Folio Blogs

The Media Company of Tomorrow: One Executive’s Take

Jason Fell — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:37:43 -0500

One of our keynote presentations at the virtual FOLIO: Show Virtual last week included a panel of leading executives in the industry, including F+W Media CEO David Nussbaum.

Nussbaum gave one of the most provocative responses during the hour-long discussion, essentially saying that print advertising is an irrevocably declining source of revenue, and that companies that don’t recognize that do so at their own risk.

As it turns out, Nussbaum jotted down some notes to the questions I asked the panelists to consider in advance. Here are Nussbaum’s notes, with the questions that prompted his thoughts.

Q: When will the industry see some recovery?
A: This is totally unclear, but there is a sense that we have found the bottom of the market. However, with consumers still under siege (credit difficulties, high unemployment, no or low salary increases), it is hard to see what the impetus will be for growth.

Q: What will the recovery look like?
A: I don’t think it will be ad driven. But rather, we’ll see an expansion of marketing budgets looking for “non-traditional ways to reach buyers.” That will mean everything from custom content solutions, to one-to-one marketing, and expanding our portfolio around our core brands to create new, profitable products and subscription services, like Webinars, which are a growing part of our business.

Q: Will we see the robust industry health of 2005 to 2006 again?
A: I really don’t know.

Q: How will the business be different going forward?
A: In a few ways.

1. Print advertising will continue to be a no growth-to-declining business.
2. Events will rebound, but event producers will need to find a way to mitigate the high costs of exhibiting.
3. High quality and unique content, always at a premium, will be even more important as the Holy Grail of dollars for content will become even more intense.
4. Staff size will be kept lean, with those making it through the recession owning a wider variety of skill sets than those who came before. We need to be bringing new talent to the industry from outside our standard recruitment channels, and producing new ideas across e-commerce, retail, social media. There’s no limit to what we can learn.
5. Online advertising rates will continue to erode, but engagement will be at a premium.
6. Social networks, location-based marketing, custom content selection—these will all be critical for future media providers. And those who aren’t already building their communities may get left behind.

Q: Are media companies being disintermediated on the reader side through social media and blogs?
A: Yes and no. Yes in that there is much more competition for community building, for content presentation and for lead generation. No in that media companies are becoming strong participants in the blogosphere and in using social networks to both build community and drive traffic to sell stuff. F+W and other enthusiast media companies have a unique advantage in that our communities already exist, created around a common interest or goal. Being of and in the community, and respected and trusted though our own blogs, positions us well. Social media interactions are the key.

Q: What are the most important things media companies can do now? Adjust organizational structure? Change their approach to content creation? Layoffs? Debt reduction?
A: Media companies need to find a way to focus as vertically as possible, make community building the core of existence, ensure that staff is cross-trained, fleet of mind, and willing to adapt to radical change comfortably. Portfolio management is critical. Organize your resources around the core communities and properties with the most opportunity for success.

Q: What will the media company of 2012 look like?
A: Community focused, really good at demographic analysis, excellent at nurturing around verticals, diverse in terms of product offerings and delivery systems, Web centric, advertising will be considered gravy, customers pay for content and contribute to the creation of content.

Q: What is the most important lesson og the 2007-2009 recession?
A: The sheer desire of people to adapt and to participate in tomorrow. I have really been impressed with the willingness of people to learn and to change.

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Feeling the Pinch, Garden & Gun Skips an Issue

Jason Fell — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:20:21 -0500

It’s been a whirlwind year for high-end Southern lifestyle magazine Garden & Gun. In January, rumors swirled that it was on course to run out of money and go out of business. Less than two months later, the magazine was acquired by Indigo Acquisition LLC, a company co-created by publisher Rebecca Darwin—effectively tossing the title a lifeline saving it from going out of business.

So why haven’t readers received their October/November issue? It was due out in mid-October and—nada. In an e-mail sent to readers Thursday, Darwin explained what happened:
To help shore up our business for 2010 and beyond, we recently made the difficult decision to skip our October/November issue. This was a painful thing for the G&G team, and we hate to disappoint you, our loyal subscribers. However, please rest assured that you will receive the full number of copies you ordered when you subscribed or joined one of our club levels. (We will handle that for you, so no need to call our customer service.) And know this: We will never compromise on the quality of the writing, the photography, or the beautiful paper that Garden & Gun is printed on.
In these tough economic times, it’s not unheard of (or unreasonable, really) for publishers to combine or skip an issue to cut production/distribution costs. What I haven’t heard of, at least off the top of my head, is a magazine that announces the elimination of an issue after the fact.

