BoSacks Speaks Out: Dropping Paper and Magazines from the Media Name

By Bob Sacks

Wed, Sep 14, 2016

BoSacks Speaks Out: Dropping Paper and Magazines from the Media Name

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.

That being said, is it farfetched for the Association of Magazine Media to eventually drop the magazine part of their name as the newspaper association has just done? No. As the magazine industry morphs and we spend an enormous amount of time, energy and focus on promoting the audience reach of our brands, I'll bet you sometime in the near future the MPA, too, becomes something along the lines of the Media Association of America. I make no judgment whether they should or shouldn't, nor if it is a good or bad idea. It just seems to me that they and the ten year long industry trends are headed the way of the Newspaper Association of America, now known as the News Media Alliance.

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