FOLIO: Section Blogs by Consumer

Magazines Have an Advertising Perception Problem, Not a Consumer Problem

Jason Fell — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:41:27 -0500

Some of the biggest players in consumer magazine publishing kicked up a lot of buzz earlier this week when they announced the launch of “Magazines, The Power of Print.” The seven-month campaign is expected to roll out with the May issues (April 5 for weeklies) of nearly 100 print magazines and their Web sites. The purpose? To remind readers, and especially advertisers, that the print magazine medium is still very much alive, and kicking.

Since posting our news story about the campaign, I’ve heard a number of valid questions asked about it. First off, why now? To some, this sounds like an attempt (a few say a desperate one) to cling to a shrinking medium.

That’s not so, says Hearst Corp. executive vice president and publishing director Michael Clinton. In addition to Hearst, the campagin was formed jointly by Time Inc., Condé Nast, Meredith Corp. and Wenner Media. “It is a misperception that print is a shrinking medium,” Clinton told me this morning. “It is a growing medium—audiences are growing, subscriptions are growing, etc. The magazine business, collectively, has said that we have this incredibly dynamic medium that consumers love and spend money on, and we need to tell that story in a bigger way.

“The magazine world doesn’t have a consumer problem,” he added, “it has an advertising perception problem, among some advertisers.”

It’s hard to argue with that. According to the Publishers Information Bureau, advertising pages were down 25.6 percent in 2009, marking the 10th reported quarterly decline out of 11 since PIB began reporting on a quarterly basis in mid-2007. Shockingly, a mere 18 titles posted ad page gains in 2009.

Another problem some people I spoke with had about the “Power of Print” campaign was its seeming negative take on online/digital. In one ad, featuring Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, the page exclaims: “Magazines embrace you. The Internet is fleeting.” Clinton says the word “fleeting” is being misinterpreted. The campaign, he said, isn’t taking a shot at digital while propping up print.

“We’ll continue to spend millions of dollars on Web sites, and mobile and e-readers. It’s important that our magazine content be everywhere,” said Clinton. “The purpose of this campaign is to punctuate the vibrancy of our print products while we continue to expand on other platforms.”

For instance, he said, retailers “continue to invest millions in e-commerce and Web, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t opening new stores or that physical stores aren’t important to them anymore. It’s the same with magazines. Some people have said that the print product has lost its luster with consumers. The exact opposite is true.

“At the end of the day,” Clinton continued, “we want to listen to where the consumer is. Everyone says the consumer is online, and they are, but they are also fully engaged in print magazines."

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The FOLIO: 40: A Call for Nominees

Jason Fell — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:41:10 -0500

The FOLIO: edit team has spent the last year, as we always do, intensely examining the magazine publishing industry as well as some of the markets that intersect it. Now, we’re working furiously to assemble a list of the 40 most innovative, creative-thinking individuals who have pushed the boundaries of our business in this ever-evolving and multifaceted media landscape.

And we need your help. FOLIO: is looking for nominations in the following categories:

C-Level Visionaries
Director-Level Doers
Industry Influencers
Under the Radar

If you, a colleague, your boss or even a competitor deserves to make this year’s list, please fill out the form below and let us know. Keep in mind, of course, that serious nominations require quantifiable stats to back up your pitch. The FOLIO: 40 is the real deal—it’s the oldest, most prestigious and comprehensive list of its kind.

The 2010 FOLIO: 40 will be unveiled in April. Submit your nomination(s) now!
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SI.com’s Swimsuit Package Draws Site’s Second-Biggest Traffic Day

Jason Fell — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:01:03 -0500

For the third straight year, Time Inc.’s Sports Illustrated unveiled its highly anticipated franchise powerhouse, the Swimsuit Issue, Monday night on CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman. For those of you living under rocks, this year’s sultry cover model is Brooklyn Decker, wife of tennis star Andy Roddick.

Wasting no time, SI posted the behemoth 2010 swimsuit package online, packed with more than 1,400 photos and 100 videos of all the scantily-clan models taken during their lush/exotic/(add suggestive adjective here) photo shoots. Sounds like a recipe for some server-testing traffic. And it was.

SI.com said the package drew 42.2 million page views, an increase of 14 percent over 37 million last year. Meanwhile, the number of unique visitors during the first day soared 85 percent to 2.3 million. Video views totaled 7.1 million, a 126 percent bump from 2009.

Overall, SI.com said Tuesday was the site’s second-highest trafficked day (behind the February 15, 2007 Swimsuit Issue unveiling), with 3.633 million unique visitors.

With all the attention SI’s Swimsuit Issue gets, the magazine’s online success isn't overly suprising. (What is surprising is that I still haven’t made it through the whole thing yet.) What’s important here is the continued success the issue has had monetarily. The overall franchise—which I assume generates a sizable chunk of the brand’s annual revenues—this year was up 15 percent in revenues over 2009. The magazine carried 67 ads, which was roughly flat over last year.

