Headline Poetry
Headline Poetry is of daily poems made up of headlines from the three main dailies from Melbourne Australia: the Herald Sun, The Age and The Australian. Here’s a link of the description of the project.
Double digit fall in auto ads reported by Tribune newspapers.
From a report published by Wall Street Journal:
Auto ads, a major source of newspaper-classified advertising, have been slipping steadily for nearly two years. But the slippage may be turning into a landslide.
Last week, Tribune Co. said auto-classified revenue at its newspapers plunged 16% in December. Also last week, Lee Enterprises Inc., publisher of papers such as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, reported a 15.2% drop in auto advertising for the fourth quarter. On Wednesday, McClatchy Co. reported a 20% decline for December, saying the downturn in car ads had finally reached its West Coast papers, the biggest of which is the Sacramento Bee, in the heart of California’s car culture.
We’re seeing a similar fall here in the buying and selling category – titles focusing on classifieds like Trading Post. I don’t have data for auto classified revenue in Australian newspapers. Anecdotally I’d say it’s down. This is why Saturday sales are challenged as it was usually a strong auto and general classifieds day.
Later in the WSJ article:
Dealers are finding Web ads generate strong responses. “Eight out of 10 customers that walk into our dealership have already looked at our Web site,” says Wes Lutz, who owns Extreme Dodge/Hyundai in Jackson, Mich. Demand from the Internet is so keen that three years ago he designated a new position at his dealership: Internet manager. That person’s job is to reply to all Internet inquiries within an hour.
Mr. Lutz still advertises with the local paper, but not nearly as much as he did 10 years ago. “They’re just really antiquated,” he says. “They’re just stuck in time.”
I was talking to a local car dealer on Friday and his comment was that newspaper advertising is now more about the brand whereas just a few years ago it was about the brand and specific stock opportunities. They have moved their stock opportunities online because online ads are searchable and, he says, because “that’s where they buyers are”.
TV soap podcasts
No better evidence of turning the supply chain on its ear is the news that As The World Turns, the US CBS network soap, which turns 50 this year, has commenced podcasting the audio of each episode. The details are at the CBS website.
Just over a year ago we didn’t know what podcasting was. Suggesting that CBS, or any other network, would do this with any of its shows would have been met with ‘not in my lifetime’ type comments. Podcasting is now a viable channel and a revenue generator for content publishers in TV, radio and print. My, how the world has changed in such a short time. And the pace of change will increase.
Time Inc in online push
David Burkett, the new head of Time is Australia is quoted in the latest issue of advertising trade journal B&T (page 4) talking about their online push this year. he mentions Bride to Be and Practical Parenting as the first titles which will benefit from their heightened online focus.
This is a logical and even overdue move by Time Inc. Newsagents, who rely on magazines for traffic and sales, need their own online strategy so that if/when Time and others achieve more traffic from online than retail they/we are less affected. Such strategies need to include an online presence, broadening of in store product / service offerings and better customer service to reinforce why the over the counter retailer experience is better than online.
Why I love Oprah or Kerry Packer or both
Women’s Weekly sales this month already are on fire in my newsagency and several others I have checked with. Comparing the first two days of the on sale period this month with any of the last twelve months are sales are more than double. We’re promoting the magazine the same way , traffic in my centre has not grown much – so the growth must be due to interest in the product. Even after I allow for our annual growth of 26% Women’s Weekly is still up 100%. It’d got to be either Oprah on the front cover or the Kerry Packer story and photo tribute. I’m noticing more sales from our impulse sales points than usual. Women’s Weekly is usually more of a habit purchase. This month is different.
Newsagents, when they see a sales kick like this in the first two days of a 30 day on sale period can respond. Supermarkets and petrol/convenience outlets rarely respond. This is why newsagents make better retail partners for publishers.
Washington Post transparency about online comments
Excellent coverage at Washingtonpost.com of a blogger’s roundtable on Wednesday this week involving some of the most respected media related bloggers. The round table came about because of disrespectful reader comments posted at post.blog. The Washington Post is to be applauded for its transparency. The transcript provides an excellent insight into the challenges of blogs and comments. Well worth reading.
