You won't find much new in the latest Folio: report on the restructuring at Playboy Enterprises. Yet again, the magazine is struggling. Yet again, the licensing division is quite profitable. Yet again, there are no specifics from CEO Scott Flanders about what type of "bolder steps" are needed to fix things at the flagship magazine.
Might I suggest quality? I'm a broken record. But still, they can't cut their way to a new business model at the magazine. They need to rethink what makes people read the magazine, and what will attract advertisers in a big way.
Nothing new.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
100 New Magazines Launched in October? How Many Are Worth Keeping?
Mr. Magazine, aka Samir Husni, writes that he notes 100 new magazine titles were on the stands in the month of October. From the sampling posted on his blog, I'm amused by some of these magazines. Does the world really need Angels and Miracles? or Men Fetish? Couldn't those two titles have been combined into a new-age evangelical gay leather magazine? After all, it's all about niche marketing these days, isn't it?
Anyway, Herr Zeitschriften says there are two interesting things about this avalanche of launches: There are lots of one-shot magazines, and the cover prices are somewhat hefty (a rough average of $8.66). He makes a good case that one-shots are not going to save the magazine industry, but I'm not sure that's necessarily so. Some one-shots are indeed produced simply to soak up newsstand space, or to steal the thunder from a market niche rival. But other one-shots are test magazines, and if they're successful, they can go on to long, happy periodical lives. Starlog magazine started life as a one-shot dedicated to Star Trek; when the distributor wasn't interested, it was bulked up with other science fiction articles and it went on to be a science-fiction media behemoth for three decades and the flagship of an enterprising (forgive the term) magazine company. That same company relaunched Comics Scene in the mid-1980s as a one-shot; it did so well, it was launched as a quarterly (that became a bimonthly that grew to a nine-times-a-year frequency) and lasted something like eight years.
So I welcome a one-shot publication. If it's well done, and it doesn't look like a cheap knockoff (such as, oh, a hastily assembled "tribute" to a recently deceased celebrity, for example), then I think it actually boosts the claim of magazines as a viable market where ideas can be floated, launched, retooled, and enjoyed.
As far as the high cover prices, I'm actually all for that, as long as we get our money's worth. That's been a theme of this blog for some months, in fact. I've urged a number of publications to take that route, as part of a way of freeing themselves from the addiction to the fickle (and shackling) advertising dollar. If you have a weak editorial product and you're third in your market niche, then this strategy won't work. If you're already a second- or third-buy decision for your potential reader, then boosting your cover price from $6.50 to $8.99 is going to give those people several incentives not to purchase it. But if you're the market leader or a strong second in your niche, a higher price that comes with quality and quantity -- more pages, added investigative or long-form journalism, new columnists, a beautiful redesign -- then you might just save your magazine in the long run.
Think about it. Playboy is still charging just a couple dollars more an issue (by cover price) than it did a quarter century ago, and its subscription price is pretty much the same (and even less, in some of its offers). Yet it just cut its rate base by nearly 40 percent. If they know they're going to be losing readers, why not boost the cover price a couple dollars -- yes, a couple whole dollars -- and deliver more and better editorial in the process. Their readers, in particular, will reward them; Playboy has famously loyal readers.
Starlog could relaunch at $9.99 an issue and boost the page count from what it was in its late run (around 84, including covers). After all, the science fiction media magazine field is no longer dominated by American publishers selling $7.00 or $8.00 magazines. American publishers are barely visible in the SF media magazine field these days; it's dominated by UK publishers, whose magazines sell for $9.99 or even $11.99 -- and deliver a lot more pages and editorial content. Those are the new competition, and there's no need to try to undersell them. They've raised the bar, so compete with them head-on.
On Sunday, I bought two magazines, neither of which is a regular buy for me but instead an occasional buy: Empire and SFX magazines. The cover price of both of them was $9.99, and each had more than 145 pages of full-color content. Why did I buy them? Well, I wouldn't buy an American mainstream film magazine because I find them to be boring and unimaginatively written, but Empire has spirit and great reach into the industry and a vast array of content. As for SFX, I would buy an American competitor if there was one out there worth reading. But with Starlog out of print (along with fellow casualties such as Cinefantastique), I've finally given up looking for an SF magazine not published by Titan magazines or Future, both from the UK. (Hmm, maybe this is the magazine I should be trying to launch ....)
But the $9.99 cover price didn't scare me off, and neither magazine shows any sign of imminent death. So how long will it take for magazine publishers in the United States to stop trying to do cheap-and-weak magazines and start doing pricey-but-quality magazines? If Samir Husni's blog is any indication, we might be headed in that direction at long last.