The next issue subscribers should expect is December/January [pictured], which is set to ship in late November and hit newsstands December 8. That is, if the magazine scrapes up enough money to publish it.

When we reported on its potential demise in January, and its subsequent saving in March, we received a number of comments praising the magazine (“the very best magazine I have ever had the pleasure of reading”). For its loyal readers, I hope Garden & Gun pulls through.
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At ABM Forum, Publishers Wonder If Marketers Have Lost Touch With Branding

Matt Kinsman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:40:48 -0500

During the American Business Media Executive Forum in New York yesterday, BusinessWeek chief economist Michael Mandel gave long suffering publishers some hope by saying he believes there is a "media boom" coming in which marketers will reinvest in many of the traditional channels they've cut back.

The ABM Executive Forum was held in place of ABM's usual Chicago-based Top Management Meeting, and drew around 200 attendees.

Other speakers weren't so sure about Mandel's forecast. "I don't think print will ever come back, it will probably stay at the current level," said Anthea Stratigos, co-founder and CEO of Outsell Inc.

Stratigos also threw cold water on paid content. "Paid content could be more challenged in 2010 than 2009," she added. "Spending by the end-user is decreasing and there is no automatic leverage from ad-based assets to paid content. Media companies come in at the lowest price point."

However, one speaker wondered about the marketer backlash against branding. ‘I'm concerned that marketers have lost touch with branding," said Jeff DeBalko, president and CIO of Reed Business Information. "We can show them research where at least 30 percent of the audience wants to read print in favor of any other medium and marketers don't get it. Direct response used to be the gutter of marketing, now it's the nirvana."

That's not to say Reed is ignoring it. In recent years, lead generation has gone from zero to one-third of Reed's overall online revenue and is a component of 80 percent to 90 percent of Reed's online products, DeBalko added.

Still, DeBalko is worried about advertiser mindset. "We spoke with one agency guy who just talked about how he could cut the budget by 30 percent. A couple years ago advertisers would pay us $1 million for something with a lot of neat features. Now they'll pay one-third of that and everything has to be measured and provide leads. If we as an industry continue to offer the same thing but for 30 percent less, we're out of business."
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What Went Wrong with Purpose Driven Connection?

Jason Fell — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:28:22 -0500

On Wednesday, Purpose Driven Connection—the quarterly published in partnership between Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren and the Reader’s Digest Association—became the latest magazine casualty of 2009 as the groups decided to move the product online-only. Until September, RDA said the title, which launched in January, was still in “development stages.” After four issues it was never green-lighted for a full launch off the newsstand.

What gives? When RDA announced the launch late last year, it billed the agreement with Warren and Saddleback as one of the company's “most important and far-reaching ventures ever.” Yesterday, in a statement, Warren said “impressive reader feedback has prompted us to focus all our energies on our digital format so our content can be expanded, international and free.”

So, what about the print product? With a $9.99 cover price, was it a dud on stands? A RDA spokesperson called sales figures “encouraging,” especially at outlets like Wal-Mart, but said the company wasn’t releasing specific numbers. He told me the magazine failed to generate enough full membership buys—$29 for the quarterly magazine, DVDs with each issue, study guides and access to its Web site. Those packages were offered by the church to its immense membership base.

In other words, the lack of interest in the full package, and subsequent lack of expected revenue made Purpose Driven Connection an unattractive business for RDA going forward. They made the decision to kill the costly print magazine, and agreed to host its Web site at least through the first quarter next year.

I asked the spokesperson directly if RDA considers the Purpose Driven Connection venture a failure. Of course he said it wasn’t a failure. From an operational point of view, he said that shutting down an otherwise interesting product that doesn’t meet financial criteria “is every bit as important as green-lighting others to go forward.” He also said RDA gleaned “proof of concept” insights into serving a community like Warren’s that’s bound by faith or philosophy.

“We believe that we could take this forward with a community that had a somewhat different characteristic—larger, more open to purchasing memberships, more universal, global, etc.,” the spokesperson said.

More open to purchasing memberships. That might be key.

This shouldn’t suggest, though, that Saddleback hasn’t had any success from the venture. The church said subscribers to the Daily Hope devotions newsletter have grown to 400,000 since Purpose Driven Connection launched early this year.