New York Times launches daily podcast
Micro Persuasion reports that the New York Times has launched a daily news podcast.
Penthouse goes digital
The South Florida Business Journal has the story. The print edition remains but I wonder how long for. The adult sector is soft in Australia thanks to better quality images online plus excellent searching facilities. The Penthouse move is not unexpected and more evidence of online impacting magazines.
Magazine cash flow in newsagencies
I am neck deep in magazine related data from six newsagencies. Remember, Australian newsagencies pride themselves on magazine range as their key point of difference. Whereas other retailers who offer magazines carry up to 100 titles, newsagencies carry over 1,000 titles and often more. This cash flow data shows that the range is killing them. Titles which are profitable can be cash flow negative. Take Cosmos for example, this is a new title released last year. Not one newsagency I have looked at shows the title as cash flow positive. Indeed, Cosmos is cash flow negative in one newsagency to the tune of $500.00 over three months. Cosmos is one over 1,000 titles in this newsagency which is cash flow negative.
Another magazine worth looking at is Australian Woodsmith. Wood bloke love it. It sells well. It’s not cash flow positive in one newsagency. This title costs more than it earns. Should we stop carrying it? Maybe. If we do stop does that make us a me too magazine retailer? Maybe. It depends on how we make the transition.
At the distributor level, in one major suburban newsagency, they are $16,000 cash flow negative over the course of a year from just one magazine distribution company.
Our analysis is taking into account paying for stock, banking sales, paying for real estate used for magazines and paying for labour used for magazines. If anything it shows a conservative result with reality being worse.
Magazine distribution is at crisis point for newsagents and urgent action is necessary on the model if newsagents are to survive in the range game. While newsagents complain about the little money they make on magazines, few actually measure the cash flow implications.
Our new research will provide hard evidence and this will cause significant debate when released next month.
Newspaper says online is a decade away from catching newspapers
ONLINE advertising, despite phenomenal growth over the past three years, is at least a decade away from catching up to newspapers, and a further five years from generating the revenues of commercial television.
This is the opening paragraph from a story in The Age (Melbourne, Australia Jan. 21) by Christian Catalano. The story quotes a report by Foad Fadaghi of the industry consultancy Frost & Sullivan .
I guess data can tell any story you require of it.
My concern with this report is that the industry is using it to say, hey, we’re okay, we’re okay. I guess if you repeat the mantra often enough you don’t need to plan for change.
If the report is accurate and balanced then why is News Corp. rushing online, why is Fairfax looking at more online purchases, why has PBL invested strategically in online. Newsagents, the people at the end of the newspaper food chain need to look at what the publishers are doing rather than what they are printing in their paper.
10 Things Editors Should Do To Grow
Ken Sand’s post, 10 Things Editors Should Do In 2006, (Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee), is an excellent post for Editors and equally excellent for newsagents and other retailers who rely on newspapers for half their foot traffic. We’ve been insulated in Australia from the waves of change which have hit US and European newspapers. I, reluctantly, forecast that insulation will fade in 2006 as new technology offerings impact newspapers and sales are flatter than forecast.
Star remains a weak magazine launch
I am beginning to doubt the seriousness of the folks behind the recently launched Star magazine. It’s as if the title is marking time until they come up with a better concept. Newsagents receive little in the way of point of sale material, certainly nothing to enable the product to be merchandised beyond being put on the shelf.
Compared to other 2005 launches – Real Living, Notebook and Explode – to name three – Star is flying under the radar.
Trading Post upgrade – not good enough
Trading Post has beefed up its online offering with BUY NOW features. It’s still frustrating that you have to register before you can actually do anything. This is a huge turn off. Trading Post needs to decide if it’s an online or over the counter offering. Once it works that out the road forward will be clearer for their business and for consumers.
Newspaper tries TV classifieds
An interesting move by the San Francisco Chronicle as reported by the Editors Weblog. The newspaper The paper will launch a 30 minute television program, ‘Chronicle Jobs TV’, to run Monday to Wednesday at 5:30 PM. While only time will tell if TV/newspaper classifieds work, I’d suggest that they are doomed. This is like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. It’s also a step sideways. The world is looking for classifieds online in a searchable form so we can look local or look at what specifically interests us. A TV program provides none of this. Sure it might be interesting but innovative it is not. Newspapers need to take bold steps to protect their classified revenue.