That’s pretty good considering how bad the ad market has been.

For now, we can only wait and see if Decker and her bikini-clad ladies can move issues off the newsstands and on mobile in record-setting numbers.
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Life After Doubledown

Jason Fell — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:04:40 -0500

One year ago Wednesday, FOLIO: broke the news that Doubledown Media, parent of wildly popular Wall Street trade publications Trader Monthly and Dealmaker, shut its doors.
I remember it well. I was there.

While the fall of Doubledown was slow, painful and embarrassing, the experience of working there as an editor is one I view with great fondness. My colleagues were hardworking and smart, and I got to meet and interview dozens of very important people on Wall Street.

The near economic collapse during the fall of 2008 only accelerated the downward spiral that had begun in earnest months before. After the June departure of Rachel Pine, the woman who single-handedly built the publisher’s brands with tremendous success, it was hard to maintain momentum. At the same time, the “Working Wealthy” was quickly becoming the “Unemployed Upper Middle Class.” With high-end consumers dwindling, there would be no more high-end ads. No high-end ads, no revenue. No revenue, no paychecks. No paychecks, no employees. No employees, no company. What about subscription revenue? The magazine was mostly given out for free, so no dice there.

On January 30th, 2009, the company failed to meet its full payroll, despite having been slashed dramatically just two months prior. Like an airline pilot, I had been “furloughed” as an associate editor, while several of my colleagues were getting by on half pay. I remained faithful though, working for free coffee and snacks at the office in hopes that a turnaround was near. But after my bi-weekly paycheck failed to hit my account that morning, I dragged two duffle bags to work to clean out my desk.

The following Monday night, president Randall Lane sent the staff an e-mail declaring that the company’s credit line provider would “no longer fund our working capital” and that operations would cease “effective immediately.” We all said our goodbyes the next day, and got together a few weeks later to drown our sorrows at a downtown Manhattan bar. Soon after, the company declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Learning, Then Leaving

Despite its sad demise, I view my time at Doubledown with great professional satisfaction, and refuse to disparage any of my former colleagues. Enough people have taken shots at each other already, so I’ll keep my thoughts to myself. If anything, I wish I had started with them earlier.

I got on board toward the end of Doubledown’s existence—in January 2008, with the credit crisis firmly in play. I missed out on most of the lavish parties that the magazine was known for and also the chance to write more puff pieces on top traders. Thankfully though, I had avoided the media fiascos involving young traders Tim Sykes and Zack Michaelson.

Prior to Doubledown, my career to date had been in foreign exchange trading, with a short stint as a film crew member in between jobs. I had grown up in a town where half my friends’ fathers were bond traders, and along with my recent experience for a fledgling broker, I had plenty of finance tales to tell. Somehow I convinced Trader Monthly’s executive editor Rich Blake to let me do so.

To show just how much of a jump this was for me, my first project for Trader Monthly was putting together the ever-controversial Trader 100 list. Just a few months prior, my big task was servicing a $10 million forex managed accounts program. Now I was debating PR men of multi-billion dollar hedge funds about whether or not my compensation estimates for their star managers were correct. These numbers ranged from as high as $3 billion+ to as low (low??) as $75 million. Talk about going from pikers to producers! No wonder everyone from investment banks and MBA programs wanted to work at hedge funds. After all, where else could you make $100 million a year?

After Lehman went bankrupt, Merrill was sold, and TARP was passed, the most bull market of bull market publications could not last for long. When one of my colleagues asked me in late 2008, “Chris, did you hear about Citi? They’re laying off FIFTY THOUSAND PEOPLE!” I knew in my heart it was over.

Moving On

After the shut down, everyone from the Doubledown diaspora hit the ground running, despite being bitter over lost pay and abrupt unemployment. A handful had gotten new jobs right beforehand, including Web guru Todd Tarpley at Nielson Business Media. The rest of us immediately reached out to old clients, sources and other publications, securing short-term freelance and consulting work.

Among my editorial colleagues, we have parlayed our experience at Doubledown into great new ventures. I have been freelancing, helping ghost write and edit two books, and have been covering hedge funds as a contributor for AR magazine. My mentor, Rich Blake, published a book and is now a blogger for Reuters HedgeWorld. My cubicle buddies who covered travel and lifestyle, Nick Kolakowski and Cristina Velocci, write for eWeek.com and Time Out New York, respectively. Scott Eden and Ty Wenger ended up together at TheStreet.com. Leah McGrath Goodman is still successfully freelancing and just finished a book about the New York Mercantile Exchange. And though she left in early 2008, former editorial assistant Teri Buhl is now the hedge fund beat reporter for the Greenwich Time, the equivalent of being an auto industry reporter in Detroit.

And, finally, Randall Lane has secured a book deal, a memoir entitled “The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane.” I guarantee you that all of my ex-colleagues are anxious to hear his side of the story.

