[Intro]

Twelve million opens.
Seven million shares.
Finance clears its throat
and points at empty chairs.

[Verse]

The traffic wall is glowing like we conquered half the earth,
Every minute adds another digit to our worth.
Gordon's polished shoes come echoing down the hall,
He stands beneath a monitor that's wider than the wall.
He waits until the graphs have made us properly impressed,
Then says, "The audience is excellent. The revenue is less."
Frank lowers both his eyebrows. Maya closes out a source.
The business desk keeps typing like denial is a course.

[Pre-Chorus]

We own attention by the ton,
Apparently that weighs like none.
The numbers climb, the margins drop—
Somebody make the scrolling stop.

[Chorus]

Click here before we go bankrupt,
Click here, click now, the quarter's almost up.
Millions read us, nobody knows
Why all that traffic leaves no dough.
We've got the reach, we've got the brand,
We've got twelve million empty hands.

[Verse]

Gordon clicks to slide eleven: "Monetisation gap."
Slide twelve shows three blue arrows and a badly labelled map.
Slide thirteen says "VALUE CAPTURE" in a font that's weirdly glad.
"The journalism is excellent," he adds. Frank mutters, "That sounds bad."
Maya asks, "Do readers matter if the stories tell them more?"
Gordon says, "Of course they matter. That's the point of every score."
Then Legal enters quietly. Then Finance shuts the door.
Then Gordon smiles and tells the room he's solved this thing before.

[Chorus]

Click here before we go bankrupt,
Click here, click now, the quarter's almost up.
Millions read us, nobody knows
Why all that traffic leaves no dough.
Truth is priceless, yes, agreed—
Unfortunately, servers charge a fee.

[Instrumental Break]

[Bridge]

Frank counts journalists. Finance counts cost.
S-E-O counts entries. Nobody counts lost.
Then a logo fills the screen: ENGAGEMAX CONSULTING.
Frank blinks. "Well. That's absolutely a name."

[Build-up]

One click for news, two for fear,
Three for the thing you shouldn't hear.
Four for the headline cut in half,
Five if the quarterly figures laugh.

[Final Chorus]

Click here before we go bankrupt,
Click here before the whole thing locks up.
The traffic climbs, the coffers bend—
So someone teach the clicks to spend.
We had a newsroom yesterday,
Tomorrow: the bylines fade away.

Click here—
Before we go—
Bankrupt.

[Outro]

The monitor adds nine hundred views.
Finance does not clap.
Frank writes three words
on the back of the agenda:

"This will end well."
