You note that Investors Business Daily, in demonstrating an ability to get readers to "pay to be members of the community" with seminars, conferences, etc., is showing a path to profitability. If so, it's a path well trod by other media industries and one in particular: newsletters. And basically that's what IBD is, a glorified newsletter, different from other investment tip sheets mainly in its print cycle and broadsheet format.
Not that that's a bad thing. But what people are paying for is the charts and market insight, not the news, so lumping it in with the WSJ and FT, even for the sake of a catchy lede, is a bit misleading. As a former editor in the Journal's Washington bureau, I can confirm there was no lost sleep over IBD scoops because there weren't any. Occasional big headlines on a financial story everyone else had, yes. But scoops, no.
Another secret to their success, at least as profits go, may be their attitude toward their reporters' salaries: not great. Even during the heyday of the tech bubble the reporters I knew here were always grumbling over pay and eager to jump to the business desk at the AP or elsewhere. Over time that may have changed, but their essential business model as a newsletter hasn't.