A forum for the print and
digital publishing industries

• Meredith Sells Time Magazine to Salesforce Founder for $190 Million

After months of searching, Meredith Corporation has finally found a proper suitor for Time magazine.
On Sunday, September 16, the company announced it has sold the legacy brand it acquired in January this year for $190 million in cash to Marc and Lynne Benioff.

• Paywalls, Subscriptions and Memberships Success Plan

I often speak about how to magically transform your content and audience into digital membership revenue. At the end of the talks, the most frequent question I get is “what is the difference between a paywall (or subscription) and a membership?

• Apple Event 2018: Misadventure, misdirection, and what publishers need to know

“A sense of magic.” “Works like magic.” “Magic” was an oft-repeated part of Apple founder Steve Jobs’ vocabulary. Something he professed to believe was a fundamental aspect of what his company stood for.

• A new Snapchat feature lets publishers create live stories out of users’ posts

Snap is launching a new feature that will let media companies access public posts made by Snapchat users and package them into editions centering on live events, breaking news and other topics.

• How Publishers Can Boost Revenue With A Subscription Box, Part 3

In previous posts, I explored the important considerations publishers should make before launching a subscription box and how to get your subscription boxes to your customers. In this third and final post, we’ll look at some ways to grow your subscription box revenue.

• Why publishers need to rethink their attitude to below-the-fold ads

The advertising buy side (brands, marketers etc) has always placed a premium on above-the-fold (ATF) ad units. Research from Adomik indicates average ATF bids are $0.43, compared with just $0.08 below the fold (BTF).

• Meet Our Magazine of the Year Finalists

For the first time in Eddie & Ozzie history, one magazine will be recognized for having produced the best editorial content and design this year.

• When chief digital officers join the highest echelons of legacy publishing

There were only a handful of digital officers around in legacy publishing two decades ago. Today, they are climbing to the highest echelons of publishing, and more recently digital officers have ascended to C-suite status with the creation of the title chief digital officer (CDO).

• How to Make Your Event Stand Out

Niche events are a hot revenue stream and everyone’s doing it. But how do you ensure you stand out from the other events in your market? Does your niche event have a WOW Factor? Does it have that special something that makes a lasting impression on your attendees?

• How programmatic auctions are creeping into publishers’ commerce links

It was only a matter of time before publishers’ commerce operations started to get a little more programmatic.
Over the past year or so, a number of publishers, including Purch, MSN, Wirecutter and Allure have been experimenting with making the links in their commerce content biddable, adding a layer of automation to a normally human-powered process.

• Opinion: Why publishers need to place the customer at the centre of the online experience

In the fiercely competitive space that is digital publishing, never has more emphasis been placed on the customer experience. With the increasingly vast number of publishers vying for the attention of readers across various platforms, if one thing is certain, it’s the rapid speed at which the industry has moved over the last decade.

• Move over, contributor networks: Publishers are turning to audiences for help with ad campaigns

To find the right concepts for ad campaigns it puts in front of its audience, Hong Kong-based publisher 9GAG has been asking said audience for ideas

• Food & Wine Celebrates 40 Years and a New Direction

Four decades after debuting as an insert in a 1978 issue of Playboy, Food & Wine’s 40th Anniversary campaign celebrates not only its 24,000 published recipes and its collaborations with world-renowned chefs, but also the year of growth the brand experienced across its digital, social, video, events and print platforms.

• Opinion: Can adblockers help grow publisher subscriptions?

We’ve all heard it before, print dollars have been replaced by digital dimes, and it’s only worsening with the increase in readers using adblockers.

• Build, buy, or barter: 3 alternative revenue streams for news publishers

From a purely commercial perspective, user traffic is the main resource produced by digital news publishers. Most established news publishers mainly convert this resource into revenues by selling advertising and exposing their own paid-for journalism to potential subscribers.

