Answering a question from an industry colleague yesterday I discovered that in my newsagency we received over 400 new titles in the last year. Once we accounted for new titles for the same product (romance story magazines, cowboy fiction etc) we are still looking at over 300 new titles.
I then went and looked at the performance of these. Fewer than ten of the 300 titles actually generated a cash flow positive return for my business.
Depressed, I had a look at data from seven other newsagencies. Their new title list ranged from 200 to 400 depending on location and business size. They too did not achieve a reasonable economic return from the new titles.
The titles which work are those with some strategy behind them, titles which fit an existing segment yet add value to the segment or are introduced in such a way as to create a new segment.
There are too many me too titles which don’t add value to the range already in store and no one is policing this. Newsagents think that distributors make ranging decisions. I see no evidence of magazine distributors making any ranging decision. With the bulk of their revenue coming from a fee for service it places their criteria for carrying a title in a different place to newsagents who are paid for success – yet newsagents don’t get to choose if they carry a title.
Magazine distribution in Australia is in a mess and newsagents are close to breaking point.
The system needs urgent work to stop its collapse.