Though as proud of my colleagues as I am, and how I still yearn for the bubble days, I'm still waiting for that last paycheck.
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Inc. Edit Staff to Try Virtual Office for One Month

Matt Kinsman — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:11:02 -0500

For the month of February, the Inc. magazine editorial staff is going to run an experiment on the virtual workplace with all editors working from home.

According to senior writer Max Chafkin:
"To prepare, we've talked to experts in the field of organizational behavior and entrepreneurs who believe in virtual work, such as WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and 4-Hour Workweek guru Timothy Ferriss. The reporters and editors have taken surveys on our work habits, downloaded new applications onto our computers and smartphones, and created checklists to help us collaborate even when we won't see each other face to face as we normally do. Most of us will be working from home offices for the month of February. The rest will be scattered among hotels, co-working spaces, and the occasional laptop-friendly café.
As the experiment progresses, we'll be blogging about our experiences here on a regular basis. We also plan to post video interviews with experts and consultants who study virtual work. Then in the April issue of the magazine, we'll publish a definitive piece on virtual work-a look at pros and cons of running a highly-dispersed team (namely, ours), plus, tips on how to work virtually that any start-up or small business can use."
A New Reality For Other Publishers?

While Inc. is experimenting with the virtual office as a way of relaying its experience to its audience of small business owners, it's hard to find any publisher who doesn't have at least a few staffers commuting from the "virtual workplace," whether it's an editor cross-country, a freelance designer or a remote sales rep.
A few years ago, Nielsen Business Media encouraged staffers to work from home and even developed a plan in which each staffer would have a laptop while central docking stations would do away with cubes at the office and allow employees who had to come in for meetings access to the network. Nielsen never went as far as creating the docking stations although recent rumors have emerged that the company has advised the editors of its remaining magazines to start working from home (something a spokesperson denied).
However, as publishing staffs grow smaller while companies are still laboring under multi-year leases that don't look so attractive any more, the results of Inc.'s experiment could have particular significance for the magazine industry. Stay tuned.
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Only 18 Consumer Magazines Grew Ad Pages in 2009

Jason Fell — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:02:33 -0500

Magazine advertising revenue is down. Way down. We know this. Do we need any more reminders?

Needed or not, the Publishers Information Bureau Tuesday released its 2009 year-end magazine advertising report. It revealed that ad pages for 2009 were down 25.6 percent, while estimated revenues closed at $19.45 billion, a drop of 18.1 percent.

While anyone could have guessed that it would spell yet another quarterly decline (the 10th out of 11 since PIB began reporting on a quarterly basis in mid-2007, to be exact) I couldn’t have projected (or perhaps didn’t want to) that a mere 18 magazines would post ad page gains for the 12-month period.

That’s right. Only 18.

The biggest gainers among them were Time Inc.’s fashion product title People Style Watch (+24.4 percent), OK! (+20.7) and Bonnier’s Saveur (+12.6). Not far behind were Family Circle (+11.5 percent), Scholastic Parent & Child (+9.6), The Week (+9.5) and Fitness (+9.1). Kudos to all of them.

Then, unfortunately, come the year’s biggest decliners, many of which are from the boating sector. The reported losses are deeper than I can grasp while writing this: Boating Life (-65.8 percent), Power & Motoryacht (-53.2), Boating (-53.1) and Architectural Digest (-49.8). A TON of titles followed closely, losing well more than 40 percent of their ad pages last year compared to 2008.

But according to Magazine Publishers of America’s Ellen Oppenheim, magazine spending showed improvement during the fourth quarter compared to the same period in 2008. Ad pages during the period slipped 21.6 percent compared to the prior year fourth quarter while revenues dropped only 12.4 percent. “Magazines experienced an uptick in food spending and relative improvement in other areas, especially in automotive.”

Hopefully this means the market has bottomed. Hopefully, this means that we’ll begin to see gains (or gradually less severe losses) in the quarters to come.

But let’s keep a perspective. The advertising pullback of 2009 was so severe that many of the surviving publishers have migrated away (in varying degrees) from dependence on advertising revenues. They’re charging more for content in print and online. They’re diversifying their product portfolio so much that print is arguably a second-tier player in the overall mix. Some are dropping print and/or print advertising altogether.

Moving forward, I wonder how accurate a barometer PIB’s quarterly reports will be about the health of the consumer magazine publishing business.

In the meantime, here’s a look at how a number of categories performed in terms of ad pages, title-by-title.

AUTO 2009 2008 % CHNG

Automobile 510.97
799.42
-36.1

Autoweek 793.03 1,157.26 -31.5

Car and Driver 805.98 1,031.03 -21.8

Hot Rod 532.50 638.16 -16.6

Motor Trend 722.32
1,096.40 -34.1

Road & Track 799.46
1,152.42 -26.4

BUSINESS/FINANCE
2009 2008 % CHNG

BusinessWeek 1,247.01
1,882.38 -33.8.