• How programmatic auctions are creeping into publishers’ commerce links

It was only a matter of time before publishers’ commerce operations started to get a little more programmatic.
Over the past year or so, a number of publishers, including Purch, MSN, Wirecutter and Allure have been experimenting with making the links in their commerce content biddable, adding a layer of automation to a normally human-powered process.

• You Can Sell Anything Once, But How Do You Keep Readers Paying for Content?

Though the UK’s vote to exit the EU and the election of Donald Trump may have roiled the British and American public, both have been great for subscription sales. Stories of the readership surge caused by the Trump Bump and the Brexit Bounce are legend among audience development professionals.

• Why load-on-view doesn’t have to mean a loss of revenue for digital publishers

In the early days of digital publishing, publishers and ad networks were free to load up their sites with ads anywhere on the page without a thought for whether or not they were going to be seen. According to some analysts, this left more than 50% of ads delivered online going unseen..

• WordPress Gutenberg Editor: What publishers need to know

The person talking about the tremors in the WordPress world—thanks to Gutenberg—is none other than Edwin Toonen, an Editor at Yoast.

• Podcasts Are Fertile Ground for City & Regional Publishers

In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve entered an era of on-demand media consumption. And due to its mobility and being a natural accompaniment for multitasking, audio has emerged as a favorite among the on-demand public.

• So your news organization has real, paying digital subscribers. Now how do you keep them?

One finding: “Need-to-know material converts (related to how to live your life, understand the world), while nice-to-know (guides, arts, reviews) converts badly but is key for retention.”

• Teens Shun Print Mags, MPA Takes USPS to Task, and More News & Notes

It’s not especially groundbreaking to report that teens are largely abandoning books and magazines in favor of smartphones. What is notable about the American Psychological Association’s new report on adolescent media use in the U.S.—one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind to date—is the accelerating rate at which its findings indicate screen time is displacing legacy media consumption.

• Continuing charm offensive, Facebook creates tool to boost news publishers’ reach on the platform

Continuing its charm offensive with news publishers, Facebook has been testing a tool with five publishers including BuzzFeed to help them improve their reach on the platform.

• Whitepaper: Why engagement time holds much greater value for publishers

Engagement time is defined as the total time a page is open and a user is deemed to be active, and it’s what forward-looking publishers are starting to focus on instead of looking at more ‘traditional’ viewing metrics.

• Why engagement time holds much greater value for publishers

Engagement time is defined as the total time a page is open and a user is deemed to be active, and it’s what forward-looking publishers are starting to focus on instead of looking at more ‘traditional’ viewing metrics.

• 6 Steps to Diving into Digital Ad Sales

So you’ve mostly been a print publisher up until now. Maybe you’ve added a couple new revenue streams like a special edition book and a sponsored event or two. You know it’s time to really put some focus on digital ad sales. But where do you start without getting overwhelmed by the vastness of all things digital?.

• Fake academic journals are publishing work from real researchers alongside junk science

In a time when fakery seems to expand to every corner of the internet (including fake Amazon product reviews and YouTube views), it seems like academia is the last bastion of unadulterated truth, right?

• Quartz forges ahead, but other news publishers shut down chatbots

The Washington Post, The Guardian and Mic have discontinued their chatbots, according to their spokespeople. Others such as Business Insider and The HuffPost appear to have done the same, as evidenced by their Messenger accounts not responding to messages or directing people to email them instead.

• 2019 Print Forecast: Tight Paper Market Will Continue Squeezing Publishers

At the beginning of next year, magazine publishers will be paying about 25% more for paper than they did just 18 months earlier — assuming they can find any paper to buy.

• Are We Asking the Wrong Questions About Magazines? Linda Thomas Brooks Thinks So

Although magazine media got plenty of attention earlier this year due to the blockbuster deals made by Meredith and Hearst to acquire Time Inc. and Rodale, respectively, as well as the ripple effects each deal caused, the months that followed were relatively quiet. And as the expression goes, no news is good news.

