BoSacks Speaks Out: Google Offers Digitized Magazines

BoSacks Speaks Out: I have long held the theory and prophesized in this newsletter and elsewhere, that digital magazines will save our industry. Aggregated data and web sites are not the solution to our woes; paginated performance and delivery is. If there is a future for magazine publishers and you have a part in it, it is that simple.

There are many companies that provide digital magazines today and there might be many more on the horizon. Some will make the test of time and prosper and others will not. But those that survive will be part of our new infrastructure for a long time to come. In magazine geologic time, we are finally minutes away from the right-reading, easy-to-use digital substrate. When that happens, the brilliance of the digital magazine format will become clear to dullest of luddites. The magazine industry needs to be working on competent easy-to-read digital editions now that are built for the substrate that they live in.
There are good digital editions and there are terrible digital editions out there right now. The publishers that have retooled their content and designed their product for ease of use and ease of the reading experience are doing quite well.

One of the best examples that I know of is VIV magazine. They are pioneering the non-zoom-in digital edition. If you haven't seen it, please check it out. Look at the ads, look at the edit and look at the amazingly pleasant reading experience. Any topic can be covered this way. This just happens to be woman's fashion. Popular Science has done the same thing with their Popular Science Genius edition.

In the article below you see that Google is getting onto the digital magazine space. We had best as publishers prepare our own editions of paginated media before someone else takes that space away from us. If we don't do our best to absolutely own that turf, someone else will.
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Reaganhttp://www.observer.com/2009/media/google-books-whacky-magazine-archives
Google Books has just launched a digitized magazine stand. In their never-ending quest to archive all media, from Web sites to books, Google is taking on the publishing world and scanning entire issues of magazines, ads and all. Most issues are usually two or three years old--or even a few decades old. It's kind of like heading into your parents' attic and checking out all the yellowingLIFE issues--only online.

Jeffrey Pang, a software engineer at Google Books, built the new feature. He kept getting requests from friends and family to allow them to browse all the magazines available on Google Books. Before, they had to search for them individually. "Someone even created a Facebook group called Get Google Magazine Search to provide a list of indexed titles," he wrote on the Google Book's official blog yesterday. "The group has 45 members and growing, so before it reached millions of members and there were protests in front of my house, I decided that I better act fast."

Users can browse magazine covers or look at an alphabetical list of titles. There's also links on some issues' tables of contents, so users can go directly to specific articles.

Google announced last September that they would add more magazine archives and current magazines online. As they wrote on their blog, if someone searched for "hank aaron pursuing babe ruth's record" on Google Books, they'd find a link to a 1973 Ebony article about Hank Aaron, written as he closed in on Babe Ruth's original record for career home runs. You can read the article in full color and in its original context, just as you would in the printed magazine. "Explore other publications, like Popular Science, New York Magazine, or (for you physics enthusiasts) the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, to rediscover historical interviews, do-it-yourself articles, and even a piece on canine eyewear. In many cases, these magazines aren't just history as history, but history as perspective - a way of understanding today."

There's plenty to click through, but here are a few titles and issues we suggest you check out:
Mother Jones' January/February 2000 issue - Read Ian Frazier's tribute to pay phones and how they "recall a commonality in our culture." Or Richard Dreyfuss on how Agent Orange continued to affect the Vietnamese 25 years after the U.S. originally dumped the chemical weapon on their land.

New York Magazine's Dec. 22, 1997 issue - Oh, David Denby onTitanic! MOMA's expansion, Daniel Boulud's Daniel restaurant, Ted Turner's Media Magazine are all there. And, Janeane Garofalo, Leigh Feldman, Jerry Speyer, Stephen Stondheim are featured as New Yorkers of the Year. Ah, the good ol' days.

Best Life Magazine's November 2008 issue - Mark Zimmerman's big profile of Anderson Cooper.
The Rotarian Magazine's December 2008 issue - Judith Dimentuncovers the "British Schindler." How Sir Nicholas Winton saved nearly 700 Czech children from the Nazis.

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Future of Publishing Explaine

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Future of Publishing Explained

In just the last few months, I have delivered many lectures to many groups involved with the publishing industry. I have been to Santa Fe to speak to the International Regional Magazine Assoc. and to San Diego to speak to RISI, representing the global forest products industry. I have been to Washington, DC to speak to ASBPE (American Society of Business Publication Editors). I have been to New York for the BPA and to Boulder for the MPA. And today I will be speaking at The Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference (DPAC 4) in New York City.

No matter where I go or who I talk to the essence of what everybody wants to know is the same thing - what is the future of publishing, and what is going to be my place in that future? Without all the details, my message is and has been that we are headed into the next golden age of publishing.