Entrepreneur 852.33 1,043.33
-18.3

Fast Company 426.08
616.24 -30.9

Forbes 1,937.14 2,774.34
-30.2

Fortune 1,523.98 2,382.71
-36.0

Harvard Business Review 343.82 468.67 -26.6

Inc. 619.80 817.93
-24.2

Kiplinger's 279.92 424.81 -34.1

Money 563.02 793.62 -29.1

SmartMoney 387.29 502.23 -22.9

NEWS MAGAZINES 2009 2008 % CHNG

Newsweek 1,116.73 1,506.06 -25.9

The Week 659.91 602.73 9.5

Time 1,447.05 1,752.19 -17.4

CELEBRITY
2009 2008 %CHNG

Entertainment Weekly 965.87 1,216.39 -20.6

In Touch Weekly 854.90 1,094.19 -21.9

Life & Style 383.82 510.97 -24.9

People 3,367.20 3,422.23 -1.6

Star 1,131.40 1,173.24 -3.6

Us Weekly 1,791.45 1,949.21 -8.1

OK! 903.82 748.74 +20.7

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Gender Gap in Publishing Pay is Growing Wider

Jason Fell — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:34:44 -0500

While magazine publishing is an industry that tends to have an equal number of men and women employees, it seems as though men often make higher salaries than women across almost every publishing discipline. And the gap widens with more senior titles: entry and some mid-level positions pay almost equal salaries for men and women but with management positions, the difference could be $20,000 or more.

There are many variables that go into salary range, including location (publishing employees in the New York City area earn far more than those in other parts of the country, regardless of gender), seniority (the more years in, the more money you make) and company size (those who work for publishers that make more than $10 million in annual revenue tend to earn more than those who don’t).

And, of course, there are exceptions. Peggy Northrop, editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest, earns $790,189, compared to Frank Lalli, former editorial director of the now defunct Purpose Driven Life, who made $412,942 according to Reader’s Digest’s bankruptcy filing. In 2008, MPA president Nina Link made $740,713 in total compensation, compared to American Business Media president Gordon Hughes, who received $400,511 in total compensation, according to association filings. Of course, both Northrop and Link are in charge of much larger properties.

However, it’s significant that the closest salary gap across four major publishing disciplines in 2009 was $1,500 and that no position in any publishing category featured women earning a mean salary that was higher than their male counterparts, according to FOLIO:’s 2009 salary surveys.

Gender Gap

On the editorial side, managing and senior editors made about the same salaries (a mean of $66,000 for men, $64,000 for women). But by the time they reach an editorial director/editor-in-chief position, the mean salary for men is $92,100, or 8.7 percent more than the mean salary of $84,700 made by women.

While salespeople start off with a $7,000 gap in mean salaries between men and women, by the time they got to the sales director/publisher position, men took in nearly $21,000 more than their female counterparts ($121,000 versus $120,000).

The emerging position of audience development director and manager showed the widest gap, with males making a mean of $92,100, while females earned $69,300 (a difference of $22,000).

The smallest gap seems to come with art directors, where men received just $1,500 more in mean 2009 salary than their female peers. However, male production mangers made almost $8,000 more, while top male production executives made $15,000 more.

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Forecast: 2010

Jason Fell — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:50:07 -0500

FOLIOmag.com recently posted its annual round up of magazine and media predictions for the coming year, collected from a wide cross section of industry professionals. All in all, we came up with roughly 115 predictions from more than 20 people.

Until we posted it, that is.

Since Thursday morning, I’ve received e-mails and phone calls from another small army of wanna-be fortune tellers—all wanting to add their illuminations about 2010. And, of course, I couldn’t resist. Below are the additional predictions I’ve collected so far.

Do you have a prediction(s) about what’s in store for 2010? Will print advertising evaporate completely? Will mobile applications take over? Will Jan Wenner ever tend bar at his Rolling Stone-themed restaurant?

Let me know. Send your predictions to jfell(at)red7media(dot)com, or leave them in the comments section below.

NAME: Kirk Cheyfitz
TITLE: CEO, Story Worldwide
PREDICTION(S): Late in the year, one major magazine—probably one of Meredith’s, since Meredith actually owns a digital marketing agency—will wake from the publishing industry’s self-induced coma and re-invent itself as a content marketing agency specializing in reaching the niche audience that reads the magazine. From then on, that lone magazine will make tons of money creating content for brand marketers—the kind of valuable entertaining, informative content that is taking the place of advertising.

NAME: Rob Haggart
TITLE: photo editor, formerly of Men's Journal, Outside
PREDICTION(S): We will see fire sale buyouts (à la BusinessWeek) of a few big titles rather than shuttering (à la Gourmet).

More photographers will get into the workshop, book writing and teaching side of the photography business. This is proving by all appearances to be super lucrative, but will get very crowded and competitive as people with an impressive oeuvre enter the market.

Photographers who market with ideas and innovation will be snapped up by marketers who need fresh ideas and innovation.

Product photography will heat up as companies realize products online need great photography to convert online shoppers into buyers.

