There is a mystery wrapped in an enigma standing right before us in the media industry, and at first and second glance it just doesn't make any sense. Let me try and approach it this way - you walked down a block in your hometown many times and got robbed more than once, in fact, you get robbed every time. Knowing that wouldn't you change the way you traveled? Suppose you told the police about the ongoing robberies, and they told you, yes that is the way it is, but we think the trip is still safe because you were only robbed of 50% of what you had each time. Safe? By whose standards?
This parable to me parallels the current situation when it comes to the advertising industry. We read of ad fraud every day in the digital world, and yet the digital advertising budgets rise every quarter.
We are confronted with ad blockers, ad fraud, robotic ad clicking, totally fake CPM's and CMOs who don't believe they get a measurable ROI from social media, and yet they continue to spend more in the world wide web of murky digital swamps and total intentional fraud.
This rant has nothing to do with print, so let's just take that out of the equation. This is strictly a question of why this digital fraud is tolerated? There must be an ROI somewhere, but where is it? I get that advertising next to search works. I get that social influencers may actually help promote brands. I get that 50% of our time is spent in focusing on digital screens. I don't get why lies, deception, unseen ads and fraudulent statistics are given a second glance let alone increased ad buys. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE
As I look around at all the news sites and major media companies an interesting phenomenon is appearing. I am beginning to think of it as the final step to desacralize print. With rare exceptions most current media transactions of major companies are about creating digital footholds with the reading public. Time Inc., Hearst, Conde Nast, Meredith all are focusing on creating new digital platforms for revenue, and, with some rare exceptions of new print titles, the majority of the focus is all about a digital future.
So what is happening? Print newsstand sales continue to drop and so do subscriptions. For those who need to hear it one more time, this not in any way the death of print, as some companies and some print titles are bucking the industry trends and doing very well. But it is a recognition and reassessment of the media pecking order. Print is still strong and powerful, but it is no longer on the top of Olympus. It is a process with partial or lesser divine status than it had a mere decade ago.
I think that as we desacralize print, some people are left with a strong case of nostalgia for times and substrates of yesterday. And this makes me think of the possibility that the current upcoming generations will soon be experiencing nostalgia or a sentimental, wistful yearning for the happiness felt in a former digital place, time, and/or situation. This is, of course, generational. But it seems to me that the transfer of nostalgic experiences from print to digital is already in effect.
In the early part of my publishing career one of my first supervisors showed me how the magazine production professionals could actually see into the future by observing the newspaper industry. It was suggested to me that newspapers were the canaries of the media industry. Whatever happens in our industry happens first in their sector. When I was a major paper buyer I used to track how well the newspaper advertising was doing and adjust my paper inventory up or down predicated on how the newspaper industry was doing. It was at the time a six-month lead indicator or vision of the future, and for quite some time it was pretty damn accurate. Over time things may have changed and I don't buy paper anymore, but I'm guessing there is still a strong time-machine correlation between magazines and newspapers and that it still happens first in the newspaper business and then trickles down to the magazine industry. CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY
There is a quote in an article about print magazines that really troubles me. It is the following:
"It comes back to the idea of a bit of curation, really. That's the thing we can do that you can't really get online. That's the trouble, really... in the media landscape in general. There is too much information, too little context, not enough shaping of the material to give you anything other than a sense of complete chaos."
To say that the web and web sites can't have curation is dangerously mistaken. It can and in many places it does. It is borderline hubris to think that a web site can't be professionally edited, correctly curated and wonderfully designed.
I put forward that sole difference is in the medium and not the content or potential lack of curation.
The haptic experience between print and digital is mainly a different feel, a different sensation and, perhaps above all else, a different expectation. Print doesn't offer distractions other than the words and thinking on the page, while the web does. Just knowing that you can click and go elsewhere is seductive. Even if you stay focused you know in the background of your brain that you can travel beyond your current involvement. With print the expectation is built right into the product as linear and fixed, with no possibility of "surfing" beyond the next page. This grounding, too, is in the background of your brain. And those particular expectations make for different reading experiences. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE
Well, being a production guy, I have to say I enjoyed this rant by D. Eadward Tree. His missive is…
There was a time when you couldn't pick up a media trade journal and not have almost half the conversation about the paper industry. At the same time magazine manufacturing costs for print titles (there was no other option) were approximately 60% of the cost of doing business. In today's marketplace there is very little "talk" about paper, the one and only substrate for printed magazines, although we as an industry do have lots of dialog about "what is a magazine" or "how long magazines will be around."