Anyway, Herr Zeitschriften says there are two interesting things about this avalanche of launches: There are lots of one-shot magazines, and the cover prices are somewhat hefty (a rough average of $8.66). He makes a good case that one-shots are not going to save the magazine industry, but I'm not sure that's necessarily so. Some one-shots are indeed produced simply to soak up newsstand space, or to steal the thunder from a market niche rival. But other one-shots are test magazines, and if they're successful, they can go on to long, happy periodical lives. Starlog magazine started life as a one-shot dedicated to Star Trek; when the distributor wasn't interested, it was bulked up with other science fiction articles and it went on to be a science-fiction media behemoth for three decades and the flagship of an enterprising (forgive the term) magazine company. That same company relaunched Comics Scene in the mid-1980s as a one-shot; it did so well, it was launched as a quarterly (that became a bimonthly that grew to a nine-times-a-year frequency) and lasted something like eight years.
So I welcome a one-shot publication. If it's well done, and it doesn't look like a cheap knockoff (such as, oh, a hastily assembled "tribute" to a recently deceased celebrity, for example), then I think it actually boosts the claim of magazines as a viable market where ideas can be floated, launched, retooled, and enjoyed.
As far as the high cover prices, I'm actually all for that, as long as we get our money's worth. That's been a theme of this blog for some months, in fact. I've urged a number of publications to take that route, as part of a way of freeing themselves from the addiction to the fickle (and shackling) advertising dollar. If you have a weak editorial product and you're third in your market niche, then this strategy won't work. If you're already a second- or third-buy decision for your potential reader, then boosting your cover price from $6.50 to $8.99 is going to give those people several incentives not to purchase it. But if you're the market leader or a strong second in your niche, a higher price that comes with quality and quantity -- more pages, added investigative or long-form journalism, new columnists, a beautiful redesign -- then you might just save your magazine in the long run.
Think about it. Playboy is still charging just a couple dollars more an issue (by cover price) than it did a quarter century ago, and its subscription price is pretty much the same (and even less, in some of its offers). Yet it just cut its rate base by nearly 40 percent. If they know they're going to be losing readers, why not boost the cover price a couple dollars -- yes, a couple whole dollars -- and deliver more and better editorial in the process. Their readers, in particular, will reward them; Playboy has famously loyal readers.
Starlog could relaunch at $9.99 an issue and boost the page count from what it was in its late run (around 84, including covers). After all, the science fiction media magazine field is no longer dominated by American publishers selling $7.00 or $8.00 magazines. American publishers are barely visible in the SF media magazine field these days; it's dominated by UK publishers, whose magazines sell for $9.99 or even $11.99 -- and deliver a lot more pages and editorial content. Those are the new competition, and there's no need to try to undersell them. They've raised the bar, so compete with them head-on.
On Sunday, I bought two magazines, neither of which is a regular buy for me but instead an occasional buy: Empire and SFX magazines. The cover price of both of them was $9.99, and each had more than 145 pages of full-color content. Why did I buy them? Well, I wouldn't buy an American mainstream film magazine because I find them to be boring and unimaginatively written, but Empire has spirit and great reach into the industry and a vast array of content. As for SFX, I would buy an American competitor if there was one out there worth reading. But with Starlog out of print (along with fellow casualties such as Cinefantastique), I've finally given up looking for an SF magazine not published by Titan magazines or Future, both from the UK. (Hmm, maybe this is the magazine I should be trying to launch ....)
But the $9.99 cover price didn't scare me off, and neither magazine shows any sign of imminent death. So how long will it take for magazine publishers in the United States to stop trying to do cheap-and-weak magazines and start doing pricey-but-quality magazines? If Samir Husni's blog is any indication, we might be headed in that direction at long last.
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Return of Advertisers: December Magazines Plump Up
Blog Magazine comments on an Advertising Age report that the December issues of some leading titles are actually up in advertising pages, and others are down less than they were last year.
Glamour, for example, is up 5 percent over last year, says Advertising Age. Other titles, such as Wired, are dealing with smaller drops in advertising than they did last December.
The industry magazine adds some caution, however, quoting Carol Smith, senior VP and chief brand officer at Elle, thusly: "December was terrific .... I believe it's largely a result of extra year-end budget money -- that is, companies that spent conservatively throughout the year had some leftover dollars to invest."
We know we're not out of the woods yet, but we now know there is an end to the forest.
The industry magazine adds some caution, however, quoting Carol Smith, senior VP and chief brand officer at Elle, thusly: "December was terrific .... I believe it's largely a result of extra year-end budget money -- that is, companies that spent conservatively throughout the year had some leftover dollars to invest."