 

• Parents Magazine Proves Print Still Has Panache

The 92-year-old publication booked 10 new advertisers and sold 100 ad pages for its September issue.

• If Paid Content is the New Hope, How Do We Convert Free Readers to Paying Ones?

So we’re agreed? Reader revenue is the way to go. We’re over traffic-at-scale and ad-only funding models. Subscriptions probably won’t pay all your bills, but a healthy mix of subs and ad sales is what we’re all about these days.

• Online publishers adopt Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings, with sights on TV dollars

Recently, many online publishers woke up to welcome news, with vast jumps in the size of their estimated audiences. For example, Australia’s Daily Mail more than doubled its audience in the space of two months

• News publishers rethink premium day practices

The use of premium days as a tactic to grow audience revenue has caused customer relationship issues, and many publishers are seeking ways to maintain the revenue while moving away from the practice.

• Under GDPR, publishers are adopting CMPs for fear of losing out on ad revenue

More publishers are feeling under pressure to adopt a consent-management platform to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation, publishers and ad tech vendors say.

• Meredith’s Shape magazine: A year-long brand evolution

Meredith’s Shape magazine spent the last year thinking over and creating its own evolution. Shape, which is published 10 times a year, reaches a rate base of 2.5 million and an audience of 14 million across platforms, focuses on healthy living for the 21st century woman.

• The Next Step in our Journey to Help Local News Publishers

Today, we’re excited to announce an additional $4.5 million investment in programs that support news publishers.

• Publishers Can’t Compete with Google, Amazon & Facebook – So They Should Complement Their Commerce

Publishers — especially commerce-focused publishers — can’t beat Google, Amazon and Facebook. They’re just too big, too powerful, and all-pervasive. To be successful, digital publishers need to augment the experiences that start and end with Google, Amazon, or Facebook. It’s time to stop competing and start complementing.

• In trouble? Condé Nast plans to put another 3 magazines up for sale

Condé Nast, the company behind Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker, became one of the world’s most successful magazine publishers with a formula built on a heady mix of old-world glamour and all-American pizazz.

• Dennis Publishing Sold to Private Equity

For the first time in its 45-year history, Dennis Publishing has been sold. The London-based publisher of The Week and Mental Floss, among numerous others, has been acquired by British private equity firm Exponent, both parties announced Tuesday.

• Apple tops 300 million paid subscriptions as it reportedly preps new subscription services

Apple’s subscription business is already big, but it’s about to get even bigger. Apple has sold more than 300 million subscriptions to its own and others’ apps, an increase of more than 60 percent in the past year alone, Apple CEO Tim Cook said during the company’s latest earnings call on July 31.

• Online publishers adopt Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings, with sights on TV dollars

Recently, many online publishers woke up to welcome news, with vast jumps in the size of their estimated audiences. For example, Australia’s Daily Mail more than doubled its audience in the space of two months.

• Opinion: How publishers can drive up traffic using Flipboard

The ever-growing threat of a simple algorithm change to Facebook or Google continues to loom over publishers, but Parse.ly’s latest traffic report has a few solutions to that issue.

• 8 Ways to Increase Audience AND Online Revenue!

Publishers are starting to realize the unharnessed value of an engaged email database and how it can increase digital revenues. An opt-in email newsletter list can be one of your most valuable assets—because then you own the relationship with that reader.

• How Publishers Can Boost Revenue With A Subscription Box, Part 1

Magazine publishers, don’t let the changing advertising landscape get you down. You have something not many businesses have: a successful magazine brand.

• Desktops Still Pull Highest Email Revenue, Study Finds

Smartphones are the leading channel for email opens. But they lag behind desktops in producing conversions and revenue, according to a study by Movable Ink.

• How errors in ads.txt files are harming publisher revenue: What can be done?

