Comments on: Gourmet, 86ed

By: Kirk Cheyfitz

Kirk Cheyfitz — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:54:32 +0000

As I’ve written repeatedly, to little avail, the publishing business keeps talking about charging for content and “fixing” journalism. But it isn’t journalism that’s broken, it’s traditional advertising. Just this morning, eMarketer reported on new studies that say the audience for banner ads is rapidly dwindling to nothing and no one. Yet magazines and newspapers, in print and online, refuse to re-think how they define advertising and as long as they refuse, the ads they sell will continue not to work and their ad revenue will continue to shrink. This is suicide by lack of imagination; self-immolation by refusal to change. It’d very sad. For more on this sad state of affairs and how to fix it, I submit for your consideration: http://postadvertising.com/post/2009/04/1/One-Way-To-Save-Traditional-Media.aspx

By: A bad case of unreasonable optimism « The Martin Cloake blog

A bad case of unreasonable optimism « The Martin Cloake blog — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:02:07 +0000

[...] of Gourmet, it seems, is conclusive proof that all magazines, indeed all print, is doomed. On his Buzz Machine blog, Jeff Jarvis says that while once he believed that it was not yet the time to announce the [...]

By: Martin Cloake

Martin Cloake — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:41:29 +0000

Well, we wouldn’t anyone to be “unreasonably rosy” I guess, we do like a bit of doom and gloom Some magazines will close. Others won’t. Runner’s World the magazine doesn’t have to compete with its website. They operate together, offering different things. I use the website a lot. I also like to read the magazine – it’s very handy for when I haven’t got anything to plug into or my iPhone battery is low. (I also prefer reading a print page to an iPhone screen.) If Runner’s World closes, you can thumb your nose at me, but the data and figures in this case are that it is still being produced.

Mags like RW and World Soccer have strong subscriptions bases, which enables a certain amount of forward planning and knowledge of readers’ wants. It’s why I specifically mentioned special interest mags. I also mentioned London-based RBI, a business publisher. Titles such as Flight International, Farmers Weekly and Community Care operate successful websites and print editions which complement each other. Staff on Computer Weekly say that the print edition drives people to the web, and the web drives print subs. See, complementary use of multiplatform media.

Take a magazine like the UK’s Take a Break. It still sells over a million copies a week. Its readers identify with what they see in its pages, they like to sit down with the mag and a cuppa and read it and do the puzzles. They could read the stories and do puzzles online. But they prefer the print version – not everyone is as tied to their computers as us media types. Personally, I think there is room for developing an online community around TaB – but publisher Bauer was never interested in doing this. But selling a million a week does make you think you’re doing something right.

Mags such as Grazia and heat succeeded partly because people liked to be seen with them in their handbags – a status symbol, a badge of honour and style and attitude that sitting in front of a computer surfing on your own can never give.

I could go on (and I will on my blog martincloake.wordpress.com) but the point is that too many people are generalising about the future of print. One mag has closed. Others may. It doesn’t mean mags are dead any more than the fact that the England football international is being streamed only on the internet means that television is dead.

General news in print is in trouble – that’s where instant delivery and update and multiplatform approaches really put the classic model of journalism on paper under threat. There are many other kinds of journalism and many other kinds of publication that can thrive, will thrive, and which are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I stand by my assertion that much ‘analysis’ of print’s future is merely doommongering.

By: goldia – 205th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings

goldia – 205th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 05:41:18 +0000

[...] ends tomorrow…..Anything for your princess bouji & nouna Review and Giveaway ends …Gourmet, 86ed « BuzzMachineJeff Jarvis says: Shocking news this morning thatGourmet, the Talmud of food, is closing – less [...]

By: goldia – 203th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings

goldia – 203th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:29:27 +0000

By: goldia – 202th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings

goldia – 202th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:20:47 +0000

By: goldia – 201th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings

goldia – 201th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:19:15 +0000

By: Rex Hammock

Rex Hammock — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:16:02 +0000

Let’s just say, I will agreeably disagree with you on this one.

Couldn’t agree more with you that magazines like the ones you worked on will die.

But I’m working on more magazine launches — for clients — than ever before.

Granted, my corner of the magazine world is all about using multiple forms of media focused on the passions people have for a specific cause, interest or product.

The magazines I produce don’t fit neatly in the “magazine business model” rather, they are supporting other business models (donations, memberships, event attendance fees).

Narrow niches. Not advertising supported. Audiences of passionate customers.

Magazines are the only “push” medium left that people actually look forward to.

Rex

By: goldia – 200th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings

goldia – 200th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:08:54 +0000

By: goldia – 199th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings

goldia – 199th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:07:33 +0000

By: goldia – 198th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings

goldia – 198th Edition « Diamond Engagement Rings — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:58:05 +0000

[...] held as local and international politicians and celebrities get turned into frightfully lifelike.Gourmet, 86ed « BuzzMachineJeff Jarvis says: Shocking news this morning thatGourmet, the Talmud of food, is closing – less [...]