If not for monetary reasons, I think the loss for RDA is substantial, despite the positive lessons it says it learned from giving it a shot. It has to be tough, especially for a company that’s now steering itself out of bankruptcy, to watch a product it called one of its most important ventures ever fail after only four issues.
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The E-Reader Revolution Isn't Revolutionizing Magazines

Jason Fell — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:21:52 -0500

From Barnes & Noble's promising nook to dark horses such as the EnTourage eDGe, a bevy of e-reader devices are about to take on Amazon.com's groundbreaking Kindle. They won't transform the way most folks read immediately, but they're a major step in the inevitable, ongoing digitization of nearly everything we're used to reading on on dead trees. As a reader of fat hardcover books I can't fit in my briefcase, I'm a Kindle fan who's excited about seeing Amazon get some competition.

The magazine lover in me, however, is far more skeptical about the next round of e-book gadgets. The Kindle isn't a very satisfactory magazine-reading device, and there's no evidence that any of its imminent competitors will be great leaps forward for our industry. Here's why:
The screens simply aren't up to the job. Every e-reader that's on the market or imminent uses a monochrome E-Ink screen. They do a respectable job of displaying plain-text pages but magazines are anything but plain, and most are anything but monochromatic. Take away high-quality color imagery and you rob them of much of their life.

Good formatting isn't a given. A good magazine artfully weaves together words and pictures in a wonderfully inviting, browsable manner. The Kindle-edition magazines I've subscribed to look like dreary raw text files, in part because the standard Kindle's six-inch screen is too small to replicate a standard magazine page with any fidelity. Some upcoming e-readers, such as the Que, have larger screens, but most will struggle with the same layout issues that the Kindle does.

E-readers lack the Web's benefits. Such as links, comments, and fresh daily content to supplement the stuff that comes out on a weekly or monthly schedule. By contrast, the lifeless presentation of magazines on e-readers reminds me of what I used to see on CompServe, circa 1988.
Don't get me wrong—it's possible that at least some of the upcoming devices will be more pleasing containers for magazines than the Kindle is. And it's dead certain that e-readers will get better at doing periodicals over time, especially with publishers such as Hearst getting into the game.

Overall, though, I'm far more intrigued by the possibility of digital magazines showing up on tablet computers—such as the rumored Apple device—than I am by their appearance on dedicated e-readers. Tablets will have high-resolution color screens which should do a far better job than E-Ink of replicating the vibrancy of print design. Their batteries will conk out in hours rather than days, but that's okay—you don't need days to read a magazine.

Show me a portable reading device that renders magazine content more engaging and not less so, and I'll happily give up paper. For now, though, I pack two types of reading material when I hop on a plane: my Kindle and a stack of my favorite magazines.
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TheAtlantic.com to Ring Up 103 Percent Revenue Growth This Year

Jason Fell — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:44:39 -0500

As part of its “Game Changers” package, the editors at the Huffington Post have come up with a list of the 10 biggest innovators in media—people or organizations that are using the Web to change the industry. Some of the more well-known names on the list include CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Katie Couric for launching Web-based interview program @katiecouric, and Tina Brown for transitioning from print to online for launching The Daily Beast.

Visitors can check out the list here, and vote for who they think is the ultimate media game changer.

From the world of magazines, making the list is editor James Bennet and editorial director Bob Cohn from TheAtlantic.com. According to HuffPo, the site is expected to report 103 percent growth in digital revenue in 2009. It said the site—and its writers—is “as prolific as it is impressive.”

Even while most publishers are ramping up (or scrambling) online, The Atlantic’s Web site has added channels including business, politics and food; launched the Atlantic Wire, an opinion news aggregator; and has plans for a forthcoming business site. The site has bolstered its blogging efforts by hiring big names like Jeffrey Goldberg, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Andrew Sullivan, who was named to the 2009 FOLIO: 40.

Did I mention 103 percent digital revenue growth? With gains like that, it’s hard not to include TheAtlantic.com on any online media innovator list.

Who else do you think should have made HuffPo’s list? Let us know. Leave a comment below.
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How One Publisher is Tweaking its Event Strategy and Predicting 10% Growth For 2010

Matt Kinsman — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:55:50 -0400

If there is one area suffering almost as much as print, it's events. While trade show revenue dropped 3.5 percent in 2008, it fell a whopping 20.1 percent through the first quarter of 2009, according to American Business Media. Reed Exhibitions (which operates independently of Reed Business Information), saw revenue and adjusted operating profits plunge 22 percent and 26 percent, respectively, in the first half of the year.
Nielsen Business Media vp of business development Eric Biener says events haven't fallen as much as print but when they do, it hurts more. "Even small declines have a huge impact on our infrastructure," he adds.