As a case in point, I had a very challenging conversation - one of many - while on my trip cross country. My friend who is in our business took the position that magazines won't be around much longer. It is possible, even probable, that he was testing my opinions and was taking a contrary position just for fun. Nonetheless it was an exciting conversation. He showed me charts and graphs about our industry that were steeper in the negative than Mount Everest. I pointed out that those charts are an aggregate of everyone and, although they might be interesting, averages contain both winners and losers. There has always been death and destruction in the magazine business, but there have also always been winners, and I believe we need to focus on the winners. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE
Every year I look forward to Mary Meeker's annual Internet Trends report. I suppose it's just a thing us futurists like to do for fun. For me trend analysis is a key factor in making decisions both large and small, and I'm always looking for the repeating patterns in life and in business. The report is always filled with fascinating data and, of course, trend analysis. One of the prized slides that I have closely tracked is the % of Time Spent with Media Vs the % of Advertising Spending in that particular media. Now as much as I like this report and I think it has important and meaningful data, I am not completely convinced that some of the conclusions in this particular slide are correct.
Here is what I mean, print now gets only 4% of time spent with any media. Mary Meeker's conclusion is that there is/should be an equivalent amount of ad spend to the amount of time spent with that media. There may, in fact, be some sort of correlation between the two data points, but I think the type of media in question should also be considered. The experiences of media to media are in fact very different. Print is not like radio and radio is not like TV and for sure print is not like digital.
This is not the whining observation of a bibliophile, but rather an experienced media professional who has tracked the industry for over 4.5 decades. It's my conclusion that the amount of attention/time spent doesn't necessarily mean that ad spending should be an identical % number. How does one measure the quality and richness of time spent? Where is that chart? CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE
We are at an interesting crossroads in the magazine industry. Not all business plans are, if you will pardon the expression, on the same page.
There is a large set of business focused on the of selling of magazines on the newsstand. There are thousands of people and hundreds of businesses dedicated to the shipping, selling, coordinating, and returning of magazines in the retail supply chain. Their salaries depend on the success of the newsstand.
It is a complex process that thousands have devoted their careers to. In this mix not only are the newsstand organizations, the supply subgroups, but also actual magazines that live and die on the newsstand alone as their main source of revenue.
Then there is another group. I affectionately call them the Olympians. The Hearst's, The Conde` Nast's, Time Inc, and the Meredith's. They, too, sell magazines on the newsstand. But their business model is no longer, as it once was, contingent on that part of the industry. They have their own business plans that from the outset weren't about protecting or sustaining the newsstand business. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE
I go to a dozen or more media conferences each year. Many I speak at and others I report on as a media analyst and journalist. I always hope to learn something new or hear different perspectives. I have seen the best and the not so great. Having attended the good and the bad, it is fair to say that I have a broad perspective on the subject of conferences and their worth to the attendees. After all, if there is no real intrinsic value to the "customer", what's the point?
That being said I recently attended for the fourth time FIPP'S Digital Innovator's Summit (DIS) which is held each year in Berlin. It is by far one of the best shows I attend each year. I always look forward to it, because I walk away with greater insights into our business then when I arrived. Where some shows are about industrial cheerleading, this show is about practical insights and new media methodologies. This meeting had more than 600 attendees from over 30 countries. Just having the opportunity to meet and chat with these publishers from around the globe is a meaningful experience in and of itself. But there is much more to this event then schmoozing with peers.
There is nothing at this event that is not near perfect. The organization, the setting, the clever timing of the speakers, and the overall rhythm of the show is smooth, filled with professional insights and enjoyable. I'm not sure how they gather such excellence in presenters, but other organizations could learn a thing or two by observation and replication. I know as I write this that it sounds like hyperbole on my part, but it ain't. I don't lightly travel to Germany for three nights and then quickly return unless there is a strong reward, and here there is.
What is the BoSacks FREE newsletter all about?
It is purely a very "personal" and slanted collection of news gathered daily over the Internet, which to me seems relevant and useful about the publishing industry. I do this as a labor of love and to keep myself as up to date as is possible with the ever changing and advancing "Information Distribution Industry" formerly known as "Publishing".
And how much does it cost?
The price for this service is nothing. It is Free. It is just as easy for me to copy three or four of my industry friends as it is to carbon copy the current list of 16,500 publishing professionals.