By: Narain Jashanmal

Narain Jashanmal — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:26:05 +0000

Am presently attending the Distripress Conference in Phoenix, AZ. Was at a forum session yesterday given by Samir “Mr. Magazine” Hosni that touched on this very topic. He presented the flip side of the argument and cited a statistic that 71 new magazines launched in the USA in September 09 alone. The underlying thesis to his presentation was that magazine publishers have killed themselves by being first hooked on selling cheap subs to essentially buy circ to prop up their rate-base to justify expensive rate cards and that they’ve subsequently further buried themselves by giving away their content for free online.

He cited Monocle as an example of recently launched (2 years ago, anyway) magazine that has successfully built a very healthy circ revenue stream, that charges a premium over for subs and is building a strong portfolio of revenue generating brand extensions (shops, podcasts, limited edition products).

Overall he’s in favor of such ventures and if more are on the way he’s pretty bullish about the future of print.

By: Mike_Hartley

Mike_Hartley — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:40:35 +0000

I’m sure the first printing press didn’t turn out a great print magazine. I’m sure Apple will provide a decent solution, good for us, not so hot for the print publishers (as they did for music publishers). Vogue readers will love it. The internet is more fashionable than fashion itself right now. Let’s just hope the people at Condé realize that!

By: Bob Wyman

Bob Wyman — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:15:22 +0000

What about books? When will their time come? or, will it?

By: Patrick Thornton

Patrick Thornton — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:02:01 +0000

Do you have data and figures to back this up? I suspect your being unreasonably rosy about these special interests mags. Magazines are in for a world of hurt that I think will be worse than what has happened to newspapers.

How the heck will Runner’s World the magazine compete with a multimedia Web site? A Web site that may even allow runners to log their times and distances every day and compare those to runners around the world?

By: Patrick Thornton

Patrick Thornton — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:59:15 +0000

I’m a journalist — one who has been printed in many newspapers — and even I don’t yearn to read a print copy of a newspaper every day. Occasionally is fine; The Sunday paper still works for me but daily? That would be a massive waste.

By: Martin Cloake

Martin Cloake — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:00:06 +0000

“The magazine is not dead, the format will live on. Its publication medium, print, is dieing. There is no reason a website cannot create the same brand value for an advertiser as print does.”

Get 20 Vogue magazine readers. Sit them in a room. Tell them they will no longer get their monthly fix of glossy luxury, and they’ll have to make do with the (very good) website instead. Then let’s have a conversation about the quote above

By: Rosenblum

Rosenblum — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:13:09 +0000

First they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communists….

TV is next. Stand by…

By: Martin Cloake

Martin Cloake — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 06:51:57 +0000

Beware of drawing the general from the specific. It’s very sad about the closure, but there are still plenty of special interest mags that are doing well enough to keep going. Two I read are Runner’s World and World Soccer. There are also a wealth of trade magazines that serve specific sectors very well, and which in some cases are combining healthily with online offerings to offer something new and and better. Take a look at RBI’s stable for example.
Gourmet’s closure is sad, but what it means is that Conde Nast has closed it. There are other specialist food mags, other mags, and print is still going to be around for a while yet. I’m not advocating complacency or saying times are not hard, but we really can be very pessimistic as a trade sometimes.
And as for magazines becoming an anachronism the fashion journalism students at the college where I teach in London who have just started a magazine society may beg to differ. But what do they know, eh?

By: WatchMojo.com blogs - Digital Media Atomizes Publishing and Production

WatchMojo.com blogs - Digital Media Atomizes Publishing and Production — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:19:04 +0000

[...] Read more. [...]

By: Bob Wyman

Bob Wyman — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:15:55 +0000

I was intrigued to read in the New York Times about the synergy between Curbed.com and The Village Voice. Apparently, Curbed provides content to the Village Voice but also leverages their ad sales network to get ads placed on the Curbed site. This is a good thing. The Village Voice gets useful content and expands the breadth of the product that their ad sales folk have to offer while Curbed gets easier access to revenues.

See: http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/a-partnership-between-old-and-new-media/

bob wyman

By: Davos Newbies » Blog Archive » The death of magazines

Davos Newbies » Blog Archive » The death of magazines — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:59:11 +0000

[...] most of my professional life, I worked on magazines. So when knowledgeable observers who I respect sound the death knell for magazines, I find it sad. Jeff Jarvis writes, “What’s the point of emotions? It’s [...]

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:43:54 +0000

Parade gets only (junky) direct-response ads, not branding ads. Newspaper distribution is falling and untargeted and would be of no real value to a Gourmet or its advertisers (too many Jell-O salad readers).

By: Bob Wyman

Bob Wyman — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:03:40 +0000

Tell me… Why can’t Gourmet and *Bride recast themselves as the food and bridal sections of several hundred newspapers and monetize by mixing national advertising with local ads sold by the newspaper ad staff? Papers have used Parade as an insert for decades… Why not “insert” Gourmet and *Bride in their websites?

bob wyman

By: jaden

jaden — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:47:44 +0000

I love magazines. Books are too long, req’ too much commitment, but magazines are designed for people with short attention spans and little snippets of time. Every month, when Gourmet arrives, I immediately place it in my computer bag, saving it for that month’s upcoming travel. It’s the only thing I looked forward to during the flight! Oh, I’ll miss Gourmet!