Hanley Wood enjoyed a record year for its events in 2008 but is experiencing significant declines in 2009 (two long-time executives, exhibitions group president Galen Poss and executive vice president Michael Green, left the company in June). However, it's 2010 that really concerns CEO Frank Anton.
"The real bad news is that the business in 2010 will take further hits in both exhibit space and attendance, and we're budgeting accordingly-almost all of the big shows will suffer double digit declines in revenue and earnings," he adds. "This will be the first time our shows have declined in a meaningful and painful way."
Everything Channel's Five Steps To Growth
Still, one b-to-b publisher saw growth from events in 2009 and is predicting 10 percent growth from events in 2010. "Based on the way people got squeezed this year, marketers are going into 2010 with compromised budgets," says Nancy Hammervik, senior vice president and managing director of Everything Channel Events. "One of the positive outcomes of a challenging market is that it causes you to think smarter. You get as tight as you can while evaluating everything you do."

Here are some of the steps Hammervik is taking:
1. Hosted Buyer/Seller Events: Much of the reason Everything Channel Events is up in 2009 is its hosted model, in which the publisher qualifies a very specific audience and guarantees deliverability by flying out buyers to meet with vendors. "The conferences are smaller but they deliver higher ROI for clients," says Hammervik.
2. Re-evaluating the Life Span of Legacy Events (including the Hosted Model) and Emphasizing Scale: Everything Channel is assessing which legacy events have run their course. "That's something we've never really had to do before," says Hammervik.
That includes scaling back the hosted model in favor of events that can produce larger margins. "The thing about hosted models is they don't scale," she adds. "The bigger they get, the more they cost. The way you grow is to do more-we went from six events to 24. The margin for hosted events is typically half your revenue. At first that sounds great: if you do a $2 million event, you make $1 million. But if you have a $500,000 event, it's $250,000 to just recruit and host."
Everything Channel has had a standalone channel for the Latin American community and did hosted events that put buyers and sellers together in Miami. "It's been five years, it matches the budgets vendors will spend on second or third tier emerging markets, but it requires a lot of energy and resources without offering a lot of return on margin," says Hammervik
Folding four events-two retail XChanges, the Latin America XChange and Project Portfolio & Management-into other events will save Everything Channel almost $4 million in expenses next year, according to Hammervik
3. Launching New Events
Still, Hammervik recognizes that saving on expenses doesn't equal generating revenue. "We all realize that with co-locating events, one plus one plus one will never equal three," Hammervik adds. "Vendors won't spend what they did at an individual event. If we combine XChange Latin America with the U.S. event, it may equal one and a half out of two. We'll lose 50 percent on revenue, but we're saving significantly on expenses."
Everything Channel is rolling out a series of regional events around the emerging category of "cloud computing." "We did something similar five years ago with managed services-people didn't really understand what it was about and we responded with road shows," Hammervik says. "We're rolling out at least six one-day regional events. We're being more cautious about not doing three-day events. That makes it easier for attendees and vendors to manage."
The publisher will also launch a series of events recognizing women executives in high tech, including a "Top 100 Women" channel. The program will include three events for women executives including a three-day conference and two one-day awards shows on the East and West Coasts. Everything Channel will also take a similar approach recognizing the Top 100 CIOs.
4. Custom Events Will Drive Half the Growth Next Year
Hammervik is making an aggressive push into custom event services. "We have been doing that on the side but we're making a significant investment next year in staff and marketing to try to make it a big business," she says. "We think half our growth next year will come from custom event services."
While marketers have increasingly taken on publishing duties for themselves-including events, Webinars, even magazines-Hammervik sees an opportunity for publishers to win that business back. "Vendors themselves have lost headcount and resources. Their core competency is making and selling technology, not doing events."
5. Complementing Live Events With Virtual Events
Many publishers have experimented with virtual events in place of their traditional live event this year (including FOLIO:). Everything Channel sees an opportunity in offering Web services around live events as both a preview and community-builder. "A month before the live event, the virtual event will be active," Hammervik says. "Sponsors can pre-qualify attendees and schedule live meetings with prospects."
Hammervik is looking at charging an additional $5,000-$10,000 to add virtual components to live event sponsorships. "If we have 100 vendors, that will be a significant revenue stream," she says.
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The Value of Online Content: Practically Nothing

Jason Fell — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:56:02 -0400

I was thumbing through the November issue of Wired recently when I stumbled across an article on Demand Media, penned by senior writer Daniel Roth (one of my favorite Wired writers). It’s a detailed look at how the online network has successfully leveraged a user-generated content model and become the largest supplier of videos to YouTube. According to the report, Demand rakes in roughly $200 million a year and was valued in a recent round of financing at $1 billion.