We know we're not out of the woods yet, but we now know there is an end to the forest.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
What Were You Doing When the Berlin Wall Fell?
What were you doing when the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago and Germany zoomed toward reunification?
I saw that question asked (in slightly more boring wording) somewhere on the internet yesterday. But as Germany celebrates the momentous events of two decades ago and fetes the three big world leaders who made it happen -- West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, American President George "I'm not my son" Bush, and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev -- it does bring back memories of where I was, what I was doing, and even why newspapers are such a wonderful thing.
I was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the time. I was also an editor of the independent daily student newspaper, the Badger Herald. A group of my fellow editors and friends from the Herald headed over to the main student union on campus (the one in a beautiful old building on the lake) for breakfast, and we each brough a different paper from somewhere else in the country. The scrambled eggs, bacon, and English muffins were delicious. And there we sat, at a big round table, eating breakfast and trading facts and comments we gleaned from the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Milwaukee Journal, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wisconsin State Journal, and probably a few other papers. Considering the high level of un-checked flotsam and jetsam that passes for breaking news and information on the internet, I don't think we'd have been better informed if the web had been in wide popularity back then.
Perhaps the best part of that memory is that I was with other people who understood what an exciting time in history that was. Everyone knew something big happened, that the world in which we'd grown up was changing significantly and -- thank god -- for the better. No one thought it was insignificant; nobody preferred to chat about whatever the Britnet Spears of the day was. We talked Cold War and the end of communism and people being handed copies of Der Spiegel (or was it Stern?) as they crossed the border into West Berlin and whether the Soviet Union itself would fall in our lifetimes.
It was a great time to realize that sometimes huge, life-changing events happen that are beyond our control but that are nonetheless good. And having a stack of that morning's daily papers gave us the fuel for wonder and argument and astonishment. A great time.
I saw that question asked (in slightly more boring wording) somewhere on the internet yesterday. But as Germany celebrates the momentous events of two decades ago and fetes the three big world leaders who made it happen -- West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, American President George "I'm not my son" Bush, and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev -- it does bring back memories of where I was, what I was doing, and even why newspapers are such a wonderful thing.
I was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the time. I was also an editor of the independent daily student newspaper, the Badger Herald. A group of my fellow editors and friends from the Herald headed over to the main student union on campus (the one in a beautiful old building on the lake) for breakfast, and we each brough a different paper from somewhere else in the country. The scrambled eggs, bacon, and English muffins were delicious. And there we sat, at a big round table, eating breakfast and trading facts and comments we gleaned from the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Milwaukee Journal, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wisconsin State Journal, and probably a few other papers. Considering the high level of un-checked flotsam and jetsam that passes for breaking news and information on the internet, I don't think we'd have been better informed if the web had been in wide popularity back then.
Perhaps the best part of that memory is that I was with other people who understood what an exciting time in history that was. Everyone knew something big happened, that the world in which we'd grown up was changing significantly and -- thank god -- for the better. No one thought it was insignificant; nobody preferred to chat about whatever the Britnet Spears of the day was. We talked Cold War and the end of communism and people being handed copies of Der Spiegel (or was it Stern?) as they crossed the border into West Berlin and whether the Soviet Union itself would fall in our lifetimes.
It was a great time to realize that sometimes huge, life-changing events happen that are beyond our control but that are nonetheless good. And having a stack of that morning's daily papers gave us the fuel for wonder and argument and astonishment. A great time.
And the Latest in the Sucks-to-Be-You Series of Layoff Announcements: Time Warner Plans Big
The Journal says the layoffs will affect about 6 percent of Time's total workforce, "a similar percentage to job cuts last year, as part of a broad reorganization of Time Inc. Time Warner took a charge of $119 million in the fourth quarter of 2008 to reflect severance and other costs from the restructuring." That seems like a lot of money, but when you figure that approximately 3 billion people are directly employed by the sprawling Time Warner colossus, it's probably a small amount then. It's good to have things in perspective.
Seriously, though, despite news that the recession officially ended in the July-to-September third quarter of 2009, the layoffs in the magazine media industry seem to be coming more frequently. And the announcements these days are coming from the big guys -- Time Warner, Forbes, Condé Nast, etc. I suspect that's because the smaller companies never staffed-up as much as they could have in the good times, and they pared costs more quickly as the bad times set in. The behemoths move slowly. But this seems like an odd time for the big guys to be slicing staff. If things are improving, they're going to be without experienced staff, and when content is what counts, they're going to be scrambling to provide high-quality content from freelancers and junior staffers. After all, magazine readership has risen -- yes, risen -- in the past decade, not fallen off a cliff, so this seems a bit odd. But maybe that's how MBAs think.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
No One Ever Comes Trick-or-Treating at Our House
I think it's been over a decade since I've handed out candy. But I always have to buy it just in case. So on Monday morning, I always end up bring a couple unopened bags of very nice candy (yeah, I don't skimp) to work and feeding my colleagues.
