information provided in step 1)
Please check the following before submitting
  1. All of the information I have provided is accurate to the best of my knowledge.
  2. I have read the membership criteria and determined that my company meets all of the defined criteria.
  3. I am aware of the annual dues which are a condition of membership in the DCN