Demand is reportedly the 15th-most-visited online media property, attracting 52 million visitors in September—bigger than cnn.com, twitter.com and weather.com. It seems like Demand is kicking butt.

But what jumped out at me while reading the Wired piece wasn’t Demand’s soaring profits. It was how co-founder Richard Rosenblatt (former CEO of Intermix Media, the company behind MySpace) thinks other media companies, which have been trying to increase the value of their content to at least match the cost of producing it, have the equation backwards. As he’s done with Demand, Rosenblatt said the trick is in cutting costs until they match market value for your content.

Demand utilizes an algorithm system it developed that mines search data, internet traffic patterns and keyword rates to commission stories/videos based on what online users want to know and how much advertisers will pay for it. The company has all but eliminated actual people from the process, other than to make sense of terms the algorithm spits out. (“Demand uses editors in its process, too” the Wired story says, but “they just aren’t worth very much.”)

Another way to cut costs: Pay your content producers squat. Rosenblatt’s massive stable of freelancers earn just $15 per article and $20 per video produced, on average. Some writers opt to earn nothing upfront instead to participate in a profit sharing program, although the story said it can take months to earn even $15 that way. Copyeditors take home $2.50 per article, fact-checkers get $1 an article and headline proofers bank a whopping 8 cents a headline.

Fifteen dollars a story? Granted, the stories are far from 4,000-word investigative pieces, but as a writer you’d need to crank out an insane amount of copy in order to earn anything close to what some think is a reasonable commission. Only a few years ago I was freelancing for a Boston-area newspaper, writing 300-word lifestyle/entertainment stories at about $100 a pop. That’s more than six times what Demand pays today.

To be fair, the pittance Demand pays its freelancers multiplied by the volume of content it produces has added up to $17 million in expenses so far. But even so, the idea that online content and its creators have been devalued is astonishing. As a content producer myself, it’s scary.

But as much as I don’t want to admit it, Demand’s model is something some publishers might want to take a hard look at. Making money online isn’t a no-brainer.
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Big Pubs Looking for Strength in Numbers

Jason Fell — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:43:30 -0400

Where smaller publishers—from b-to-b to consumer enthusiast—form consortiums to attain economies of scale for materials and production services like printing, paper buying and distribution, the mass consumer publishers are setting aside their historically fierce competitiveness to tackle mass problems.

Across-the-board ad page and revenue drops, online-sourced subscriptions, pay wall models, and digital content formats and distribution are some of the latest battles that big consumer publishers think can be won through solidarity.

It's an interesting concept that can be traced back to then Hachette CEO Jack Kliger's outspoken calls for pre-recession unity to revolutionize rate base—magazines needed to stop competing with each other, come together as a platform and compete with TV, the Internet and radio. "Circulation-based metrics are irrelevant to proving advertising effectiveness," he told an AMC audience in 2005.

Now, sick of feeling the sting from getting spanked by "aggregators," "plagiarists," and "content kleptomaniacs," as Ruport Murdoch put it at a recent event in Beijing where he and the AP's CEO Tom Curley continued their rant against Google et al, big publishers are joining together to ostensibly regain—or actually gain—control of how their content and advertising models are consumed.

How crazy would it have sounded if, before the recession hit, Time Inc., Conde Nast, Hearst and Meredith all joined together to create a digital distribution platform to develop a proprietary content format and service eReaders?

How about creating an ad network? Up to now, publishers were leveraging and/or creating their own vertical networks. Martha Stewart Living, Meredith and Forbes were all creating them. Now, there's some background chatter about the formation of a multi-publisher ad network. AdAge reported on it, and PaidContent threw a wet blanket on the concept.

And then there's Time Inc.'s year-old Maghound, which offers custom subscription packages to a variety of publications from different publishers. 413,000 issues have been shipped so far, and Maghound's president Dave Ventresca told attendees at MPA's Innovation Summit this month that as the service moves out of its proof of concept stage, it will begin a more robust marketing campaign for all participating publisher titles, not just the Time Inc. ones.