“Papers are so clunky and big”
A good article in the New York Times about Gen Y and how to reach them. Here’s the heart of the problem as covered in the article:
In addition to thumbing his nose at notions of “prime time” by downloading his favorite shows (without commercials), Mr. Hanson almost never buys newspapers or magazines, getting nearly all of his information from the Internet, or from his network of electronic contacts.
“Papers are so clunky and big,” he says. If those words are alarming to old media, they are only the beginning of a larger puzzle for today’s marketers: how to make digital technology their ally as they try to understand and reach an emerging generation.
I could also say that retail stores are old and clunky to this generation. We’re out of date. While the baby boomers may enjoy physical world shopping, Gen Y browse online through formal and informal markets. If retailers want to have a future they need to move their businesses online. We’re experimenting with part of our retail newsagency businesses online. We now transact more online in a month in the selected category than we did through the retail store over the previous two years. What’s odd is that only very few sales are to what I would call traditional newsagency customers.
Newsagents need to re-think their businesses and re-invent their offering so they connect with Gen Y as they become a more valuable piece of the economy.
Newspaper publishers, change and double standards
Newspaper publishers are responding to the challenges of online competitors and mobile demands of consumers by purchasing competitors and even non competitors playing in the space. Each time this happens it increases the barrier to entry for others. While the publishers are doing this, they, in Australia at least, are forcing their retail and distribution partners, newsagents, to further increase retail outlets – even if they compete directly with newsagent outlets. This to me seems like double standards.
On the one hand publishers want more control over their own business while at the same time diluting the control newsagents have over theirs. Newsagents, unable to effectively collectively bargain, have little ability to resist the demands of newspaper publishers as to where newspapers are sold.
This channel of specialist news and information retailers become less relevant with every new outlet newspapers are put into. In years to come this will be a case study in business schools and the behavior of some newspaper publishers will be under scrutiny.
This issue is on my mind today as newsagents are being told to supply Gloria Jeans coffee outlets. No discussion, just a requirement. No matter whether you have another outlet selling newspapers next door or even if your newsagency is next door. There may be some exceptions but I have not heard of any yet.
I can see the logic of newspapers in Gloria Jeans outlets. However, how many business do you know of where the owver is forced by a supplier to compete with themselves, to dilute their point of difference?
eBay and the market for used magazines
Following this post I have spent more time looking into magazine product available at eBay Australia. I am surprised at the number of current issue and immediate past issue magazines for sale. The current issue product has to be of questionable sourcing (stolen?) because I cannot fathom how else it could be so heavily discounted.
The immediately past issue stock must be concerning for magazine publishers (it’s concerning to me) because this would impact sales – especially in, say, the craft or any other area where having the latest issue is not always important. Looking at the titles available, I’d suspect that people buy a current issue, copy what they want (for a craft or cooking magazine) and then sell the original on eBay and get back, say, 60% to 80% of their purchase price.
From what I can see, enough of this stock moves for people to keep loading eBay with magazine product. But then maybe there is no accounting for what people buy. (Maybe I could sell past draw date lottery tickets and attach a note as to the dream I had for the winnings if I had won. eBay sells wackier stuff than that!)
I guess there is no law against it. However, the structure of the eBay marketplace and the speed with which recent stock gets on eBay suggests that some rules may be being bent.
My retail business relies on magazines for around 30% of its revenue. That eBay is so strongly in this space and I didn’t know it is embarrassing to me.
I’d like to see some media attention to what’s selling on eBay and it’s impact on legitimate businesses like mine.
Strong January for newspapers
January data, for the month so far, in my newsagency is showing year on year sales growth for daily newspapers (The Age, Herald Sun, The Australian, Australian Financial Review) of 16%. During the same period I am seeing the Trading Post down 15%. The conclusion I draw from that is that, yes, print classifieds are dying rapidly whereas print news, in my part of the world, is strong. The strong sales are due, in part, to people not traveling this holiday period.
