FOLIO: BLOGS Bill Mickey

The FOLIO 40: A Call for Nominees

Bill Mickey — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:13:37 -0500

The year, as it always does, has flown by and we're already in the midst of compiling our annual list of the top innovators in the magazine business and the markets that intersect and influence it—the Folio: 40.

We're excited to announce that starting now, you can have a hand in how the list turns out by nominating a colleague—either at your company or from another one—that has had a meaningful impact on a product, company or even market.

We're looking for nominations in the following categories:

C-Level Visionaries
Top execs that transform culture, company or markets

Industry Influencers
Individuals that have single-handedly sparked a trend

Director-Level Doers
Managers and other senior level executives that develop and execute on wildly successful new initiatives

Under the Radar
Unsung heroes or individuals that quietly work on transformative new ideas or operational breakthroughs

As we note every year, we're not simply looking for the marquee names. There will be some of those on the list for sure, but there are plenty of examples of envelope-pushers, bootstrappers and change agents that toil in the trenches, too. Nominate them.

Click here to fill out our easy nomination form. Nominations are due by March 2nd.

Here's last year's FOLIO: 40 to get you in the mood.

The FOLIO: 40 will be unveiled in April. Submit your nominations now and good luck!

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Ziff Davis Enterprise, Brand Equity and Lead-Gen

Bill Mickey — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:29:00 -0500

The sale of Ziff Davis Enterprise to online marketing company QuinStreet Friday raises some interesting and, on the surface, worrisome thoughts on the role brands and content play in connecting buyers and sellers.

I should mention that we don't yet really know how QuinStreet is planning to incorporate ZDE's brands into its operation. The company declined to offer any details in that regard. What we do know is ZDE employees are in the dark as well, with the bulk of them helping transition the brands before their positions are phased out. As many as 100 of the 120 or so employees will not be moving over to the buyer. QuinStreet didn't buy ZDE as a company, it bought its assets.

But how can you have ZDE's market and ZDE's brands when you don't have ZDE?

According to sources, about 20 people will be offered positions with QuinStreet. The positions are a mix of editorial, marketing and sales, certainly not enough to continue supporting content production for eWeek, CIOInsight, Baseline, Channel Insider and Web Buyers Guide.

However, QuinStreet says it has a base of content expertise in the IT space already in place—as many as 40 editors and a pool of 300 freelancer journalists, according to the company.

QuinStreet also bought IT Business Edge last year, and the ZDE deal now gives it a much bigger foothold in the tech vertical.

But presumably, along with the phasing out of ZDE's content, audience and sales specialists, so goes the institutional knowledge of the brands and their community.

Regardless of the motivations behind the deal, whether ZDE's backers wanted a quick exit, you have to question how a dramatic course correction like the sale of these assets is going to have on content quality and, ultimately, brand equity. But at the end of the day, do these matter for a company that's dangling content to attract leads? Does the editorial mission change when the end-goal is servicing leads for marketing clients?

I wouldn't be asking these questions about products created specifically for these purposes, but in this case we're talking about established brands that have rich editorial histories. You can look at this as simply another example of the decline of brands in a very competitive market, finding a resting place in a context that potentially homogenizes that experience. But it's disconcerting to see how easily it can happen.
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Have You Noticed? There's Been a Flurry of Magazine M&A

Bill Mickey — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:09:46 -0500

More than a few magazine and media executives spent the holidays putting the finishing touches on deal closures. We're only 3 weeks into January and there's been a flurry of M&A action—from decently big deals to small.

Here's a recap:

Today of course Meredith announced it's buying Allrecipes.com from Reader's Digest Association, advancing a deep dive strategy into the food vertical as fast as RDA is pulling away from it, having also bought Everyday With Rachael Ray from them. The deal closely followed Meredith's acquisition of FamilyFun from Disney Publishing earlier in the month.
Harry Stagnito has sold Stagnito Media to private equity firm Topspin LBO, which also owns his son's Vermont-based Moose River Media. The deal, says Stagnito, will allow the company to build out its marketing services and data and information products.

Edwin V. Avent's Heart & Soul magazine has been sold to a group of investors called Brown Curry Detry Taylor & Associates. BCDT's principals all have direct ties to the magazine, having worked for it in one capacity or another.

Hanley Wood is now owned by Oaktree Capital Management, Strategic Value Partners and Tennenbaum Capital Partners after going through a major recapitalization, cutting its debt from $410 million to $80 million.

In a retreat from the U.S. market, Future plc sold its U.S. group's Music Division, including 3 magazines, to NewBay Media for $3 million. Revenues for the group in Future's fiscal 2011 were about $13 million.

Grand View Media has taken over management of Shooting Sports Retailer magazine. While not technically a sale, Grand View may have an option to buy after a certain period of time and certain performance goals are met.