That being said, I wanted you to know that one of my other companies,mediaIDEAS, announced the launch of a new comprehensive report analyzing and quantifying the opportunities for e-paper e-readers over the next decade. This might sound like a plug on my part, but it isn't. What I want to do is share some of the broader insights of the report and key in on what I see are some of the opportunities of our industry.

My partner and the report's author, Nick Hampshire, stated that "E-paper e-readers will be one of the major disruptive technologies of the early 21st century." He said, "It will change the nature of publishing and related print industries forever, ushering in a host of innovative ways to present, market, and distribute content."

The report shows that since the first e-paper e-reader came onto the market in 2004, these devices, with their "green" credentials of reducing paper consumption, have already proved very popular with consumers, and the market for them is booming. By 2006, there were 3 types of devices available, by 2007, there were 5, and currently there are over 40. This number will more than double in the next twelve months. Unit sales are also booming. In 2008, 1.1 million e-paper display-based e-readers were sold. In 2010 that number will rise to about 6 million. And by 2020 global annual e-reader sales will reach 446 million units with a value of over $25 billion.

Therefore, if we can all agree that the digital universe that we now find ourselves embedded into is not going to go away, then I think we have to seriously consider what the primary reading substrate is going to be. If Nick is right in his research and there will be 6 million e-paper display-based e-readers sold in 2010, the publishing community has to stand up and take notice. We have to know and recognize that people will be reading on those platforms and they will be reading our words, thoughts, and ideas.

The questions that will obviously come to mind next are, how will we make money and what is the correct business platform? I will admit that like everybody else I am still working on the answers. I have proposed the Cable TV model of consortium publishing for a decade, and I have read that Time Inc. management is now focusing on that idea. We have all heard that Rupert Murdoch and all the newspapers are trying to develop a pay-for-copy model. I am not too certain of the success of that approach, but I am sure that people will write and people will read and that it will be a lucrative business to put the reader and the writer together.

So the platform will clearly be digital e-paper and any business model may have to follow the cart. But to think that there will be no successful business model for digital publishing is ludicrous. There are hundreds of billions of dollars for grabs in the information distribution business. I do not guarantee you a piece of the action, but I know damn well that plenty of people will do very well in the new digital age of publishing. Think fast, think courageous, and think digital.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Are More Shutdowns Expected?

BoSacks Speaks Out: Are any of you actually shocked by this news of venerable magazine closings. Is this a repeat of the bible story of Joseph and the seven years of plenty and seven years of lean? Well, we have had our years of plenty in decades of successful profitability for the magazine industry leading to what appears to be an excess saturation and duplication of our product. I think that after some introspection we as an industry will arise healthy and perhaps a bit leaner as in the biblicalallegory, but also better able to move onward and forward. These cycles are, sad to say, normal. I think when we get a chance to look back at this point in time with the perspective of history it might even be perceived as good for the industry. That is no doubt incredibly hard to take right now if you have just been laid off and your magazine has closed. But five years from now when you will be doing something else, you will look back at your career and you will have the perspective of history to help you see that all this was inevitable and, in an odd sort of way, perhaps necessary.

"A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory - and very few eyes can see the mystery of his life - a life like the scriptures- figurative" John Keats (English Romantic Poet. 1795-1821)
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Conde Nast's closure of Gourmet shakes up magazine industry

By Walter Hamilton and Russ ParsonsReporting from Los Angeles and New York

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-conde-nast6-2009oct06,0,7266456.story

The end of the venerable publication and three others underscores the swift and brutal fall of the once highflying business amid a steep drop in ad revenue. Two years ago, Conde Nast's Vogue published its biggest issue, an advertising-packed behemoth that symbolized the prosperity of New York's glittering magazine industry as it rode the twin booms in the economy and luxury spending to dramatic heights. Generous expense accounts were de rigueur at glossy fashion and lifestyle magazines. Some top editors and publishers enjoyed clothing allowances and mortgage assistance. Even lowly assistants flitted about in chauffeur-driven town cars. But that culture has been turned on its head as the magazine business reels from the battered economy, the drop in advertising revenue and restraints on expenses. Conde Nast's unexpected closure Monday of venerable Gourmet and three other magazines underscored the swift and brutal fall of what had been one of the city's most elite and free-spending industries.

The folding of Gourmet, in particular, shook up the insular magazine world. The 69-year-old arbiter of culinary taste was edited by Ruth Reichl, a bestselling author and former restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. The closure caught Reichl herself flat-footed. "Like everyone else, I found out this morning," she said. "I can't talk about it now, it's too raw. I've got to pack up my office."

Reichl elaborated in a Twitter message to readers: "Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support. It means a lot. Sorry not to be posting now, but I'm packing. We're all stunned, sad."

