Media Guardian produced a supplement discussing some of the recent changes in magazine and newspaper publishing (12.2.07) to coincide with the Publishing Expo at Olympia. I've provided links to the individual articles and a very brief summary of what I found interesting:
1) PRINT TITLES BOOM IN DIGITAL AGE (Meg Carter)
- Research from Deloitte: digital revenue accounted for 17% of UK publishers' overall revenue. Publishers' total revenue currently stand at £7bn a year.
- Association of Online Publishers: 68% of magazine website users also read the parent magazine. It claims that this is proof that the audience is loyal to the brand.
- Newspaper groups are re-branding to highlight their increasing cross-platform offerings. The Daily Telegraph has launched a new digital newsroom. VNU (publisher of Computing and ComputerActive) opened in-house audio and video studios in 2006.
2) COMPLIMENTARY SITES LEAD TO COMPLIMENTS (Kate Bulkley)
- Dennis Publishing's e-zine Monkey cost £150,000 to set up compared to the £7m and £5m respectively it cost IPC and Emap to launch print rivals Nuts and Zoo.
- Monkey is said to have 275,000 readers, while Nuts and Zoo have hit about the same number in sales each after three years.
- NatMags has four online-only titles - led by handbag.com and getlippy.com. Nine of its biggest print magazine brands, including Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, have active websites. Together, they are attracting 4.6 million unique users each month.
- Nancy Cruickshank, managing director of Hearst Digital (part of NatMags): "We won't be copying and pasting the magazine content and simply putting it online because there's zero value there. Polls, competitions, additional footage, podcasts, vlogs - this is what will show up on our websites now."
- Debate continues among traditional magazine publishers about launching online only websites and e-zines. At IPC, 90% of print brands including Loaded and What's On TV now have a complementary website, but so far the company has no web-only brands.
3) ONLINE BREAKS DOWN THE BOUNDARIES (Kate Bulkley)
- Monkey Magazine (Dennis): according to sources there are now over one million openings (or viewings) of the weekly online magazine each month; more than £16,000 per issue in ad revenue in the first nine issues and 4,000 new readers signing up every day.
- Readers spend an average of 45 minutes with the e-zine. 60% are from the ABC1 demographic group, with an average age of 27.
- Neil Robinson, IPC Digital director: "The only reason Dennis launched Monkey is that they couldn't afford to launch a print weekly"......"I doubt that Monkey will be the thing that overtakes Nuts and Zoo." Robinson believes in a big online future for publishers but that the "magazine-y" feel and the idea of "pushing content" to readers "just doesn't work in a pull-environment like the web." [Ed's comments: For what's it's worth - I tend to agree with Robinson. Also, I seriously question the "45 minute" statistic.
4) ON TRACK FOR A PUBLISHING REVOLUTION (Stephen Brook)
Top 10 performing magazine branded websites (Source: Nielsen NetRatings Oct 06). Based on unique audience in thousands.
1. AutoTrader - 1555
2. Which?- 653
3. Radio Times - 557
4. Time Out - 526
5. PC World - 316
6. Rolling Stone - 297
7. What Car? - 291
8. PC Pro -273
9. FHM - 256
10. Maxim - 214
5) THE CHANGING FACE OF PUBLISHING
- David Renard, author of The Last Magazine: in the next 25 years, only 10% of the European and American paper-based magazine industry will remain, kept alive by "connoisseurs, aficionados and ageing Luddites". The rest of us will embrace the publishing revolution.
- Sony introduced its e-book device last year, but Japanese company Fujitsu will launch what it claims is the first colour e-paper in 2008.
- Mike Nelson, Fujitsu's European general manager, e-paper is "exceptionally useful". "It looks like colour newsprint, it is tough, flexible, very thin and you could change the image on it every two seconds for a year using a triple-A battery."
- Social Publishing: Ian Eckert, director of digital development at CMPi:"I don't think we will get rid of journalists, but there will be less pontification from on high and more conversation."
- Social Publishing: Dominic Williams, managing director of digital publishing technology company System 7: "Journalists will (increasingly) become freelance, but they will get a share of the advertising revenue if their stuff is read and will make a lot of money if they are at the top of the rankings."