Most recently, 15 British publishers formed a venture to promote their thinking person's magazines that apparently get lost in the crush of titles dealing with less weighty topics.

On a smaller publisher scale, but by no means tiny, Mother Jones is leading the formation of a journalistic co-op to tackle, in an investigative format, climate change—several magazines are sharing reporting resources. AdAge's Simon Dumenco spoke with MoJo co-editor Clara Jeffery about the project and her comments about the partnership can be applied to any area of the publishing business.

"We have complementary audiences, but even the biggest players seem to think they can benefit from having their work introduced to the core audiences of the other partners," she told Dumenco.

And, above all, it's the quickly-changing media world that's driving publishers to seek out ideas and and potential partners: "Secondly, everybody is really eager to use this as a way to test-drive collaborations, which everybody sees as a vital part of the emerging media landscape. On that front, we'll likely learn as much from what doesn't work as what does."
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Does Anyone Play Newsstand Shuffle Anymore?

Jason Fell — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:45:45 -0400

The games we play change over time. I wonder if my favorite magazine game has gone the way of stickball and “kick the can.”

When I worked at Ziff-Davis in the 1980’s I was fortunate enough to be placed in a “loop course” type of specialized circulation class taught by the VP of Circulation and one of the industry’s most outrageous old school characters, Larry Sporn. Larry taught us a simple little game called “newsstand shuffle.” Basically, all you had to do was go to a newsstand, browse the magazines, and accidentally place your companies’ titles on top of your competitors’ magazines. The trick was to make sure you didn’t get caught by the newsstand manager but this wasn’t very difficult. It was a cheap thrill.

Where the game really got going, though, was the classic Mother of All Newsstands, that being the one at the edge of Grand Central Station, in the PanAm building (now MetLife). Here was a newsstand in the hub of The Great Commute—108,000 people were estimated to be streaming through the building each day, according to an article in the NY Times on June 18, 1984. At that point in time, the newsstand stocked more than 2,000 titles and sold 10,000 copies of magazines per week.

But volume was just half the story. This newsstand was smack in the middle of the magazine publishing AND ad agency capital of the world. Beyond just selling copies, it was critical that the hundreds of media buyers streaming by each day saw your title prominently displayed.

Since so many magazine professionals walked through the station daily, Newsstand Shuffle became a very lively game. If you stood and watched closely you could see people picking up an issue (or four), casually glance over their shoulder at the counter and then quickly shuffle the magazines to their favor. Sometimes competitors would be in the PanAm at the same time seeing who was willing to take a later train and get the last laugh.

Of course the next day, someone else had either fixed the stack or buried your magazine under Civil War News or something. So to win we had to compete almost every day.

Is anyone still playing?

Photo credit: Martin Green
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Boating Industry, Magazines Less Buoyant This Year

Jason Fell — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:57:10 -0400

In this down economy, it isn’t any big surprise that automotive and financial have been two of the hardest-hit markets. Out of the 12 advertising categories tracked by the Publishers Information Bureau, they saw the steepest declines through the first nine months, with ad pages falling 47.3 percent and 47 percent, respectively.
Another industry that’s taken a beating this year is boating. I was reading the editor’s note yesterday on boating trade publication Soundings Trade Only’s Web site, written by Bill Sisson (he was my editor when I worked as a staff writer at Trade Only’s consumer-side sister Soundings magazine a few years ago—he now oversees editorial for both titles). In it, Sisson looked back over the last 12 months, detailing the dramatic impact the down economy has had on the boating industry.

One takeaway I found, well, astounding:
The job loss estimates are staggering for an industry our size. By some accounts, as many as 200,000 jobs—perhaps 75 percent of the work force—have vanished since 2005, with the vast majority of those coming from manufacturing.
And, inevitably, as that industry declined, so has the consumer boating magazine market. Through the first three quarters, the seven titles tracked by PIB averaged a 38.1 percent loss in ad pages. (I didn’t include Power Cruising since it folded in March). The industry average in ad page declines was 27.2 percent.

“When demand evaporated and wholesale credit became difficult to get, builders and dealers did their best to hold onto their cash,” Sisson told me of the declines in the boating industry. “Companies went into survival mode, shutting or slowing production lines, furloughing workers, cutting costs wherever they could, including their advertising budgets.”