For Conde Nast, surviving the recession and a steep drop in ad revenue was paramount in the decision to close Gourmet, Modern Bride, Elegant Bride and Cookie magazines. "These changes, combined with cost and workforce reductions now underway throughout the company, will speed the recovery of our current businesses and enable us to pursue new ventures," Chief Executive Charles H. Townsend said. Among those new initiatives, to be detailed in the coming weeks, he said, are digital versions of the company's brands using "new devices and distribution channels."

The moves mark a new cover story: Cost cutting is suddenly in style. Publishers have closed numerous magazines this year, reduced the circulation and frequency of some publications and tossed dozens of journalists out of work. The result is a downsizing of the industry's larger-than-life character. "I don't think we'll ever see the heyday again," said Roberta Garfinkle, director for print strategy at TargetCast tcm, which buys advertising for large companies. "The business will come back as the economy starts to rebound, but certainly not to the levels it was once." The carnage at Conde Nast -- the queen bee of New York glossies with such marquee titles as Vogue, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker -- shouldn't have been a surprise given that Conde had two food magazines and three bridal titles.

There had been rumors that Gourmet might be in the cross hairs because Conde Nast also owns its chief competitor, Bon Appetit, based in Los Angeles. Bon Appetit has more readers than Gourmet, 1.3 million to 950,000, Conde Nast said. Gourmet also had a reputation for being expensive to publish, with long features by well-known writers. Bon Appetit was focused on recipe-driven content.

The industry contraction is being driven by the plunge in ad pages -- the lifeblood of the industry. Ad pages have slumped 22% industrywide this year, and some publications have suffered far worse, according to Media Industry Newsletter. Vogue is off 33%, Architectural Digest is down 49%, and Esquire has fallen 27%. At Conde Nast's two food publications, Gourmet saw a 46.9% drop in ad revenue and a 50% decline in ad pages in the second quarter from last year's April-June period, while Bon Appetit's revenue fell 36% and ad pages declined 40%, according to Publishers Information Bureau.

It's unclear whether the drop in advertising has hit bottom, but throughout the industry employees and experts are bracing for more job cuts. "There is fear everywhere," said Samir Husni, who heads the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi. "Fear of losing jobs, fear of losing entire magazines." The culture and spending at BusinessWeek are far more subdued than at Conde Nast's glamour magazines, but employees' fear for their jobs is palpable. Owner McGraw-Hill Cos. put the well-regarded but money-losing magazine on the block over the summer, and its writers, well-versed in chronicling corporate America's downsizing, expect deep cuts regardless of who buys the magazine. "There's a sense of the inevitable," said one employee who did not want to be identified for fear of antagonizing bosses. "However this shakes out, a lot of people are going to be out of work."

The cutbacks carry a particular sting at Conde Nast because of the company's famous spending habits and the imperious manners of some top editors. The main character in the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" was a thinly veiled knockoff of Vogue editor Anna Wintour. And prized editors and publishers are as recognizable for their appearances at the trendiest restaurants and fanciest parties as for the stewardship of their publications. Conde Nast had hired management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. to review its operations, and McKinsey recommended roughly 25% budget cuts at some magazines.

More temperate spending has been showing up in ways large and small. At last month's Fashion Week in New York, a must-be-seen event for the glitterati of New York glamour magazines, some Vogue editors hailed cabs rather than hopping into waiting town cars as in years past, according to one observer. That's a far cry from the 1999 launch party for Talk magazine -- a flashy but short-lived publication headed by celebrity editor Tina Brown and bankrolled by a joint venture of Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Magazines. It was an extravagant affair for 800 guests at the Statue of Liberty. "It was one hell of a party," Garfinkle recalled. "You don't see that anymore."

Are any of you actually shocked by this news of venerable magazine closings. Is this a repeat of the bible story of Joseph and the seven years of plenty and seven years of lean? Well, we have had our years of plenty in decades of successful profitability for the magazine industry leading to what appears to be an excess saturation and duplication of our product. I think that after some introspection we as an industry will arise healthy and perhaps a bit leaner as in the biblicalallegory, but also better able to move onward and forward. These cycles are, sad to say, normal.

I think when we get a chance to look back at this point in time with the perspective of history it might even be perceived as good for the industry. That is no doubt incredibly hard to take right now if you have just been laid off and your magazine has closed. But five years from now when you will be doing something else, you will look back at your career and you will have the perspective of history to help you see that all this was inevitable and, in an odd sort of way, perhaps necessary.

