Cathie Black on Magazine Business: 'I Think We've All Stopped Lying to Each Other'

NEW YORK—"It's tough. It's terrible. I think we've all stopped lying to each other."

That's how Hearst Magazines president Cathie Black described the state of the magazine business during a breakfast keynote at the WWD Media + Style summit at the posh Pierre Hotel here Thursday.

Speaking to about 300 media and fashion executives, most of them female, Black said that while she is still bullish on the print magazine medium, she admitted that it's transforming on a "minute-by-minute" basis.

"Magazines can't be as big from a staff standpoint as they once were," Black said, noting the headcount for magazines in Australia and the U.K. is about a third of what it is at U.S. magazines. "We've had to lay people off in the last few months, and that's OK."

Still, Black said, "It broke my heart to lay off 50 or 60 people" at CosmoGirl!, which closed in October. "Advertisers walked away from the teen market" in print, "and I think that's crazy."

Looking Ahead

But Black is cautiously optimistic about print's future because of a few recent successes, she said. Sell-through on the first issue of the Food Network magazine, Hearst's latest test launch, will be 65 percent.

(Hearst, while a private company, is run "as though we have to face Wall Street every quarter," she said.)

More significantly, perhaps, is the November issue of Cosmopolitan, which sold some 450,000 more copies than the same issue a year ago, according to Black.

David Lauren, son of designer Ralph Lauren and a former magazine executive at Hachette, said during his opening keynote that he has already assured Black that while Polo.com is enjoying tremendous success—and more than three million page views a month—its print ads are not going away. "Magazine advertising is something we pioneered," he said.

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FINALLY

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 12/04/2008 - 15:49.

For years magazine publisher didn't want to admit what was happening with the rapid migration of print to web. They all denied it in my opinion, because all they knew about was print and ABC this and BPA that. They knew nothing about the web. Now that it is clear that print is being demoted, they are all admitting now what has been fact for years. I take my hat off to Cathy. However make no mistake about it. Print won't die. it's like the Vinyl Record. Sure the CD came along, but most DJs still want their vinyl.

Cosmopolition Readership

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 12/04/2008 - 16:00.

is only up because of the closing of CosmoGirl.

Reinventing our magazines

Submitted by Larry Eder on Thu, 12/04/2008 - 16:05.

I applaud Ms. Black and her comments on the print media. As the group publisher of a sports media company and president of a sports media rep firm, I must say the last year has been a challenge and it is not going to get any easier. They keys are to control costs, think out of the box on reaching key readers and providing our advertiser relevant and cost effective media, both in print and on the web. The combination is finally making sense.

C'mon! I hear you about the

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 12/04/2008 - 16:20.

C'mon! I hear you about the audience migration, but what's the Web going to do for content when print dries up? Nobody in the ad world is going to pay price points for the Web the way they do for print and despite paying big bucks each month for broadband/cell readers think everything is free. We'll see what's left of the audience when "compelling" content is nothing more than unpaid bloggers and amateur videos. It's the death of advertising that we are all mourning, not the death of print. I don't see the phone companies putting up newsrooms with all the money they are collecting from consumers for wireless.

InDEED

Submitted by Pixie Dust on Fri, 12/05/2008 - 01:09.

If you are a support person to the reporting/writing staff ie Print Designer you best learn to photograph, video or illustrate. Print design is dying on the vine. In two years a design department of 20 will be less than 5 and 4 of those will be creating Ads mostly for web. Editorial design for the web is pre-1984 UGLY, BOXY and looks like a 1965 Station Wagon! ...As they used to say "Smoke'm while you got 'em boys The FAT LADY is ready to sing!" WRITING ON THE WALL Advertisers budgets are down. Only flaming rookies and other idiots think web clicks equal sales. Stupidity reigns and the Cool-Aid continues to fill the trough. Use your freaking brain Advertising/Marketing 101 ... Lest we all forget TOP of MIND is measurable BUT it certainly does not equal web click through. If you are looking for measuring action taken on ads web clicks PICK search engines, email updates and stay off MEDIA NEWS sites. PEACE to the LOST BOYS! TTFN

Turn the web to an advantage

Submitted by Route67 on Fri, 12/05/2008 - 06:35.

