Publishing, magazines and journalism

Is there a future and are we part of it?

Martin Hirst, May 2010for NZ Doctor

Magazines

• US news stand sales down by more than 10% in 2009

• 18 per cent drop in US magazine advertising in 2008

• Seven per cent decline in Australian magazine sales in first quarter of 2010

• Readers aging

1. Cosmopolitan - 1,616,908 (down 7.8 percent)

2. People - 1,319,350 (down 12.77 percent)

3. Woman's World - 1,175,550 (down 8.31 percent)

4. First - 1,066,167 (down 9.29 percent)

5. Us Weekly - 843,479 (down 2.98 percent)

6. In Touch Weekly - 745,123 (down 17.67 percent)

7. O, the Oprah Magazine - 693,054 (down 5.58 percent)

8. Family Circle - 673,286 (down 22.55 percent)

9. In Style - 625,589 (down 20.13 percent)

10. Star - 601,115 (down 14.29 percent)

e.Books and publishing models• 1 million iPads now in

circulation• Amazon expects to sell 2 to 3

million Kindles in 2010• Over 500,000 titles now in stock• Amazon and Penguin fighting

over e.book rights and pricing models

• Book prices cut in Amazon pricing war

• News, magazines & blogs also available via e.readers

News goes mobile

• Mobile news via readers, iGoogle and phone apps

• No longer tied to physical product

• No longer tied to time sensitive constraints

Turning the corner?

• Downturn in ad sales and revenue might be over?

• Newspapers and publishing are not dead yet

• Publishing links to social media

The publishing group that owns the Financial Times, has reported a 7% increase in revenues in the first quarter, helped by "volatile" but growing ad revenue at its newspaper operation.

Pearson, which owns Penguin books and a share of the Economist and is a major education publisher, said that revenues were up 12% on a constant currency basis to £1.08bn.

Innovation to keep magazines alive

• Embedding video• e.readers• Smartphone apps

that work with the print edition

• User-generated content

• Mobile strategies

A new international media report concludes that magazines have coped with recent revenue and circulation losses by coming up with new ways to re-invent their products and businesses to compete in the digital age. The report by FIPP and Innovation Media in the first annual FIPP Innovations in Magazine Report found the industry to be in remarkably robust condition, breaking new ground to hold on to current readers and acquire new ones.

MediaBiz.net March 2010

News as conversation• Journalists no longer control

the distribution of the content they produce.

• This is a very scary thought for many journalists, but the reality is that once something is published (usually on Web sites), it belongs to the audience of readers and becomes part of a conversation about the news.

Thesis 1: news is a universal human need

• news has been around for thousands of years

• news and information is fundamental to the human condition

• pursuit of profits has led the MSM down market

• the trust model for mainstream media is failing

Thesis 2: digital technologies are changing

how we consume news• globally, television is still the

dominant news and entertainment media, but for how much longer?

• news is going mobile and it's being condensed

• interactivity – audience participation is important

• the 140 character text message and “tweet” could be the future of news

Thesis 3: the singularity of convergence

has changed news forever professionalism has become a

trap for journalists - they are tied into a corporate culture that is losing its shine

D-I-Y & UGC news via social networking is on the rise

we are no longer reliant only on MSM for news

user-generated news-like content

Thesis 4: the crisis in the news business is not the same as the crisis in journalism

• they are related, but different• a crisis of trust and credibility

and a crisis of profitability• we are now in a critical

juncture and the global financial crisis has become a further threat to the political economy of the news business

Thesis 5: new business models are

not yet proven• advertising – most likely in market

economy• user pays – subscription model &

micropayments• public service broadcasting – not

politically supported• online only publishing – unknown

quantity• public trust model – expensive to

establish• philanthropy – peanuts really

Thesis 6: there are positives in social

networking and Web 2.0• some parts of the world are more

connected than they’ve every been• the collective nature of trust and

verification is a key element of peer-to-peer sharing of information and can apply to news

• we need to position journalism as the collective wisdom of the public interest and speaking truth to power

Thesis 7: Can journalism survive the Internet?

• what happens to “journalism" when the economics of the news business are no longer working?

• if news is a universal trait of human society (thesis 1) then a method needs to be developed of continuing to provide reliable and common news-like information from trusted public sources

What does it mean for us?

• Interactivity – blogs, comments, social media √• Embedded multimedia ?• Knowing how your audience consumes and

wants to receive information ?

Strategies• Know what your audience wants• Determine which topics should be covered

online and which should be covered in print• Consider where and how readers consume

your content, such as on a computer, smart phone or e-reader

• Use links and keywords so that articles are indexed by search engines

• Can you make use of user-generated content• Make the most of advertising synergies