"A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory - and very few eyes can see the mystery of his life - a life like the scriptures- figurative" John Keats (English Romantic Poet. 1795-1821)
Conde Nast's closure of Gourmet shakes up magazine industryBy Walter Hamilton and Russ ParsonsReporting from Los Angeles and New Yorkhttp://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-conde-nast6-2009oct06,0,7266456.story The end of the venerable publication and three others underscores the swift and brutal fall of the once highflying business amid a steep drop in ad revenue. Two years ago, Conde Nast's Vogue published its biggest issue, an advertising-packed behemoth that symbolized the prosperity of New York's glittering magazine industry as it rode the twin booms in the economy and luxury spending to dramatic heights. Generous expense accounts were de rigueur at glossy fashion and lifestyle magazines. Some top editors and publishers enjoyed clothing allowances and mortgage assistance. Even lowly assistants flitted about in chauffeur-driven town cars. But that culture has been turned on its head as the magazine business reels from the battered economy, the drop in advertising revenue and restraints on expenses.

Conde Nast's unexpected closure Monday of venerable Gourmet and three other magazines underscored the swift and brutal fall of what had been one of the city's most elite and free-spending industries. The folding of Gourmet, in particular, shook up the insular magazine world. The 69-year-old arbiter of culinary taste was edited by Ruth Reichl, a bestselling author and former restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. The closure caught Reichl herself flat-footed. "Like everyone else, I found out this morning," she said. "I can't talk about it now, it's too raw. I've got to pack up my office." Reichl elaborated in a Twitter message to readers: "Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support. It means a lot. Sorry not to be posting now, but I'm packing. We're all stunned, sad."

For Conde Nast, surviving the recession and a steep drop in ad revenue was paramount in the decision to close Gourmet, Modern Bride, Elegant Bride and Cookie magazines. "These changes, combined with cost and workforce reductions now underway throughout the company, will speed the recovery of our current businesses and enable us to pursue new ventures," Chief Executive Charles H. Townsend said. Among those new initiatives, to be detailed in the coming weeks, he said, are digital versions of the company's brands using "new devices and distribution channels."

The moves mark a new cover story: Cost cutting is suddenly in style. Publishers have closed numerous magazines this year, reduced the circulation and frequency of some publications and tossed dozens of journalists out of work. The result is a downsizing of the industry's larger-than-life character. "I don't think we'll ever see the heyday again," said Roberta Garfinkle, director for print strategy at TargetCast tcm, which buys advertising for large companies. "The business will come back as the economy starts to rebound, but certainly not to the levels it was once." The carnage at Conde Nast -- the queen bee of New York glossies with such marquee titles as Vogue, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker -- shouldn't have been a surprise given that Conde had two food magazines and three bridal titles. There had been rumors that Gourmet might be in the cross hairs because Conde Nast also owns its chief competitor, Bon Appetit, based in Los Angeles. Bon Appetit has more readers than Gourmet, 1.3 million to 950,000, Conde Nast said. Gourmet also had a reputation for being expensive to publish, with long features by well-known writers. Bon Appetit was focused on recipe-driven content. The industry contraction is being driven by the plunge in ad pages -- the lifeblood of the industry. Ad pages have slumped 22% industrywide this year, and some publications have suffered far worse, according to Media Industry Newsletter.

Vogue is off 33%, Architectural Digest is down 49%, and Esquire has fallen 27%. At Conde Nast's two food publications, Gourmet saw a 46.9% drop in ad revenue and a 50% decline in ad pages in the second quarter from last year's April-June period, while Bon Appetit's revenue fell 36% and ad pages declined 40%, according to Publishers Information Bureau. It's unclear whether the drop in advertising has hit bottom, but throughout the industry employees and experts are bracing for more job cuts. "There is fear everywhere," said Samir Husni, who heads the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi. "Fear of losing jobs, fear of losing entire magazines." The culture and spending at BusinessWeek are far more subdued than at Conde Nast's glamour magazines, but employees' fear for their jobs is palpable. Owner McGraw-Hill Cos. put the well-regarded but money-losing magazine on the block over the summer, and its writers, well-versed in chronicling corporate America's downsizing, expect deep cuts regardless of who buys the magazine. "There's a sense of the inevitable," said one employee who did not want to be identified for fear of antagonizing bosses. "However this shakes out, a lot of people are going to be out of work."

The cutbacks carry a particular sting at Conde Nast because of the company's famous spending habits and the imperious manners of some top editors. The main character in the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" was a thinly veiled knockoff of Vogue editor Anna Wintour. And prized editors and publishers are as recognizable for their appearances at the trendiest restaurants and fanciest parties as for the stewardship of their publications. Conde Nast had hired management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. to review its operations, and McKinsey recommended roughly 25% budget cuts at some magazines. More temperate spending has been showing up in ways large and small.