Sounds a lot like what’s happened in magazine publishing. While Soundings has felt the same declines as other boating magazines (“we’ve held up as well as most, and better than some”), Sisson said magazine publishers in his market will need to keep a careful watch over expense control, as well continue to diversify their product portfolios beyond the printed page.

“Boating titles will need to develop a broad strategy for maintaining their current audience, winning new readers and viewers, and offering advertisers and other partners a 360-degree program for reaching target audiences,” he said.

Looking forward, Sisson hopes new products will help jumpstart demand in the boating industry. He said the industry is looking at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show next week as a barometer of sorts for how sales might fare in the coming months.

But are people actually budgeting for a new 40-footer this year? Maybe an Average Joe like me isn’t, but a die-hard boater might be, right?

Ad Page Totals Through the Third Quarter:
TITLE
2009 2008 % CHNG
Boating 320.26 648.30
-50.6
Boating Life
168.88 457.90 -63.1
Cruising World
625.19 763.32 -18.1
Motorboating
278.33 374.84 -25.7
Power & Motoryacht
674.55 1,531.79 -56.0
Sailing World
286.44
369.66 -22.5
Yachting
968.25 1,403.62 -31.0

Source: PIB

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Latina’s ‘Viva Mexico’ Special Issue Debuts Custom Covers and Generates Additional Revenue, Advertisers

Vanessa Voltolina — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0400

Here at FOLIO:, we receive a sizable number of magazines in our mailboxes every day. Needless to say, we notice when a title touts a particularly interesting, out-of-the-box concept. So when Latina, a women’s service title geared toward young, bilingual women, scrapped its typical cover model concept and debuted two poster-quality, Viva Mexico covers, it didn’t go unnoticed by us—or new advertisers.
“This beautiful country is not all H1N1, drug wars and violence. Mexico is so much more and this issue serves as a reminder,” said Mimi Valdés Ryan, Latina’s editorial director of the November 2009 issue which pays homage to Mexico. “Since this special issue is such a departure from our regular format, a celebrity cover model just didn’t feel right. If we used a Mexican celebrity instead, I don’t think it would have been as visually clear what the theme of the issue was. With these covers, there’s no mistaking what this issue is about.”
Latina’s design director Florian Bachleda decided upon two cover artists, Jesse Reyes and Rodrigo Corral, to compete for the cover, with the runner-up’s design going inside to open as the main Mexico feature. But Valdés Ryan was “blown away when they [the covers] came in, and couldn’t decide on which one should be the cover. To make matters more complicated, the staff was also evenly split,” she told FOLIO:.
The graphically strong concept covers look more like bright, authentic posters or newsweekly covers than that of a women’s service title covering health, beauty and lifestyle. Bachleda said that Reyes’cover, influenced by Mexican boxing and lucha libre (wrestling) posters, used “selected letterforms that are more than a century old and were in keeping with typestyles still being used in Mexico.” Corral, responsible for New York’s "Reasons to Love New York," among others, was a “no-brainer” for a Mexico issue designer, and pulled from traditional Ballet Folklorico dances as the graphic inspiration, Bachleda said.
Each of the drastically different cover approaches appealed to various types of readers, which was the reason Latina decided to keep both and do a split run of the covers for newsstand and subscribers.
Like many women’s service titles this year, Latina Media Ventures’ publication was hit hard, with the 506,000 circ title seeing ad revenue fall 32.4 percent in the first half of this year, according to PIB. But the two custom Mexico issue covers—and the special issue editorial, of course—were able to secure a 6 percent increase in additional issue revenue based on new advertisers Sephora, TBS (Lopez Tonight), Dos Equis and Goya, said a magazine spokesperson.
It’s always nice to be reminded that a good edit concept and innovative design don’t go unnoticed by readers—or advertisers.
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Condé Nast Layoffs: A Roundup (So Far)

Jason Fell — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:30:57 -0400

In his memo to staffers announcing the closure of Gourmet, Cookie, Elegant Bride and Modern Bride, CEO Chuck Townsend said that workforce reductions were “underway throughout the company.” He wasn’t lying. What he didn't mention was that the cuts would be made at a painfully slow pace.

The first to be let go, of course, were those employees who worked at the affected magazines. But then came news that its surviving bridal title Brides reduced its workforce by 12 people. Before the week was done, Condé Nast Digital was said to have cut 15 positions.

And the layoffs continued to roll. The following week, 14 people were let go between Vogue and sister fashion magazine W. Vanity Fair reportedly lost “a handful” of staffers and Glamour was said to have “trimmed staff,” too. Cuts also came from the company’s corporate sales efforts under the Condé Nast Media Group. The most recent layoffs came last week: Condé’s Golfing Group cut 19 people.