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Tech Lab introduced ads.txt last year to help ad buyers avoid illegitimate sellers who arbitrage inventory and spoof domains, following calls from across the sector to clean up the supply chain.

• Aiming for TV dollars, digital publishers adopt Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings

Pete Spande said ad agencies seem to be looking at him differently these days.
In the past two weeks, the chief revenue officer of Business Insider said he’s had first-time conversations with many of the video and TV-buying groups at the agency holding companies. He said those talks are happening in part because BI started using Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings to measure the size of its digital video audience.

• Will IGTV Deliver for Publishers?

With a new platform comes the recurring decision for skeptical publishers: How much should they care? And in the case of a new platform from Facebook, there’s every reason to be wary.

• Are you ready to grow your digital revenues?

Are you ready to grow your digital revenues? We all know we need to launch new digital products to diversify our online income sources in these challenging times.

• To Grow Print Revenue, Give Advertisers What They Want: Data-Driven Targeting

There’s an old saying that, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
I goofed. I’ve been advocating the use of a “hammer” to help magazines reverse a decade-long advertising slump. I should have been talking about what we need to build.

• Production: Combining Our Print Product and Digital Offerings Will Guarantee Success

A few months ago, I was asked to attend a conference to speak on the direction and future of newspapers. Then, a month ago I was approached by a different association asking if I would consider being a keynote speaker for their convention; the subject was once again about the future of newspapers

• Utah Valley Magazine’s Founder on Understanding the Needs of Your Audience

Last month, Folio: celebrated the Top Women in Media awards and highlighted achievements made by over 100 women across the industry. From Up & Comers to Corporate Champions, these women have done everything from achieving new revenue streams for their companies to building new brands from the ground up, and Jeanette Bennett is no exception.

• RockYou’s publishing pivot hits a speed bump

RockYou Media continues to fine-tune its pivot from social gaming to digital publishing.
The 13-year-old company has been attempting to make the shift over the past few years, but its efforts really began to take shape in November 2017 when it launched Vocally, a digital publication for multicultural millennial women that RockYou Media CEO Lisa Marino described at the time as the company’s “first non-game proof point in a business model we have spent the last three years developing and scaling.”

• Programmatic is not just for media buyers. What publishers need to know.

It’s a message we’ve been hearing percolate through the industry now for years: programmatic is the future of advertising. Brands, in search of more control over their media buying activity, have embraced technology-based approaches that promise efficiency, precision, flexibility, and superior ROI.

• Facebook is testing augmented reality ads in the News Feed

Facebook  is giving advertisers new ways to show off their products, including with augmented reality. At its F8 developer conference earlier this year, Facebook announced that it was working with businesses to use AR to show off products in Messenger.

• CommonWealth Magazine Shutters Print Edition

CommonWealth magazine, the 22-year-old quarterly published by Boston-based nonpartisan think tank MassINC, is going all digital. The Summer 2018 issue, out today, will be CommonWealth‘s last, editor Bruce Mohl revealed in the issue’s editor’s letter, arguing the magazine will more effectively serve its organizational mission—that is, coverage of the policy debates that impact lower- and middle-class Massachusetts residents—by devoting the bulk of its funding to its growing digital channels..

• GDPR and Third-Party Services: What Publishers Need to Know

By now, everyone understands the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is here to stay, and businesses must make themselves entirely compliant in order to avoid fines of up to four percent of total global revenue.

• Snapchat moves beyond traditional publishing brands with latest partnerships

Your mom might not know who Daquan is or what Goalslayin is about, but a lot of teenagers on Snapchat do — and Snap wants to work with the companies and creators behind these brands. Take London-based Fanbytes. The 18-month-old digital media company has four organic accounts on Snapchat — MakeupTuts, Goalslayin, Couples365 and IRelateQuotes.

• New Yorker magazine recognizes staff’s union

A little more than a month after staffers at The New Yorker declared their intention to form a union, the magazine’s top editor said that management won’t stand in the way.