Publishers are hunting for consumer revenue in classes

JUNE 13, 2019 Max Willens

Traditional school is out for the summer, but publishers who remain enamored by online

education and classes as a source of incremental revenue are just warming up.

Late last month, Billboard announced that it had launched a digital learning program in
partnership with Yellowbrick and NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, featuring
contributions from the magazine’s senior director of music, its svp of charts and data
development and its executive director of artist relations; at the end of June, Mindbodygreen,
which offers close to 90 courses in topics from meditation to feng shui, will launch a more
affordable, consumer-facing version of a high-priced online training program once reserved

solely for a narrow, wellness-obsessed slice of its audience. The original training program,