Local markets will go red hot as local online markets get competitive and companies that normally needed no photos for a yellowpage ad now need lots of photography for a nice looking Web site.

Video goes nuclear, because nothing is commissioned anymore without video and hey, “doesn’t that camera shoot video too.”

NAME: Gordon T. Hughes
TITLE: president and CEO, American Business Media
PREDICTION(S): We’re calling print flat to down 3 percent in 2010 after a year (2009) that it was down 30 percent.

Digital, which was down probably 3 percent in 2009, we’re calling up between 3 and 6 percent next year.

Custom, which was up probably in the 6 percent range, we’re saying will be about the same, up another 3 to 6 percent off of that in 2010.

We believe that rich data has excellent potent for member to take their intellectual properties, their content and be able to monetize it without talking about ad revenues. We see that as a continuing growing sector for our members.

Finally, one area we believe will be disappointing will be face-to-face. 2010 will probably worse than 2009, so we’re saying it’ll be down about 20 percent.

NAME: Paul Conley
TITLE: owner, Paul Conley Consulting
PREDICTION(S): This will be the year of the tier—in which poor rates for online advertising will split the b-to-b publishing game into three distinct levels. (And since there’s very, very little room for ad-supported, mid to high quality models in this three-tier system, I expect more bankruptcies and closures in 2010.)

1. Content mills like Associated Content and Demand Media already dominate the lower tier in b-to-c—dumbing down the market and pushing costs so low that professional writers are fleeing and professional publishers are abandoning “evergreen” stories, how-to articles and similar search-driven, long-tail tactics.

In b-to-b, watch for a rise in such crappy-but-cheap competitors (an e-mail newsletter company approached me a few weeks ago looking for help finding b-to-b journalists who would write for $15 per 600-word story!)

2. The middle tier will be most notable for its absence of middle men! No aspect of publishing is better positioned for growth in 2010 than content marketing—as marketers continue to learn they can get better results if they produce their own content.

In b-to-b, look for content marketing to produce extraordinary levels of sophistication and quality (like IBM’s avian flu site or Boeing and GM’s early forays in this space a few years ago.) Watch also for a shift in staffing as the best journalists find they can make more money (and face fewer ethical pressures from unscrupulous bosses) by moving into content marketing.

3. The top tier, as always, will be reserved for high-end, paid-subscription products. And, as always, the top tier will be dominated by data, pricing, trading and credit products in b-to-b.

But in 2010, increasingly desperate publishers will talk loudly and often about forcing users to pay for additional forms of online content. Delusions will grow commonplace, as companies insist that the poor quality stuff they’ve always given away is actually high quality material that can now be sold.

NAME: Gordon Plutsky
TITLE: director of marketing, King Fish Media
PREDICTION(S): Here are four.

1. More and more pure play online companies will discover multi-channel media and marketing paired with content drives customer engagement. Look for more online retailers to create “magalogs” pairing content and offers in an appealing environment using both print and digital formats.

2. Broadcasters (network and cable) will create more integrated online custom and advertising programs for the so called “second screen.” According to Reuters, Nielsen’s research shows that “57 percent of TV viewers in the U.S. who have Internet access use both mediums at the same time at least once a month. That translates to more than 128 million U.S. consumers.”

This opens the door to endless ties in for deeper content, social media connections and games/contests to extend a marketing campaign.

3. Consumers will slowly begin to accept that they will have to pay for some premium content online. The decline of print advertising means that online content can no longer be subsidized. It will only be successful with unique, relevant content such as hyper local news or brands such as the New York Times or Variety. Garden variety news and opinion found in places such as Newsweek and BusinessWeek stand little chance of collecting a fee for content because there are so many other sources for that information.

4. Twitter is already leveling off as many people quit or abandon it after a short time. I see that trend continuing, though the idea if micro blogging is here to stay. It’s too effective a communications tools not to have a purpose. It makes more sense integrated into something else rather than a standalone since it is still a mystery how Twitter will make a profit. The whole “social media” frenzy will slow down considerably as it becomes just another marketing tactic and media channel for marketers. The cottage industry of social media experts, consultants and dedicated agencies will wane. It’s like when “e” was finally dropped from e-commerce and it just became another commerce channel. We can now drop the “Social” and recognize it’s just another media channel.

NAME: Colin Crawford
TITLE: founder and CEO, Media7
PREDICTION(S): In 2010, successful publishers will:

Adapt to the world of "mobility"—the consumption and creation of content on smart mobile devices - smartphones, smartbooks, smartpads and smart e-readers.

Focus on the user experience each medium offers—online is not a print replica and mobile is not an online replica.

Show users that their brand delivers real value across media—they will appreciate mobile has the potential to reset the brand/audience relationship that has been put under pressure by the internet.

Develop a series of revenue streams rather than just expecting the CPM advertising model to work in the digital world.

Engage audiences—as defensible competitive barrier to entry—nurturing and developing audiences will be key to success.

