Why You’re Losing Your Magazine Job
by Peter Kafka
Posted on December 15, 2008 at 6:28 AM PT
Everyone knows why magazine companies like Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc. and Condé Nast are shedding people left and right: They’re shedding ad dollars left and right. But sometimes a visual really does help drive the point home. So thanks to MediaPost for this graph, which is based off ad sales data from magazine trade publisher Media Industry Newsletter:
But if you really want to know why things are really grim in the magazine world, don’t just pay attention to the right side of the graph, where ad pages plummet like Wile E. Coyote off a cliff. Look over at the left side, which shows that even before the econalypse hit, magazines were essentially flat.
That is, magazines aren’t just getting hurt by the economy–they’re getting pummeled by a fundamental shift of ad dollars away from print and to the Web.
So: Anyone who wants to stay in the magazine world needs to contemplate a career on the Web, right? Right. Except it’s unclear how many jobs the Web is going to offer, since digital content is worth so much less than its analog counterpart, at least in the eyes of advertisers. More on that later. No need to pile on the grimness on a Monday morning.
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Comments
But, why are ads in print publications plummeting?
OK, circulation is down a bit, but ad revenue is plunging at a much faster rate. This says that advertisers suddenly think each reader is worth a lot less than they were yesterday.
Why is this? Why am I, as a reader of Time, for instance, suddenly worth so much less this year than last year?
Posted by Dave Barnes at December 15th, 2008 at 9:02 amThe magazine reader IS worth a lot less today Dave.
Posted by ricky sutton at December 15th, 2008 at 2:34 pmSo is the TV viewer and the newspaper reader.
The reason is that traditional media has made money for years by selling against an audience it in all honesty had little knowledge of.
Digital changes this by making audiences truly measurable.
It transforms demographic targeting into a science and not a pipe dream or a series of salesman’s promises.
This in turn makes it possible for marketers to demand ROI.
This has made magazine publishers and other trad-media types accountable for the first time.
So far, they have been found to be lacking and so they are paying the price.
how much of the content in print magazines is of persistent value? not much. the same applies for ‘articles’ on websites. people read or ‘graze’ if you will what interests them but only as a means of killing time. so why do you think that an ad would have much value in this venue? the answer is it never did. this is the emperor has no clothes syndrome that no one really wants to address. you can put as many ads as you want on webpages but I will never see them. partially because I have ad blocking software but also because I like I believe most people just glance at ads long enough to identify them as such. and then ignore them. do you think people would subscribe to magazines if they were promised that no ads were in them? I know I would. I only hope that a time comes when I can buy tv programming [yes BUY] with no ads. that is the future if anyone is adventurous to try it.
Posted by Robert Freeman at December 15th, 2008 at 2:38 pmI think ricky suttons’ comment makes a lot of sense.
Posted by Robert Freeman at December 15th, 2008 at 2:40 pm@ricky
Have TV and radio ad volume fallen by the same amount as magazines and newspapers? I don’t think they have.
I agree with your logic, but it does not explain to me why print appears to be suffering so much more than TV and radio.
Posted by Dave Barnes at December 15th, 2008 at 4:02 pmDave,
Newspapers and magazines are both “print” medium, true, but have different sicknesses.
Newspapers’ drastic decline is due to faster news cycles that are more like 24 minutes than 24 hours. The notion of waiting on tomorrow morning’s paper for the news is almost lunacy to anyone under the age of 30. They live, work and play online.
Thus local newspaper’s can’t attract new, young readers, and circulation goes down, while average age of the reader goes up. Not a good dynamic for most advertisers. Further, the real bread and butter of newspapers is classified advertising. Again, eBay, Craigslist, and a myriad of other online marketplaces are gutting the traditional (and very, very profitable) classified ad section. Devasting one, two punch for newspapers.
Magazines, where i worked for 18 years, are a bit different b/c they cover a wide range of interests, editorially. Traditionally, some the biggest revenue producers in the magazine field were Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, People, Reader’s Digest, Parade, Business Week etc. Note many of these were weekly publications, founded on the notion of giving their readers a timely summary of the week that was, in addition to perspective on upcoming events, in addition to celebrity and or remarkable people news.
Here again, faster news cycles are the enemy and sadly, most weekly magazines don’t have an effective counter attack, other than posting much of their content free on the web, and ad supported. Again, printed magazine circulation goes down, while the cost of paper, ink, and postage continue to climb. Advertising becomes a lower revenue producer due to lower circulation.
Posted by Bill Ganon at December 15th, 2008 at 9:32 pmAnd, it’s not accountable (ROI) like online, and it’s not motion and sound (ie video) like TV.
THAT’s why the magazine jobs are going away. As a veteran of the newsweekly ad sales wars for 14 years, it pains me deeply, yet, the business forces are in place, and I fear the decline will only get worse.