F+W Media is expanding its food vertical coverage, too. It bought World Tea Media, which produces the World Tea Expo as well as associated editorial products.

Vibe Holdings has been merged with BlackBook Media and Access Network, forming Vibe Media. The combined entity will be owned by the Yucaipa Johnson Fund, backed by Ron Burkle and Earvin "Magic" Johnson, and InterMedia Partners.

Bangor Metro, a regional magazine serving the Bangor, Maine region, has been sold to Cashman Asset Management.

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Consumer Mag Advertising Sputters in Second Half 2011

Bill Mickey — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:01:42 -0500

The MPA released full-year 2011 PIB numbers today and, as individual consumer publishers already know by now, the third and fourth quarters were not very kind.

There were some exceptions among specific titles of course, which I'll get to in a bit, but in 2011 overall advertising revenues were flat and pages fell about 3 percent compared to 2010.

In the first quarter of 2011, pages jumped 2.5 percent and revenue was up 6 percent compared to same period 2010. In Q2, in hindsight, you can see the slide beginning. Pages were flat at a .3 percent gain over same period 2010 and revenue was up only 2.4 percent.

Then in the third quarter, the numbers quickened their decline—pages falling 5.6 percent and revenue down 1.5 percent compared to same period 2010. Further, the fourth quarter of 2011 saw almost a 5 percent dip in revenue and an 8 percent tumble in pages.

Of the 12 ad categories tracked, 9 of them were in the negative for the full year. The three that grew were Toiletries and Cosmetics (3.8 percent); Apparel and Accessories (5.5 percent); and Financial, Insurance and Real Estate (12.7 percent).

The categories that saw the biggest drops were Home Furnishings and Supplies, down 16 percent, and Food and Food Products, which declined 17 percent.

Among individual magazines, Amex Publishing's Departures led the pack with a 43.3 percent jump in pages. AARP—The Magazine also did well, gaining 29.5 percent in pages for the year over 2010. Meredith's Siempre Mujer jumped 31.5 percent in pages.

People En Espanol and People Style Watch increased pages by 31.5 percent and 38.6 percent respectively. People itself, however, declined 5.6 percent in pages.

In fact, as a category, celebrity weeklies didn't do very well. Star fell 3.8 percent in pages for the year, US Weekly was flat at 1.8 percent, In Touch fell 13.1 percent, and OK fell 1.2 percent.

The two big newsweeklies, Time and Newsweek, were down 2.5 percent and 16.8 percent and The Week dropped 12.9 percent in pages.

Bloomberg Businessweek continued its comeback, ending the year up 19 percent in pages, while Forbes and Fortune were down 3.9 percent and .9 percent respectively.

In terms of total pages sold in 2011, People topped the list at 3,357. New York magazine came in at number two with 2,608 pages sold—not bad for a regional pub. Brides sold 2,603 pages. In Style tallied 2,544 pages and Vogue sold 2,509 pages to round out the top 5.

For more details on the numbers, visit MPA's PIB numbers here.

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For Some, Digital Revenues a Sorely Needed Boon

sbotelho — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:17:54 -0500

As far as inflection points go, this is a good one. In a Reuters story, the Financial Times Group says it's expecting content revenues (subscription and single copy sales) to at least equal, and possibly overtake, print advertising revenue for the first time this year.

During the London portion of the Reuters Global Media Summit, FT CEO John Ridding acknowledged the rough advertising climate, which has put extra pressure on digital to perform. The FT's online operation, says the report, now accounts for 30 percent of its revenues.

In the first half of this year, the group boosted profits by 10 percent. Digital subscriptions are the main driver, and were up 34 percent during the period. The FT's web app, famous for ditching Apple's app store, reached its one millionth registrant in mid-November.

It's still difficult to determine the overall size of the business, however. In other words, quickly rising digital content sales is all well and good, but is it adequately covering the decline of print ad revenues?

Meanwhile, The Economist, in which the FT Group has a fifty percent stake, says it reached 100,000 paid, digital-only circ by the half-year point—twice the amount compared to the same period last year.

Elsewhere, in what could be an aberrant blip or a sign of the times, The Atlantic says its digital advertising revenue beat print ad revenue for the month of October—51 percent of ad sales to 49 percent. That 49 percent is still a record-setting amount, however, says the magazine.

Moreover, The Atlantic's digital ad revenue for October is up 89 percent over last year and 37 percent better year-to-date.

All of this is in the face of a sharp drop in third-quarter print advertising. According to PIB numbers, consumer magazine ad pages fell 5.6 percent in the quarter compared to the same period in 2010. That decline erased the gains for the year, which is now down 1.1 percent for the first 9 months.
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Condé Nast Partners with HP for Print-On-Demand Content

sbotelho — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:40:00 -0400

HP and Condé Nast are partnering in an on-demand, digital-to-print pilot program that will allow readers to, via a desktop printer widget, download selected content and print it from home.