Think of themselves as database/ data services and integrated marketing solutions companies and not just content creation companies.

Link together their three critical databases—content, audience and marketers.

NAME: Bob Sacks
TITLE: president/publisher, Precision Media Group
2009 PREDICTION(S): 2010 is the year of the great publishing realignment where our industry retrenches, rebuilds and looks forward to a bright and prosperous future.

2010 is the year that our senior management intellectually turns the corner and follows the money instead of waiting for its errant return.

This is the year that some print magazines realize that they can make plenty of money being just what they are—focused, idea driven, information cult clubs.

This is also the year that some other print magazines realize that they can’t/don’t/won’t deliver the focused information narrow enough to pay for the product and move onwards.

2010 is the year that flat economics seems pretty damn good. This will be the year when the surviving franchises reach out past the traditional and seek the screenagers at their home base.

From a historical perspective, next year will be noted as the launching date of magazines designed for the new substrates, which translates into anything that connects to the Web. We will realize that size doesn’t matter, while performance and functionality does.

And finally, this is the year that Samir Husni calls BoSacks to say that he finally understands that publishing is not confined to just paper and that electronic communication is not such a bad thing. He does this from his Blackberry.
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Business Magazines Need to Find their Purpose for Being in Business

Jason Fell — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:00:12 -0500

As 2009 mercifully marches toward its long-awaited end, the magazine field is littered with battered, bruised, bleeding and sometimes even deceased bodies of America’s business magazines. In a turnaround of almost Biblical proportions, the business category, which enjoyed seven or so of the fattest years in magazine history in the 1990s now is suffering through seven or more of the leanest.

Some of this pain and suffering is purely cyclical, of course, on several dimensions. What goes up must come down, and business magazines in the 1990s were so far up that it was almost inevitable that they’d fall to earth with a thud in the 2000s. You can chalk some of it up to category fatigue and even more to the bad behavior, malfeasance and criminal undertakings of many of the poster children whose faces graced America’s business magazines as heroes, shortly before they graced the cells of America’s prisons as inmates.

And then, of course, in a recession with the depth and breadth of our current economic meltdown, business magazines—which traditionally depend on business-to-business advertising more than business-to-consumer magazines—find themselves hit harder than other categories. Business which themselves aren’t buying anything are hardly likely to spend money advertising to other businesses which also aren’t buying anything. It’s a perfect non-revenue producing feedback loop.

Rules of Engagement Have Shifted

But there’s also a structural problem that business magazines have been slow to respond to: business and the world of work have been changing at a rapid and dramatic pace. The rules of engagement seem to have shifted; how to play the game, how to win, what winning even means—all are undergoing massive and uncharted changes.

Now, you’d think that this new and dramatic narrative would provide business magazines with exactly the kind of once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explain the new world of business to baffled, scared, and fear-frozen readers. The problem is, of course, that the magazines are themselves so baffled, scared and fear-frozen, they are as more a part of the scene than they are seasoned observers helping make sense of it. Add to that the burden of reinventing old and tired brands that no longer seem relevant to a world of transforming technology, global competition, economic recalibration and career recalculation, and it’s not hard to see why most business magazines are concentrating on surviving rather than self-reinvention.

Staying in Business vs. Having a Purpose for Being in Business

Still, as 2009 drags to a weary and welcome close, there’s reason for hope that 2010 will promise new life. There’s the acquisition by Bloomberg of BusinessWeek for a song—a huge upside opportunity if it means leveraging Bloombergs multi-platform approach to business journalism and financial analysis to BusinessWeek’s historic capacity for smart essays and clever idea packaging. But that’s only one title. Every business magazine has the same opportunity—a chance to grab on to the fascinating and dramatic “story line” that is shaping up in the new, emerging world of business. If the surviving business magazines each finds its own distinctive voice to educate readers to the huge changes under way in the economy and in the world of work, and they commit to a publishing world where the job of the magazine is to start a useful, colorful, dynamic conversation with a community of readers who need help making new and valuable connections, then 2010 can be a great year of re-invention and re-commitment to the real purpose of business magazines. (On the other hand, if they keep doing what they’ve been doing, they may survive, but it won’t really matter; they’ll gradually become less and less relevant.)

This isn’t just idle speculation on my part; for the last year I’ve been traveling and speaking extensively on the changing face and shape of business, and everywhere I go, both in the United States and abroad, I find eager, hungry, actively involved audiences—people who care deeply about what happens next in the world of business. These are business executives, but also political and non-profit leaders. They are dissatisfied with the current explanation of the role of the corporation in society and they are disgusted with a public conversation that seems stuck on matters of superficiality and celebrity. They want authenticity, integrity, and real dialog—and instead they feel they’ve been getting a steady diet of status-quo thinking, round-up-the-usual-suspects journalism, and convenient excuses for why things can’t change.

