Advertising Age reports on the Magazine Publishers of America second “Magazine 24/7” conference held in New York last week. Attention seems to have focused on the challenge of the impact of mobile devices on how people access news and information. As I have noted here for some time, the story is the thing. I am certain that magazine publishers will release stories so that consumers can track and purchase their areas of interest through other content aggregators rather than buying a whole product (magazine) with 50% or 60% content of no interest to me. This, of course, is a step beyond masthead websites such as those for Vogue, Girlfriend and others. It is also beyond the digital editions of magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Playboy.
While the evolution of magazines continues, consideration needs to be given to Australian newsagents who continue to be supplied by magazine publishers, through the three magazine distributors, as if no evolution to online and mobile is happening. Indeed, in the last year more than 400 new titles were supplied to newsagents and while some titles were killed off, there was a significant net increase in titles supplied. This is a problem for newsagents because the only real growth is happening at the top end of the marketplace. Outside the top 100 or 200 titles sales are flat and even falling. The supply model needs to be adjusted to reflect this. Lack of change to the supply model means newsagents are carrying more of a burden and this is at a cost which is unsustainable.