At last month's Fashion Week in New York, a must-be-seen event for the glitterati of New York glamour magazines, some Vogue editors hailed cabs rather than hopping into waiting town cars as in years past, according to one observer. That's a far cry from the 1999 launch party for Talk magazine -- a flashy but short-lived publication headed by celebrity editor Tina Brown and bankrolled by a joint venture of Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Magazines. It was an extravagant affair for 800 guests at the Statue of Liberty. "It was one hell of a party," Garfinkle recalled. "You don't see that anymore."

BoSacks Speaks Out: New 'Pay As You Go' Online Magazine Sub Service

BoSacks Speaks Out: New 'Pay As You Go' Online Magazine Sub Service

Sometimes I just sit in total wonder about our industry, and ponder how, if ever, are we ever going to get to the promised land? Here is an interesting idea by Contrix. If I understand this "new" service correctly, the intention in this digital age is to slow down the digital process, ignore the successful Amazon model and have new subscribers, pay two months in advance to wait like our grandparents did for about six to eight weeks to get their new printed magazines. Yes, I think that makes sense, don't you?

I also find it interesting that Contrix explains that they got the idea from Netflix. I'm OK with that, but perhaps they never actually joined Netflix. In most cases you get the damn movie the next day, not in six to eight weeks.

Both Maghound and MAGpass have the magic publishing formula only half right. The monthly format in the cable TV model for payments is spot on. The delivery system offered is not only counterproductive to success, it is an ancient formula that completely misses the expectation levels of today's consumers.

To add to that Contrix is offering no chance to experiment with multiple titles and is locking in clients to a full year subscription. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. This is a 20th century analog execution in a 21st digital world. I wish them the very best of luck, as I believe they will need it.

This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.... There is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "The Merry Wives of Windsor", Act 5 scene 1

Contrix Inc. to Launch ‘Pay As You Go’ Online Magazine Sub Service
MAGpass will allow users to subscribe to hundreds of consumer magazines and pay a monthly fee.
By Chandra Johnson-Greene
http://www.audiencedevelopment.com/2009/contrix+inc+launch+%E2%80%98pay+you+go%E2%80%99+online+magazine+sub+service


Interactive marketing agency Contrix Inc., which operates magazine subscription Web site Magazine-Agent.com, recently announced that it will launch a new online magazine subscription service within the next few weeks called MAGpass, which will allow users to subscribe to hundreds of consumer magazines on a “pay as you go” basis.

Like Time Inc.’s Maghound service, which launched last year, MAGpass will allow registered users to browse and order multiple magazine titles from different publishers and pay one monthly fee. That is, however, where the similarity ends.

While Maghound’s titles are sold on tiered pricing levels and users are encouraged to swap titles whenever they like, MAGpass users will be locked into a one-year subscription rate (authorized by the publisher) that will be divided into 12 monthly payments. Customers can cancel their subscription at any time. At the time of renewal, the customer will lock in the next year at the current rate of the magazine listed on the Web site.

MAGpass sales will be classified with ABC as “individual net paid” subscriptions, while Maghound’s sales are classified as “single copy sales.” MAGpass and its partner publishers will retain co-ownership of subscriber names and addresses.

According to president/CEO Reha Kocatas, the idea for the MAGpass service came up in 2003, when the company was trying to find a way to get continuous service subscriptions to work online. “In the online space, price jacking is a problem,” he told AD. “A customer would order a subscription through a credit card program and then go online and find that the same subscription was being sold for less. Explaining how subscriptions are priced was futile. It was causing too many customer service issues.”

Inspired by the growing popularity of online movie rental service Netflix, Kocatas said he wanted to come up with a service that would bring magazine subscriptions more in line with other “pay as you go” services such as cable and cell phone. “The average Magazine-Agent.com customer buys 2.3 magazines a year,” he said. “If their yearly bill for those subscriptions is $46 and then a year from now they get a bill for $100, there’s an incentive for them to cancel. But by spreading those payments over a course of a year, the price is so negligible, that they won’t want to cancel.”

And unlike Maghound, which processes orders through its own fulfillment system, subscriptions sold through MAGpass will be processed through each individual publisher’s fulfillment center, therefore, users will not be given an actual date of when their first issue will arrive. Because of that, according to Kocatas, the company decided to have users pay for the first two months of the subscription up front. “It wouldn’t be good if we billed them today and then again 30 days from now and they haven’t received they first issue yet,” he says. “We want them to be in the fulfillment flow by the time they’re hit with the second charge.”

Kocatas declined to say how many publishers have signed up so far to have their titles sold on MAGpass.com, but he says that the goal is have 200+ magazines available by launch time, which should be “within the next two weeks.”

He added that there are no plans to shut down Magazine-Agent.com, but that MAGpass will serve as a compliment to the site and there will be cross-marketing between the two. “We expect that MAGpass users will skew much younger than Magazine-Agent.com,” he said.