At this point, says a Condé Nast spokesperson, the publisher is determining the kinds of content that would be appropriate for this delivery mechanism. Recipes from Epicurious, for example, might make sense, but the publisher is still trying to figure out how content from, say, Glamour might work in this setting.

In announcing the program, HP says Allure, Details, Epicurious, Glamour, Golf Digest, Self and Wired will participate in the pilot.

HP is trying to position itself as a way for content publishers to reach end users. With this digital-to-print effort, readers will see a downloadable widget on a brand's website.

The widget allows readers to schedule when they want their content printed.

The widget works with any Web-enabled printer, not just HP brands—a point that content publishers made clear with HP in order to open up the program to a wider segment of customers.

According to Annette Friskopp, HP's head of IWS strategic account management, there are two other paths of discovery to the content. HP's ePrintCenter has an apps page that showcases the various print-on-demand content options; and the HP printer itself—content brands will display on the printer's panel.

It may seem like a strange nook for Condé Nast to be exploring, but these days who knows what might stick with consumers. Nevertheless, Friskopp notes that HP customer research says people still like printing out content for reference, sharing and, she says, "once you've printed it you can find it again." Take that, digital information overload.

And with all this home printing HP and Condé Nast hope people will be doing, HP is introducing its Instant Ink program, a subscription-based home delivery service for ink cartridges.

Condé Nast will initially roll out with an ad-based revenue model, but that might change if the project catches on. "Again, this is a pilot program that's still in an infancy stage," says the spokesperson. "There are multiple ways that this could be monetized and we will look into all of them."
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How Aud Dev and Analytics Support Content Creation

Matt Kinsman — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:48:53 -0500

Much has been said about the publishing life cycle of news content online and in print. At Forbes, where we're kept apprised of the brand's new print and digital developments by chief product officer Lewis Dvorkin's blog posts, we can see how important analytics and audience development have become in content creation.
Dvorkin argues that the top-down "caste system" of traditional newsrooms has been outmoded by the way content is consumed and shared digitally. "The self-imposed newsroom caste system has run its course," he says in a recent post. "The three vital voices of the media business [content creators, audience members and marketers] now publish together and actually form relationships with one another."

The new newsroom, he says, is no longer a one-way operation where content is simply created and delivered to readers, rinse and repeat. The digital platform demands a much more interconnected process that links content with data (both demographic and feedback) and a strategic approach to production methods.

Interestingly, as Dvorkin describes the four columns that support the newsroom structure, we can see how important analytics and audience development are to the entire process.

Dvorkin's four main support components of his newsroom are:

1. Analytics--consisting of a small team that monitors activity at the page and site levels. The data is then used to help editors determine what content resonates and drives engagement.

2. Audience Development--another team that uses the data produced by the analytics team to develop KPIs and uncover new areas for audience growth.

3. Contributor Support--These folks work closely with the content creators, combining production tools with data insights to help creators optimize their production.

4. Programming--these guys also depend on AD and analytics to fast-track specific content packages and formats to maintain momentum created by content that resonates well with readers.

Dvorkin adds that, depending how you look at it, data could be king, or audience development or content. Yet that classification is diluted by the circular nature of the process.

Nevertheless, it's clear that the entire structure moves forward on the basis of what the analytics and audience development folks are picking up from the community. The business of content generation and its concomitant sales operation are perpetually refined or even re-engineered through this process.

Bill Mickey is executive editor of Audience Development magazine.
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Will the Real Mag App Newsstand Please Step Forward?

Matt Kinsman — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 09:00:45 -0500

Maybe it's a true vote of confidence for magazine apps, despite recent reports of their sales drop-offs. There are now more than a few digital newsstands in production or existence, but are we watching a market being made or fractured beyond recognition?
That might be an irrelevant question. Like their physical world counterparts, publishers could simply populate specific newsstands with apps until sales performance dictates resource allocation. Or, since we're talking digital content here and presumably cheap and easy distribution, the outlet might not matter so much as making sure all bases are covered.

In the meantime, Apple, potentially Google and home team Next Issue Media are all reportedly working on their one-stop shops for digital periodicals, while Barnes & Noble, Amazon and some of the digital magazine vendors, such as Zinio, are already offering a newsstand experience.

What does this mean for the consumer? There are a host of issues that not only impact availability, but pricing. The inherent competitive nature among the big newsstand providers could create headaches for publishers and consumers-not to mention any early trip-ups by publishers in the design and pricing of their apps.

Is it simply about which newsstand has the most marketing power? How will partnership terms impact distribution and pricing? How will devices, and their operating systems, dictate transactions? Will we see "exclusives" where certain titles are available through some vendors/devices and not others? The TV Guide app managed to be selected to debut Apple's first iAd, maybe we'll see similar horse trading going on between publishers and digital newsstand providers.