Just thought you'd be fascinated by that.
"Boo," by the way.
Just thought you'd be fascinated by that.
"Boo," by the way.
Death of Another Gay Magazine: The Advocate
Gay news-and-features magazine The Advocate will be folding, transforming into a 32-page insert in sister publication Out. That's the word from Queerty, which adds that the move follows "massive" layoffs at the title. "Some freelance and contract writers and photogs, meanwhile, have gone unpaid for months; some have threatened to stop working entirely until their balances are paid," reports Queerty.Youch. I once briefly worked at a small magazine publisher that had been unable to pay some of its freelancers for about nine months. My short tenure there -- I jumped ship to a stable company after just two months -- was made sad by the constant hectoring from writers with very legitimate complaints about payments. Some of them needed it for rent or mortgage payments, and the poor accounts payable staffer had the unenviable job of fielding these requests/pleas/threats and paying the most urgent of them.
That company limped along for another couple years before it finally sold its assets. But it sounds like The Advocate's life will be shorter. (Owner Regent/Here Media already shuttered two of its gay porn titles, Men and Freshmen.)
Journalist and blogger (and he knows the difference) Matthew Rettenmund shares some thoughts on the loss of this long-lasting magazine and what it means to the gay community: "The Advocate has been around for 40 years chronicling gay news, following politics, tracing fads, providing a means by which stars (gay and straight) could directly reach a captive LGBT (not just G and not just L) audience. The death of The Advocate feels like a symptom of the admittedly slow death of 'gay' as an identity."Frankly, I don't know if I'll miss The Advocate. It was only an occasional buy for me. I'm of the generation that did not go through Stonewall and that was still ignorant of my own homosexuality during the height (depths?) of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Nonetheless, I can still appreciate those who came before me and took on much bigger anti-gay boogeymen than I have had to face. But my intellectual response has always been to reject the magazine's simplistic attachment to outdated gay politics of the 1970s.
That said, Rettenmund is correct: The surviving media -- straight and gay alike -- is not prepared to cover gay topics well, and are unlikely to being to do so just because The Advocate has died. A new magazine is needed, but I'll be darned if I know what it is.
Friday, October 30, 2009
China Blocks Access to Berlin Wall Anniversary Twitter Page
But I don't recall being able to find anything that looked like that hated wall. Objectively, that's probably a good thing. Germans are in no danger of forgetting about the division of their country in the Cold War aftermath of World War II. And, frankly, finding remants of it wasn't my top priority. When I travel, I prefer to get off the beaten path and wander into lesser-known neighborhoods and find restaurants and bookstores along the streets and just stop in to see what I'll find.
It was a nice trip to what has become a normal (thank goodness) city.
So the news that China has been blocking a Twitter page dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall seems like one more example of China acting like a hyper-sensitive child. Apparently, China's autocratic rulers were discomfited because Chinese were using the Twitter page to voice their not-so-nice views of the Chinese Communist government. Wonder which government will be most bothered by Twitter -- China or Iran?
Hmmm, maybe China's just upset that they're going to stop getting free money from Germany under the new government.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Bon Appétit Gobbles up Gourmet subscribers
The Min article has some good info on Condé Nast's reputation for cannibalizing dead magazine subscribers to get temporary circulation gains.
Yay, the Recession's Over, but Good Luck in the Job Market
The economy grew by 3.5 percent in the third quarter (July-September) of 2009, and experts expect it to grow by about 3 percent in 2010. The Q3 boost was higher than economists had predicted, and it was helped aloft by the stimulus spending and incentives, such as the Cash-for-Clunkers car trade-in program. I'd love to learn whether this vindicates government stimulus spending in an economic crisis. I know plenty of people on both sides will argue the case, but I mean I'm interested in people who know what they're talking about and who've really studied the matter giving their verdict. My half-educated assumption is that this is somewhat of a vindication. I just wish there was more than Fox News or MSNBC shouting heads to explore the question. Probably the kind of informed explanation I'm hoping for can only be given with much passage of time.
In the meantime, it's important that 401(k) retirement accounts have recovered to break-even or better since the start of this economic debacle. After all, for people my age (41) and younger, that is our retirement account. Companies don't offer pensions any longer, and Social Security is not likely to be around when we retire. But I hope this past year inspires more people in this age range to start saving more, put more into long-range conservative investments, and stock up on canned food and Ramen noodles.
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