Ad Spending Confidence Rebounds, Improves For Most Major Media

Ad Spending Confidence Rebounds, Improves For Most Major Media
by Joe Mandese
http://www.mediapost.com/
Economic pessimism among marketers and agency media buyers appears to have bottomed out last spring and their ad spending plans are trending upward for most major media, according to the most recent data from an every-other-monthly tracking report surveying the "advertising confidence" of key media decision-makers.

The latest Advertiser Optimism Report, being released this week by Advertiser Perceptions Inc., shows plans are improving for every medium except for local newspapers, and that digital media such as online and mobile advertising are indexing well on the optimistic side of advertising spending plans. Cable TV and outdoor media also are improving and now have more media decision makers planning to boost their budgets than to decrease them over the next six months, and while broadcast TV, radio, magazines and national newspapers all are still negative on balance, they are also all improving from low confidence points earlier this year.

"Leading the way are marketers, who are more optimistic than their agencies," says Ken Pearl, a partner in API, which began tracking ad spending confidence levels bi-monthly this year following news of the U.S. economic recession last fall. API historically conducts big semi-annual surveys tracking the perceptions of advertisers and agency media buyers about the major media, including their confidence levels, but opted to conduct the confidence tracking more frequently this year to monitor an inflection point in the advertising economy.

That appeared to be the case in API's last optimism survey, conducted last spring, which showed little or no erosion from a survey conducted in February. At that point, Pearl surmised that advertising "pessimism" had "bottomed out," but said further tracking would be necessary before concluding that advertising economy was staging a turnaround. The most recent survey, which is based on the responses of more than 200 media decision makers over the past several weeks, indicates that their plans for most major media are once again ascending, especially among marketers who seem slightly more optimistic than their agency counterparts.

The Internet is not Free

By Bob Sacks


There was an article posted by Jon Fine of Businessweek , titled “Barry Diller And I Don't Agree About Charging For Online Content” . This article, as you might expect, got me all riled up. I am so very sick of this false discussion.

Can we please just start at the beginning?

The Internet is not free. Depending upon your own special addiction, you pay a hefty fee for entrance alone to the World Wide Web. I pay between all my devices at the very least $300.00 a month. My guess is if I truly added it up, I would be shocked and it would probably much more. I choose sanity and I don't really want to know how much this free information is costing me. So I don't want to do the math. Where exactly do you define that as free?

Oh, you mean after I pay at the gate for entrance into the park, I have to buy tickets for each individual ride. Disney used to be that way in years past and they changed the policy and they ain't going back.

If we as publishers are to make a fair profit, it will be as some sort of consortium deal just like cable TV. Do we pay micro-payments to watch the shows we watch after paying the cable fee? Hell, no! We pay up front for anything we feel like watching at any given time. That is the simple answer.

So I am asking Jon Fine who wrote this article, to send this note to Barry Diller and get it done already. The rest of the discussion is just ridiculous. If we don't get it up front we aren't likely to get it at all.

Making Old Media New Again - Give Readers Insight into Tomorrow

Making Old Media New Again - Give Readers Insight into Tomorrow
By L. GORDON CROVITZ
It's make-or-break time for many newspapers. Denver and Seattle recently lost dailies, the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times are both in bankruptcy, and owners of the Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle threaten closure. One reader mourned the loss of her local newspaper in Connecticut by lamenting that she had gone from living in a city to living off just another exit on Interstate 95. As comedian Stephen Colbert put it last week, "The impending death of the newspaper industry: Where will they print the obituary?"

Creative destruction is blowing hard through the news industry, as digital technology gives readers access to endless sources of news but undermines the ability of publishers to support news departments. City newspapers are no longer the dominant way people get news or the main way advertisers reach consumers. The recession is accelerating these trends, with advertising so soft even Web-only news operations, which don't have the legacy costs of print, are now struggling to support journalism.

As the remaining city newspapers rethink themselves, editors and publishers might consult a road map for how newspapers can live alongside new media that was drawn up more than 50 years ago by Bernard Kilgore, outlined in a new biography by former Journal executive Richard Tofel, "Restless Genius: Barney Kilgore, The Wall Street Journal and the Invention of Modern Journalism."

Kilgore had remarkable judgment early about the journalistic issue of our day: how readers use old media, new media and both. When Kilgore became managing editor of the Journal in 1941, he inherited a business model that technology had undermined. Founded in 1889 to provide market news and stock prices to individual investors, the Journal lost half its circulation as this basic information became widely available.

Kilgore observed that then new media such as radio meant market news was available in real time. Some cities had a dozen newspapers that had gained the Journal's once-valuable ability to report share prices.

The Journal had to change. Technology increasingly meant readers would know the basic facts of news as it happened. He announced, "It doesn't have to have happened yesterday to be news," and said that people were more interested in what would happen tomorrow. He crafted the front page "What's News -- " column to summarize what had happened, but focused on explaining what the news meant.