Next Issue Media's play will be interesting to watch as well. Given that it has the inside track to the JV publishers' own customers, as well as its intention to maintain control of consumer data, it might become a more comfortable partner for other publishers to work with. The company has already indicated its storefront launch this year will only be compatible with devices running Google's Android system-unless Apple decides to get on board as well.

All of this, of course, hinges on whether the magazine app will be seen long-term as a viable product by consumers and/or a profitable one for publishers.

Bill Mickey is executive editor of Audience Development magazine.
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Confimed: Consumer Engagement on the iPad is Complex

Matt Kinsman — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 09:45:15 -0500

Time Inc. recently teamed up with UM, a marketing agency, and EmSense, a firm that studies quantitative neurometrics while people shop and look at advertisements, to strap electrodes to iPad owners. Literally.
The three companies just completed a study to determine how iPad users are interacting with advertisements in magazine apps-in this case, Time Inc. ones.

EmSense brought the science, measuring neuromatic responses of 180 iPad owners through a combination of EEG readings, eye tracking, surveys and one-on-one interviews.

Key findings have revealed that user interaction on the device is "complex." Results are being crunched from 24 million data points, but the companies have zeroed in on three engagement elements:

-Visual Attention: the ad's ability to grab the reader and keep him on the page
-Accessibility: whether the ad has "entry points" that enable the user to engage the iPad's swiping and tapping features
-Propulsion: whether those entry points actually engaged the reader, pulling him deeper into the experience

Publishers are all clearly interested in how folks use their mag apps and some are forming focus groups to determine likes and dislikes, but Time Inc. has pushed the concept into the realm of hard-core science.

According to the companies, this is the first time that biometrics research has been used for app ad engagement. Mike Haggerty, UM's senior vice president and director of research and marketing accountability, and Betsy Frank, Time Inc.'s chief research and insights officer, presented the study yesterday at Advertising Age's Media Evolved event in New York.

Can you picture a sales rep walking into an agency and unfurling an EEG readout? It'll be the new ABC statement. "Here, you can see how iPad user #136 reacted to the video in the Audi ad. Look at those spikes! His reading is off the charts!"

But I kid, a little. Even if publishers are treating tablets as a sort of alien to be poked and prodded, I'm sure studies like this will contribute to a valuable pool of data, which, I hope, will somehow be collected together for the industry to share.

In any case, this kind of study is very revealing in the sense of just how unknown this new digital frontier is to publishers-and how important they think it is to them.

Bill Mickey is executive editor of Audience Development magazine.
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Newsweek.com is the Odd Man Out

Bill Mickey — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:11:54 -0500

We've all heard by now the merger of The Daily Beast and Newsweek—tricked you, didn't they?—into The Newsweek Daily Beast Company, which everyone's already ignoring for the more fun variations of 'NewsBeast' and 'BeastWeek', etc. (How many games of rock-paper-scissors it took during that "coffee-mug toast" to determine the brand name order we'll never know.)

Speculation is now focusing on how the JV is going to overcome its combined losses—$10 million per year for The Daily Beast and $20 million for Newsweek. However, I’d like to know which Web site, TheDailyBeast.com or Newsweek.com, will get top billing at best and lights out at worst.

The two are very different operations. Given the way they handled the equitable but awkward company name, it could be fair to assume a similar approach will be employed to create a DailyNewsweekBeast.com with a chalk line drawn down the middle of every page. A boisterous mix of culture/politics/celebrity on one side and a subdued mix of mass-appeal business/news/culture on the other.

However, given the positioning of the merger and the characterizations the principals are giving each other's companies, Newsweek.com appears to be grasping the short straw.

According to Ms. Brown in an official statement announcing the deal, the Beast is swooping in with its "vibrant versatility," the "metabolism" of which will "help power the resurgence of Newsweek." Newsweek, in turn, "amplifies the range of talent and audience The Daily Beast can reach."

Meanwhile, Newsweek is "venerable" with "journalistic depth." It's also, according to the statement, just a magazine. There's no mention of the brand's digital platform, a strange omission given all the hupla over the importance of Web savvy.

Again, in her own post on the merger, Ms. Brown says, "And for Newsweek, The Daily Beast is a thriving frontline of breaking news and commentary that will raise the profile of the magazine’s bylines and quicken the pace of a great magazine’s revival."

Newsweek.com who?

In this merger, all the digital cache belongs to The Daily Beast, even though Newsweek.com gets twice as many monthly uniques—10 million compared to The Daily Beast's 5 million, per company principals—and has a much more recognizable brand.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: The original headline of this post was "Is Newsweek.com the Odd Man Out?" But after posting we came across a NYT story in which new The Newsweek Daily Beast Company CEO Stephen Colvin says Newsweek.com will indeed be folded into TheDailyBeast.com.]
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