Gilbane Publishing Practice Blog

The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) self-refers as the “Gold Standard in Media Audits” and is the place to go if you want to find out current U.S. newspaper circulation figures. Unfortunately, you have to be a member — they’re not giving this sensitive information away — and so it’s difficult to get up-to-the-minute data. You can find out the “Top 200 Newspapers by Largest Reported Circulation” (http://www.accessabc.com/reader/top150.htm), but not what those circulation figures actually are, and how they’re trending.

But the ongoing decline in newspaper circulation in North America is not a well-kept secret, and if the ABC won’t spill the beans, others will.

According to a February article in Media Life Magazine, “in the U.S., the circulation of paid-for papers dropped 4 percent from 2001 to 2005, hitting 53.3 million. It also dropped 2.3 percent in 2005 compared to the year earlier.”

A May 2005 article in The Washington Post reported that “circulation at 814 of the nation’s largest daily newspapers declined 1.9 percent over the six months ended March 31 compared with the same period last year…The decline continued a 20-year trend in the newspaper industry as people increasingly turn to other media such as the Internet and 24-hour cable news networks for information.”

In the midst of this gloom, the February 17th issue of The Economist reported that in India there are some 3000 big newspapers, and they experienced a 12.9% increase in circulation last year. Competition is fierce, and profits substantial.

The article also made reference to a key factor that may explain this bright news: Internet access is available to only 1.2% of Indians over the age of 12.

I remember years ago at a DRUPA trade show in Germany (DRUPA focuses on the printing business) meeting Naresh Khanna, the editor of Indian Printer & Publisher magazine. That year everyone was speculating about the possible impact of the Internet, but Naresh said to me: “Oh, we don’t care very much about the Internet in India. We’re just excited that we’ll soon have color pictures in our newspapers.”

Posted by Thad McIlroy at 6:13 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)
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Well, if not dead, at least dying. Via Paid Content: IDG No Longer A Print Company; Online 35 Percent Of U.S. Publishing Revenues

IDG is no longer a print media company, declares Colin Crawford, the SVP of Online at the company, in a rather revealing post on his own blog. The trade behemoth is a private company, so this insight is a helpful one.
-- The absolute dollar growth of our online revenues now exceeds the decline in our print revenues. This occurred in the US in 2006 and in Europe during the last quarter.
-- In the US, our online revenue now accounts for over 35% of our total US publishing revenues. Next year, for many brands online revenues will be greater than print revenues, if fact they already are at some of our key brand and by 2009 – about 50% of IDG’s US revenues will come from online.
-- “Going forward IDG Communications will define itself as a web centric information company complemented by expos, events and print publications.”

The metrics are compelling, don't you think?

Posted by Bill Trippe at 7:25 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)
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What is your favorite industry association, the one you find most useful?

AIIM - The Enterprise Content Management Association is pretty good. As its site says, AIIM "has been a neutral and unbiased source for helping individuals and organizations understand the challenges associated with managing documents, content, records, and business processes. AIIM is international in scope, independent, implementation-focused, and, as the representative of the entire ECM industry - including users, suppliers, and the channel - acts as the industry's intermediary.

"The AIIM community has grown to 70,000 professionals from all industries and government, over 150 countries, and all levels of management, including senior executives, line-of-business, and IT. With every organization in the world handling some type of paper or electronic content, the ECM industry will continue to grow. As the industry grows, AIIM can be counted on to provide market education, peer networking, professional development, and industry advocacy."

They put on a big trade show, they publish a magazine and lots of resource materials. I think AIIM is alright. And I can join as a "Professional Member" for $125/year.

OASIS has more to do with standards, but doesn't ignore education. I can join individually for $300.

IPA, the Association for Graphic Solutions Providers is "a community of premedia professionals within the creative, corporate, print publishing, packaging and in-plant sectors.

"IPA is a forum for peer networking and a vital source of business, technical, and management resources for graphic solutions providers. It's where the industry's leading technical managers turn for information on how to strengthen their graphics workflow competencies and increase profits. It's where business leaders turn for tools that will help them grow their business."

If I could pass myself off as a student, I could join for $30 a year, but instead pay the consultant rate of $400. It's a good group.

CM Pros, the Content Management Professionals, a timely and hard-working association appropriately affiliated with Gilbane, charges me only $100/year.

There's another association that I think does some good and interesting work. It's the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), "a trade and standards organization dedicated to the development and promotion of electronic publishing." (It's the old OEB -- Open e-Book group.)

"The work of the IDPF will foster and promote the development of electronic publishing applications and products that will benefit creators of content, makers of reading systems and consumers.

"The IDPF welcomes book, magazine, journal and newspaper publishers, booksellers, software developers, authors and other groups interested in digital reading to join our organization."

Every year in the late spring they run a one-day seminar in New York that brings you up to date on what's happening in this space. The seminar is very reasonably priced: only $89 for members. The problem is the cost of membership: the lowest price is $1,000 (except for non-profits at $650). There are no associate memberships or consultant memberships or student memberships: it's $1,000 or get out of here. Now this isn't the biggest nor most important trade group in our industry today. I don't understand why they price their membership so as to exclude interest from the industry, rather than to encourage it.

Posted by Thad McIlroy at 11:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)
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Magazines have been doing electronic publishing for a long time. Magazine articles, for example, have been in databases for at least 20 years, and some of the magazine publishers were the earliest to leverage the Web--and some with tremendous success even at the very beginning. (I was at ZDNet briefly in the 1990s when the traffic seemed to double monthly.) Yet some other magazines have been laggards, nervous perhaps about what the digital product might do to the print. Still others have developed interesting mixed models, where some content in the print ends up free on the Web while other content is available only to print subscibers. And others have developed wholly different digital products that share little more than the brand with the print product. There is no end to the potential models, and perhaps for very good reason--every audience is different and every mix of advertisers is different.

I happened on a very thoughtful discussion about magazine digital publishing models. Staci Kramer of paidContent.org moderated "a fireside chat" with Jim Spanfeller, CEO of Forbes.com and Jeff Price, President of SI.com at the SIIA conference in NYC earlier this week. The video can be watched in its entirety here; it's about 30 minutes long, and well worth your time if you are thinking about these issues.

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