UPDATE: Another day, another layoff story (or two). Now, news comes that Wired has been hit and that Glamour is suffering more losses. Style.com is feeling the pinch, too.

When I spoke with Townsend on October 6, he said 180 people had lost their jobs. That number is climbing.
It’s like Condé has taken a page out of the Time Inc. playbook. Jaws dropped late last year when the mega publisher said it was axing up to 600 jobs as part of a major restructuring. After the announcement, news of more and more and more layoffs were unveiled in slow motion. It must have been a killer for employee morale.

The same is happening this year at Condé Nast. While the story(ies) are a boon for some media reporters, I can’t imagine working there and anticipating a pink slip today. Or maybe tomorrow. Or perhaps—well, no one really knows when.

And the cuts might continue. A Condé Nast spokesperson told me the company is "not commenting on specific reductions or overall numbers." She also declined to comment when I asked if Condé was all done reconfiguring its workforce structure.

Oh boy.
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Want to Innovate? Look to the Little Guys

Matt Kinsman — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:41:26 -0400

Recently, FOLIOmag.com did a story on Waukesha, Wisconsin-based enthusiast publisher Kalmbach Publishing Co. buying Cabin Life. It was a small deal, the type that pops up several times a week (or used to before M&A crashed along with everything else), yet it generated a volume of reads usually associated with stories about much larger transactions. Or lay-offs. Or Cygnus Business Media.
Why? Because Kalmbach, which publishes 15 special interest magazines with total circulation of 1 million plus, knows what they are and what they need to be, even amidst the changes of the media industry. In 2008, they generated more than $50 million in sales for the sixth year in a row (in April 2009, president Gerald "Butch" Boettcher made our FOLIO: 40 list honoring notables in the magazine industry). As one reader commented on the story, "I'd venture a guess that's why these guys have been around 75 years and are able to make an acquisition while other publishers struggle to deal with the Internet and the economy."
At a time when many larger publishers that traditionally defined this market are stuck between a rock and a covenant, it's the smaller players who are coming through, reinventing themselves when it makes sense (such as Churm Media aggressively investing in digital and seeing triple-digit growth after enduring a 20 percent revenue plunge) or having faith in a model that works (like Kalmbach), and not just chasing the latest fad for its own sake.
At FOLIO:, we take pride in the fact that we've covered these smaller publishers all along. But after receiving two e-mail promotions from two different industry associations in the recent weeks announcing that-news flash-our "mindset has to change," I think it's time to recognize that the market leaders aren't who they used to be.
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November Cover Model: The Turkey

Jason Fell — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:11:56 -0400

It’s that time of year again. That’s right—turkey time.

I sat down at my desk this afternoon and began opening the stacks of magazines that are delivered here to the FOLIO: office daily. First on the pile was Condé Nast’s Bon Appetit, with a delicious-looking turkey resting gently in a roasting pan on the cover. Next came the herb-crusted masterpiece on the cover of American Express Publishing’s Food & Wine. Then I unwrapped the new issue of Martha Stewart Living, with its “simple and sensational” bird with glazed carrots and roasted vegetables, accompanied by a sweet potato casserole.

OK, I can’t go on. I’m starting to salivate.

Newsstands this time every year are overflowing with magazine covers featuring this succulent bird. But the cover that takes the cake (and the cranberry sauce, and the stuffing) this year is Hearst’s Food Network Magazine. The November issue features what the publisher says is the “first” triple cover in the U.S. (go on, share my hunger pangs—see the covers below). The first cover features the turkey dinner while cover two shows side dishes and the third follows up with dessert. The entire cover package was sponsored by Cargill's Truvia, a natural sweetener.

If that wasn’t already too much, the issue has nearly 140 recipes for creating more than 288,000 variations of the culinary wonder known as Thanksgiving dinner.

Have these covers triggered your taste buds? Not to worry. Turkey day is only a little over a month away.

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TITLE	2009	2008	% CHNG
Boating	320.26	648.30	-50.6
Boating Life	168.88	457.90	-63.1
Cruising World	625.19	763.32	-18.1
Motorboating	278.33	374.84	-25.7
Power & Motoryacht	674.55	1,531.79	-56.0
Sailing World	286.44	369.66	-22.5
Yachting	968.25	1,403.62	-31.0