The exciting truth is we are at the threshold of a new era in business. All over the world we’re witnessing massive discontinuities in how work gets done, who does it, how value is created, where it gets created—one epoch is ending, another is just being born. What business magazines need to do is to embrace the changes and challenges that are rocking the world of business—get in front of the evolving story line; engage readers in a conversation; challenge the status quo instead of offering bland reassurances that the status quo will prevail; generate useful, provocative debate; discover new voices who champion new ideas and unconventional practices.

It’s not just a matter of finding a way to stay in business; it’s a matter of having a purpose for being in business in the first place. Entrepreneurship is the answer to the companies business magazines cover; it’s also the answer to the future of the magazines themselves. It’s not even a question of returning to profitability. It’s a question of returning to relevancy.
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Why Magazines Won't Die

Jason Fell — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:17:57 -0500

I spend more time than most thinking about whether or not magazines will live or die, since my family and I own a few of them. I’ve been to conferences about whether or not they will survive. I am barraged by consultants trying to convince me magazines are on the verge of death, and therefore I need their services immediately, or else.

Now, I do think e-readers and Kindles and iPhones will, and to a degree already have, subsumed much of our reading and especially information needs. And Rodale Inc. is in the game with those things along with everyone else.

But speaking from personal experience, I’ve noticed something lately. The more I use technology (and I am on this damn computer a lot…too much), the more I want to read a magazine. But I want different things than I wanted five years ago. Frankly, I want a break. I want to be surprised and delighted. I want to relax and not have to decide which page I’m going to next. I want to look at pictures. I want to sit back on my couch and not have a glowing screen staring me in the eyes. I want to be inspired. It’s kind of like going on a great date, only I don’t have to get dressed up.

It started with my new all-time favorite magazine, Garden and Gun. When I heard about it at a magazine conference, I thought it was a joke. I picked up a copy just for fun and found myself completely and utterly hooked. It’s kind of a Southern lifestyle magazine. I’m not Southern, nor do I aspire to be. But they have gotten it right. They show me and tell me about stuff I would never think to look for myself. They take me to places in their pictures that I will never get to but so enjoy looking at. I’ve turned down the corners of many a page after finding places I want to visit, books I want to buy, or stores I want to shop from (online). There is an open copy of Garden and Gun sitting right by my computer right now. I’m going to book a room at a hotel I learned about from a page in the magazine. (And I’m not going to tell you which one because I want to make sure I can get a reservation first!)

Then there is People magazine. I’m too busy to check the celebrity websites every day. And I don’t care enough to seek out that information (although I must confess to being fascinated by all the adultery stories of people like Tiger Woods and that governor with the Brazilian mistress). When my People magazine comes on Friday, I sit down and don’t want to be bothered by anyone for the half hour it takes me to read it. That’s my time, and don’t forget it!

If I really want to learn about what’s going on in the world, well, actually, I listen to the radio—NPR and BBC Newshour. But I only listen in the car, and it’s not a consistent thing. So I back it up with a subscription to the Economist and the New York Review of Books. Those magazines help me fill in the blanks—or better yet, they teach me about things I didn’t think I wanted, or needed, to know about.

The Internet is a technology that enables people to go out in SEARCH of things. I’m all for that and love it to pieces. But sometimes, I just want things to FIND me. Sometimes, I am just tired of looking and typing and seeking, and I just want to sit on my comfortable couch and be surprised when I turn the page.

That’s why I believe magazines won’t die.

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Buyout Window Closes, Layoffs Loom at Time Inc.

Jason Fell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:34:13 -0500

Wednesday was the deadline for representatives of the Newspaper Guild to notify Time Inc. brass about how many staffers accepted buyout offers as the company looks to eliminate as many as 500 from its overall workforce.

Time Inc. is expected to begin slashing jobs as early as next week. The number of cuts will depend on how many volunteers stepped up for the buyout packages. I was told today by a company spokesperson, not unexpectedly, that Time Inc. won’t be disclosing the number of employees who accepted the buyouts.

The New York Post’s Keith Kelly has a relatively detailed outline of how the layoffs might play out: The publisher’s biggest magazines (Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money) could eliminate 90 editorial positions—as many as 40 possibly coming from Fortune.

During a recent earnings call, Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time Inc. parent Time Warner, said the company will incur a $100 million charge during the fourth quarter as it begins a restructuring of Time Inc., primarily in respect to its news group. He said the restructuring will be “more targeted” in comparison to the massive changes that were made this time last year, resulting in around 600 layoffs.

And about those layoffs last year: They were made department-by-department, instead of happening all at once as part of a collective announcement. News of more and more and more layoffs were unveiled in slow motion.

We saw the same thing happen this fall at Condé Nast. Following the closure of Gourmet, Cookie, Elegant Bride and Modern Bride, hundreds of layoffs happened, but were announced at a painfully slow pace, over several weeks. It must have been a killer for employee morale. (In fact, morale hit such an “all-time low” the company reportedly hired a crisis intervention expert.)