On the morning after Pearl Harbor, other newspapers recounted the facts already known to all the day before through radio. The Journal's page-one story instead began, "War with Japan means industrial revolution in the United States." It outlined the implications for the economy, industry and commodity and financial markets.

Kilgore led the Journal's circulation to one million by the 1960s from 33,000 in the 1940s by adapting the newspaper to a role reflecting how people used different media for news. His rallying cry was, "The easiest thing in the world for a reader to do is to stop reading."

Business and financial news is different from the general news focus of city newspapers, but in 1958 the owners of the New York Herald Tribune approached Kilgore for help. Mr. Tofel uncovered a five-page memo Kilgore wrote them on how to keep city newspapers essential to readers. The Herald Tribune, he wrote, is "too much a newspaper that might be published in Philadelphia, Washington or Chicago just as readily as in metropolitan New York." Kilgore urged the "compact model newspaper." Readers valued their time, so the newspaper should have just one section, with larger editions on Sunday when people had more time to read.

His advice was clearly ahead of its time. The owners didn't heed it, and the Herald Tribune went out of business in 1967. But his observations on what readers want from city newspapers may be even more true in today's online world. Readers increasingly know yesterday what happened yesterday through Web sites, television and news alerts.

"Kilgore's first critical finding," Mr. Tofel wrote, was "that readers seek insight into tomorrow even more than an account of yesterday." This "may only now be getting through to many editors and publishers." Indeed, at a time when print readership is declining, The Economist, with its weekly focus on interpretation, is gaining circulation. The Journal continues to focus on what readers need, growing the number of individuals paying for the newspaper and the Web site.

If readers would prefer more-compact city newspapers, a less-is-more approach could help cut newsprint, printing, distribution and other costs that don't add to the journalism. Newspaper editors could craft a new, forward-looking role for print, alongside the what's-happening-right-now focus of digital news.

There's a lot of experimentation by editors around the country to find out what people want from their print and online news. For city newspapers on the brink, the Barney Kilgore approach might deliver some badly needed good news.

See BoSacks Speaking Out for Free:

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)

See BoSacks Speaking Out for Free:
I have been postulating and pontificating in this Newsletter for years, but I rarely mention to you that you can sometimes see me venting live. I have been delivering lectures on the future of publishing for more than 15 years. My presentation is never the same, because I rewrite it and update it on an almost daily basis from the pages of this publication and from my other publishing research company Media-Ideas.

The talk that I plan to deliver at the Publishing Business Conference, March 23-25, 2009 at the NY Marriott Marquis, simply put, is my best work ever. Really. It is detailed, informative provocative and, believe it or not, fun. It might even help you keep your job or perhaps give you the perspective to seek and get a new one.

What I did, in cooperation with Publishing Executive magazine, is make arrangements for my readers to be able to see my lecture totally for free. There are two ways this can happen. One is a discount code that will give you FREE access to any two sessions (plus the Keynote sessions that are open to everyone); the other will give you access to the entire conference at half price. Just for fun, and because one day I clearly had too much time on my hands, I've made this short video for your enjoyment. Click here

Here are the details to register to see me for FREE and get access to the conference Keynote sessions, an Expo Pass, plus 2 free Sessions. Click here and use the discount code: BOSACKS195
-- OR --
Attend the FULL CONFERENCE for half price: (pay only $437.50) with Discount Code: BOSACKS200.

I will be speaking at 2 sessions:
· The Digital Future of Publishing: Are You Prepared?
Monday, March 23, 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM

· Steering Your Company Through the Transformative Shift in the Media Industry
Tuesday, March 24, 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM
(NOTE: This is the Keynote Panel)

As an added FREE bonus, you're also invited to attend:
· Digital Magazine Symposium
Tuesday, March 24, 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM

MORE INFO: http://www.PublishingBusiness.com

REGISTER : http://publishingbusiness.cvent.com/event/register

The Key to Publishing's Survival

The Key to Publishing's Survival
Bob Sacks www.bosacks.com

The key to survival in the near and far future is for everyone in the publishing business to embrace everything digital. That doesn't mean you should stop printing magazines, but it does mean that if you aren't comfortable in the digital world you won't/can't survive. It is that simple.


All publishing leaders must jump in with both feet, learn the new languages, join Facebook, have at least 3 e-mail addresses, and get a Twitter page. If your kids speak the digital language and you don't, how can you possibly lead your flagship publication or publishing association into the new world? The answer clearly is that you cannot. If you are fearful of the Web's Second Life or worse, don't know what that is, then you can't have one.


