NMK: What Happens to Magazines?
Description
If newspapers are having a hard time, then magazines - more expensive to fill, print and distribute - must be really suffering. The need for innovation, new income streams and a focus on delivering value is urgent.
Deloitte, in its TMT Predictions report for media in 2009, noted that ‘the challenged state of the print industry in developed world markets does not signal the demise of the sector. Rather, 2009 is likely to mark the emergence of a range of new business models, including shared backroom infrastructure and online-only delivery.’
With the communication and interaction style of Web 2.0 offering a standard that readers are now firmly engaged with, current thinking seems to be less focused solely on achieving higher print circulation for traditional magazines. More, how readers hungry for content and connection opportunities can be attracted by brands meeting their needs via new and print/digital-collaborative business models.
It begs the question: as readers, what do we get from print magazines that we can’t get online, and what do we get digitally that we can’t replicate in print?
Will we see more magazine publishers diversifying their revenue streams and seeking to make digital publishing more than just companion sites to their print publications? Print publishing has always had to pay its own way, digital should be able to do the same. Does the consumer expectation of free online content ensure that the only way to make money is via a traditional ad-supported content or are there new models to be explored?
And what can we learn from newspapers? New and revisited print publishing models such as free-to-consumer are looking at traditional ad revenue opportunities via the achievement of low-barrier mass circulation in both newspapers and magazines. At the same time, more and more news content is available, and consumed, online.
"While I do think online content could overtake newspapers, I believe that print magazines - because they are less ephemeral and more enduring, because they are more beautiful, because they offer perspective and amplify what people get elsewhere - will not be overtaken in the same way as newspapers,”
-Richard Stengel, Managing Editor, Time Magazine. (2007 Chicago Tribune, via Innovations In Newspapers)
Are readers still attached to the beauty of ‘the object’ when it comes to magazines? What makes an online magazine a 'magazine' rather than a collection of pages of content? Are blogs the magazines of the future? What’s the situation with B2B titles versus consumer? These questions and a whole lot more will be addressed by our panel of industry experts.
Panel
Andrew Davies, co-founder of idiomag
Mike Soutar, founder of ShortList
Louise White, group marketing director, Incisive Media
More to follow…
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Speaker Biographies
Andrew Davies is the co-founder of idiomag, a personalized publishing platform that allows publishers and brands to automatically create personalized digital publications for each reader based on their unique taste delivered via web, mobile and desktop download. Andrew previously founded thruSITES, a social-media development agency serving clients such as Universal Pictures, No. 10 Downing Street and Primark. He has also worked with Deloitte Consulting, focusing on large technology and media clients.
Mike Soutar is founder of ShortList, the market-leading British men’s lifestyle weekly magazine with an audited ABC in excess of 500,000 copies per week. Mike is also a founding director of Crash Test Media, a development company working with leading media organisations to create, research and launch new products, specialising in print and digital development.
Louise is group marketing director at Incisive Media and has been with the company in various marketing positions for the past 7 years. Louise is part of the management team who has seen the company grow from 200 to nearly 200 staff in the last 5 years. She has overall responsibility for the company's centralised marketing function, including the telesales, renewals, customer service, list research, circulation, product and event marketing teams. The team looks after a portfolio of over 100 B2B magazines, newsletters and online products and 300+ events in the risk management, capital markets, insurance, investment, IT, legal and private equity markets. Louise is sits on committees for many industry associations, including the PPAi, AOP and SIPA and is a regular speaker at events.
Location
Central London, tbc