As Time Inc. gears up for its latest wave of job cuts, I hope, for the sake of its staffers, that the axe falls swiftly and that workers aren’t paralyzed, waiting for days and weeks for the final word about whether they will remain employed.
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Despite a Brutal Year, The Number of Shelter Magazines Grows

Vanessa Voltolina — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:05:52 -0500

Hachette Filipacchi announced Monday that Metropolitan Home will shut down after its December issue, adding to the already-substantial list of ceased shelter pubs this year. But despite a tough '09 for the sector, recent data reports that home magazines have still seen top growth over the past five years, meaning the number of individual titles has actually grown.
According to the 2010 National Directory of Magazines, which tracks data for 17,020 North American pubs that accept advertising, home titles have seen top growth in titles of 167 percent. Since 2004, that’s an increase from 105 to 280 titles in the category. Real estate publications have also nearly doubled during this period.
The initial reaction, of course, is surprise, considering today’s news and the number of shelter titles that bit the dust earlier this year, including Domino, Western Interiors Design, Remodeled Chicagoland, and Florida Designers Review. PIB numbers confirm that the category is suffering on par with other sinking sectors (ad dollars decreased by 9.3 percent and 22.6 percent in Q3 since the same period last year).
Even home and interior design category leaders like Dwell and Hearst’s House Beautiful have been hit hard. Dwell saw ad dollars plummet 43.4 percent and ad pages decrease 46.4 percent in the first half of '09 versus the same period last year. House Beautiful didn't fare much better in the first half: ad dollars declined 21.8 percent and ad pages experienced a 26.1 percent loss from first half 2008, according to PIB figures.
Ugly numbers aside, the category has also seen its share of launches this year, including a stable of Reader’s Digest “Family Handyman” titles, Cottages & Cabins, Modern, DG Commercial, Great Kitchen and Bath Ideas, Designer’s Choice, Today’s Home Improvement, SOHODESIGN and Lonny Magazine.
Back in January, Kate Kelly Smith, vice president and publisher of House Beautiful told FOLIO: that shelter magazines weren’t going away any time soon, but “category leaders” and those with a “diversified” business would better weather the storm. Almost a year later, Kelly Smith’s prediction is correct, according to the data. As home titles fold, others quickly pop up to take their places.
With the barrier of entry to launching new magazines still fairly low, it’s probably not that surprising so many new titles came into the shelter category. Who will remain five years from now is the bigger question.
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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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ESPN 'Body' Issue a Quick Subscription Boost

Vanessa Voltolina — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:40:23 -0400

I don’t think anyone doubted that the throng of semi-nude athletes appearing in (and on the cover of) ESPN The Magazine’s “Body Issue,” which hit newsstands October 9, would raise some eyebrows, and maybe help turn a few pages among the title's readership.

The better question was how ESPN would capitalize on all the attention. At the Magazine Publishers of America’s Innovation Summit Thursday, ESPN Publishing’s general manager and editorial director Gary Hoenig shed a little light on the results. While newsstand numbers haven’t been counted, he said ESPN’s Insider—the paid content arm of the ESPN the Magazine Web site—saw 400 new subscribers within hours of the Body Issue content being posted online.

Since ESPN Insider subs cost $39.95 a pop, after some quick, unofficial math one could assume the publisher hauled in close to $16,000 in just one day. That’s not too shabby.

So, was there any blowback? Did any angry parents or religious types call up to cancel their subscriptions? An ESPN spokesperson said she didn’t immediately have those numbers handy.
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AUTO	2009	2008	% CHNG
Automobile	510.97	799.42	-36.1
Autoweek	793.03	1,157.26	-31.5
Car and Driver	805.98	1,031.03	-21.8
Hot Rod	532.50	638.16	-16.6
Motor Trend	722.32	1,096.40	-34.1
Road & Track	799.46	1,152.42	-26.4

BUSINESS/FINANCE	2009	2008	% CHNG
BusinessWeek	1,247.01	1,882.38	-33.8.

Entrepreneur	852.33	1,043.33	-18.3
Fast Company	426.08	616.24	-30.9
Forbes	1,937.14	2,774.34	-30.2
Fortune	1,523.98	2,382.71	-36.0
Harvard Business Review	343.82	468.67	-26.6
Inc.	619.80	817.93	-24.2
Kiplinger's	279.92	424.81	-34.1
Money	563.02	793.62	-29.1
SmartMoney	387.29	502.23	-22.9

NEWS MAGAZINES	2009	2008	% CHNG
Newsweek	1,116.73	1,506.06	-25.9
The Week	659.91	602.73	9.5
Time	1,447.05	1,752.19	-17.4

CELEBRITY	2009	2008	%CHNG
Entertainment Weekly	965.87	1,216.39	-20.6
In Touch Weekly	854.90	1,094.19	-21.9
Life & Style	383.82	510.97	-24.9
People	3,367.20	3,422.23	-1.6
Star	1,131.40	1,173.24	-3.6
Us Weekly	1,791.45	1,949.21	-8.1
OK!	903.82	748.74	+20.7