TALLINN — In a recent question-and-answer session with readers, Meelis Mandel, the editor-in-chief of Estonia’s Äripäev finance newspaper said the media outlet may start charging for its online content, including its English-language business news website Baltic Business News (BBN).

“There is need and time to start to charge content, to earn from readers,” Mandel wrote. “The question is how and I think, that niche sites, niche media is in quite good position for that. It means our main business sites aripaev.ee and dv.ee (maybe bbn.ee in the future) and even more our news sites in construction, logistics, bookkeeping and for secretaries.”

The company has hit hard times. The site’s new look was augmented by a staff reduction. BBN’s editorial staff has been trimmed to one employee, Marge Tubalkain-Trell, whose duties are mostly translating articles from the Estonian-language main Äripäev site.

Äripäev editor-in-chief Meelis Mandel said Baltic Business News' profit margin is the same color as its header.

“BBN is in red, frankly speaking. Loss is not big, but however. That is the reason why we don’t want to invest too much and Marge is running this site alone,” Mandel wrote in response to a question on Äripäev’s future prospects. “But our strategic decision is, that we do not close BBN and we try to make it profitable.”

Äripäev isn’t sure that charging for BBN’s content is definitely the ticket back to profitability, though. In a response to a reader-posted comment on the article after it was published, Mandel wrote that there currently wasn’t a plan for BBN to introduce reader fees.

BBN, one of the small handful of English-language news sites covering the Baltic states, primarily focuses on Estonian and limited Latvian and Lithuanian business news.