I think we can all agree that ads and print isn't about to die. The web introduced a new world order for the publishing biz, and all the pieces needs to be re-arranged. That's evolution, right? What I don't get is that publishers are so slow at adopting the new technology. It might be that the web is not great at making money, but it surely is awesome for generating attention. I came across http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/gtste/ - they use a free publishing service to feed preview chapters to their audience. Their getting awesome feedback and readers love it. Just like cineasts love the movie trailer. That's just one example of how the web can help drive customers to print and build brands/audiences across the web. I'm hearing a lot of echoes from the music industry a decade ago. 'All' that is needed is understanding the new climate and building a business around that. Don't forget that mag editors still are the best in the world at creating unique content - that will always be worth a lot.

Re: C'mon I hear you about the...

Submitted by Ashir Badami on Fri, 12/05/2008 - 10:54.

We're not mourning anything. We're just dealing with our attachments to business models that don't fit the paradigm. If we continue to assume that nothing will change on the Web as print loses traction in the market, we won't solve the problem of improving Web experiences and consequently content. Perhaps the mag industry's infatuation with pleasing advertisers us up?

The problem is too much content

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 12/05/2008 - 11:30.

I don't have time to read more than one print publication. I barely have enough time to brush my teeth. I suspect others are the same. Media of all kinds (TV, online, facebook, email) make reading a magazine a quaint activity from a bygone ear akin to cooking over a wooden fire. As someone who worked at Time Inc. and watched them try to develop Pathfinder then buy AOL, it's interesting to see the publishing industry try to figure out what the future looks like. Seems obvious to me that print-based content will continue to decline so the focus needs to be on managing the transition to digital, controlling costs and continuing to publish print in some form for those that want it -- and stop delivering it to those that don't. I don't see how any print publishers stabilize until they make 50% or more revenue from digital. Warner Music's unit just passed that mark, a first in the music industry I believe. That needs to be the short-term goal. Start making money online and live within that.

Good for Ms. Black!

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 12/05/2008 - 15:50.

Back in late 2000 I was recruited to help build a cross-platform b2b healthcare media company. In early 2001, we sold our first webcast series to a Big 4 consulting firm. We collected data on the business of healthcare, sold some of it and used the balance to go "beyond the page" if you will adding great value for our advertisers. We delivered sponsored daily e-newsletters from the beginning and re-branded a magazine acquisition around the e-newsletter brand which was growing in popularity. We believed the web was the "hub" of everything we did. As a matter of fact, I believe our web property received one of this property's first Ozzie Awards. I wondered why general consumer publications or enthusiast titles for that matter didn't do the same. Great content, great brands, loyal engaged audiences. I read today about consumer publishers discussing "beyond the page" and I think "finally!" Here's one for everyone - end the print ad rate card once and for all. BPA and Nielsen are making great strides in the area of one brand metric. Warp-speed integration is a must. Be bold but be mindful of not throwing the baby (your great brands) out with the bathwater To play off of Finally's comment at the top - at least we haven't seen consumer publishers sue their digital counterparts the same way we saw the major labels sue Napster...now that turned into a disaster, huh?!?

The death of print is overrated

Submitted by Antony McGregor Dey on Sun, 12/07/2008 - 21:13.

Print as a channel always has and will always remain a strong way of reaching niche markets. Magazines publishers are the original curators of niche content. The internet for all it's micro audiences is not a place where in depth analysis and glossy well stylised images translates well. The internet will overtake newspapers for the 24/7 "what" but has a long way to go before being better than a magazines in-depth "what". What we are seeing is a natural attrition in advertising revnue as the number of advertising options grows but the number of advertisers remians the same. Magazines are used to competing with 5 other brands on a news stand, this goes up to 500 online, the slice advertising pie is getting smaller. Publishers must embrace new technologies to retain relvance and profitibility in print, mobile is the technology that will achieve this. People read magazines and use mobiles while not a PC, by linking the two you are leveraging the established brand and reach of print with the always on, always connected immediacy of mobile. Check out www.qmcodes.com for our thoughts on how this will work.

Meh, same speech, different decade.

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 12/08/2008 - 13:14.

Ms. Black is speaking from the outskirts of a very tiny slice of pie. Route67 is spot on: It's not print that dying, it's those who see it as a battle between print and digital rather than a symbiotic relationship. We've had great success at both retaining advertisers and attracting new ones. Readership remains strong, though it takes diligence and constant tweaking to keep the message relevant.