To survive you must embrace digital technology like there's no tomorrow, because if you don't, there won't be. No one should be spared this digital education. Let me repeat that so we are on the same page: No one can be spared this digital education. That includes everyone from the mail room to the executive boards. I mean the leadership of MPA to the ABC. I am including the membership of the PBAA, GCA, PIA and the AARP. If you can't upload a video file and are not subscribed to several RSS feeds, you should be fired. If you can't convert a word docx file to a PDF, you are history. If you can't do the voodoo, you sure as hell shouldn't/can't manage those that do.


The rate of change in digital technologies is accelerating at an inhuman pace. If you don’t use it and aren't comfortable living in it, you can’t understand the importance of adapting your flagship for the times ahead, and you won’t be able to stay on the curve, let alone ahead of it.

I have recently come to believe that too much of our leadership is either incapable or too fearful to understand the true future of publishing. I think that we have limitless opportunities before us - the chance to reach more people and more advertisers instantly and more efficiently than ever before.

It is ok to love and respect our past and yet be prepared for the prosperous adventures ahead of us in the new world. There are 4 billion people connected to the web right now. That number will only grow. This should make any publisher salivate with here-to-fore undreamt of possibilities.

The question is who is going to lead you there. The old adage has never been truer: lead, follow or get out of the way. You have no other option

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Terrible Burden of Destiny

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Terrible Burden of Destiny
6 guidelines publishers need to consider while pondering their futures.
By Bob Sacks

As we move forward in this economic recession, it is important to remember that while some processes may be slowed, others will continue to fling us forward and create both unexpected opportunities and, depending on your perspective, unfortunate struggles to simply survive. We are faced with, some might say, "the terrible burden of a digital destiny." As an industry, we will adjust and adapt to the conditions at hand, not necessarily because we want to, but because we must.

The following is a series of guidelines or propositions that we must be aware of and be prepared to deal with as we move forward.

1. Advancements by the digital universe will never retreat, and will only improve and become more ubiquitous.
Digital publishing will continue to become a stronger platform that is easier and easier to use. The print-only world has not been able to hold its own, nor will it be able to do so against such formidable odds. If you can't accept this as a truthful premise, you will continue to struggle with your own destiny.

2. Our competition has been totally redefined.
While our publishing competitors used to be easy to identify, today almost any company, group or individual can become a future competitor. New technologies empower this and enable it to be done anywhere on the planet. There is a new and increasingly lower threshold of entry, which means new competitors are in abundance. They can come from anywhere and will come from well below the radar screen. They will be online, global, fast-moving and smart.

3. Content remains important.
A critical concept to understand is that content is more important than the delivery vehicle. This is a new concept for publishers rooted in tree fibers. The digital delivery of news, information, instruction or fiction has just as much validity as pulp-delivered products, and in many cases it has more creditability-the creditability to be timely and immediately fact-checked for accuracy.

4. New revenue models are required.
The new technologies of information distribution offer endless options to reach a world full of future customers. The shipping cost to reach this global market is exactly the same as it is to reach the girl next door. This empowers a style of publishing that I call "universal niche"-an idea, concept or hobby enjoyed by a few on a global basis. Basically, the scale of the available readership redefines small as big.

5. Our audience will increasingly demand to be treated as individuals.
Despite the growing trend of individualism in society, mass media continues to offer the same message to everybody while new media opportunities have the power to offer individual content based on our uniqueness rather than our sameness. This concept combines very nicely with the power of citizen journalism. The "screenager" generation wants to be involved and take part in news reporting. They have grown into a generation that has the ability to be in touch with each other immediately at earlier and earlier ages. This from-birth experience is fostering a new generation of readers who are naturally adept with technology and comfortable with having virtual access to friends, family and the world at large.

6. Advertisers will demand accountability more than ever.
Advertisers increasingly want to reach their customers directly. They want a one-to-one relationship that heretofore was not possible.

Today, that kind of science is not only possible, but perhaps mandatory as a part of doing business. Simply put, digital media offers improved measures of success. Digital publishing has an increasingly important advantage of being able to measure the impact of advertisements, clicks, transactions, etc. As the economy goes through the current parabolic curve of dipping south, flattening out and then starting the climb to profitability again, publishers need to adapt to the inherent changes before them.

Will publishing survive? Definitively yes. Will it survive with the old-school business models of our fathers? Categorically no. Every aspect of publishing has to be reevaluated and reexamined against the digital criteria outlined above and be reconstituted as an advanced publishing formula for the 21st century. It is never going to be the way it was, and sure as the sky is blue, it is not going to be the way it is. Your future is in your hands.

Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a printing/publishing industry consultant and president of The Precision Media Group (BoSacks.com). He is also the co-founder of the research company Media-Ideas (Media-Ideas.net), and publisher and editor of a daily international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web. Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, circulator and almost every other job this industry has to offer.