Mary Mary starts the year
The holidays are over and magazines are back in business. This week’s New Idea and Woamn’s Day have Princess Mary covers again. There is no doubt she is the new Diana. My sense is that Mary on both covers will push sales of both products – more so than single copy sales. That is people who would usually buy one of the titles will buy the two. More Mary covers please!
Sony Reader
Go here and you can see images and specifications for the Sony Reader referred to in my last post. It’s a sexy looking device … one which Sony hopes will take off for books like the iPod did for music.
The Guardian on e-books
The world of publishing stands on the cusp of the greatest innovation since Gutenberg. With cheap, portable electronic readers just around the corner, what is the future of the printed book?
So opens E-read all about it at Guardian Unlimited. It’s an excellent article about where e-book technology is at today and where it is likely to be in the near term. Fascinating reading – especially in the context of recent e-paper developments and other technologies challenging the more traditional news and information distribution model.
Booksellers have to be looking at what has happened to music and is happening now to books. Manufacturers (publishers) need to cut costs out of the supply chain to stay competitive and that’s what is at the heart of this technology. Middlemen like retailers are an overhead to be avoided.
eBay and current issue magazines
Check out eBay Australia and item 7001746442. This is a current issue magazine which newsagents received a few days ago. It has a sell price of $9.95 in our stores. The eBay seller listed the product at a starting price of $4.95 and it’s currently being bid at $10.00 plus postage.
I am curious as to how this seller, located in South Australia, is able to offer a current issue magazine for less than the newsagent pays at wholesale; how they are able to get their hands on current issue magazine stock; and, whether they have more than one copy of this magazine for sale.
Australia Post and Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day has traditionally been a season ‘owned’ by newsagents, card shops, chocolate shops and florists. Sure it’s commercial. But it’s also about love and romance. I was surprised to see that the government owned Australia Post is getting in on Valentine’s Day with a promotion. The details are on their website. While there’s no law against it, I don’t need the Federal Government muscling in on a promotion previously owned mainly by independently owned small businesses like mine.
The other aspect of this promotion which irks me is that it is in conjunction with That’s Life magazine. Australia Post does not sell That’s Life in its corporate stores. Magazines are only sold in newsagencies which are Licenced Post Offices. So what gives? I know Australia Post wants magazines for its stores. Is this indicative of a move in that direction or am I jumping at shadows? regardless, I don’t see how Australia Post can justify this activity in the context of the Act under which they operate.
MySpace, MSN and back to school blogs
Do a Technorati search for newsagents and all manner of things come up. Unfortunately, close to home I found two blog entries from the last 24 hours bagging newsagents.
Melissa, 37, Brisbane Australia tells us, in part: For two days we couldn’t find any A4 64 page books. That was fun. Visiting K-mart, Big W, Woolworths and Sollies.. to find they had massive stocks of everything else .. except the 35 cent books they had on sale…. The newsagents however are willing to sell them too me for almost $3 each. We will keep walking!
Then I find an entry from De-Anne, 14, Brisbane Australia which says, in part: “omg yeterday was ssoooooo boring i went school book shopping for my brother. we had to go all the way into the city cause no stupid newsagents had the books he needed. normally we get them through the school but when mum went to hand it in they wouldn’t accept it, (long story)â€
What is annoying is that Melissa is wrong and De-Anne is inarticulate. Newsagents are matching Big-W, K-Mart etc on price on most school items. I cannot find exercise books of the sort described for ten times the price at newsagencies. With De-Anne I’d suggest they were looking for something more specialist which a newsagent would only order in as a special order.
While I respect the right of people to blog whatever they like, including junk like this in a Technorati search is unfortunate because you have to wade through a fair chunk of MSN and MySpace hosted crap to get to the better quality material.
On another level, newsagents are being bagged out here unfairly. However, they will not respond. If this were Coca Cola, Pepsi, General Motors, McDonalds or some other major corporation they would be on to these two bloggers in an attempt to get a more accurate spin. Newsagents, being small business and independent will not respond and these blog entries only serve to further pitch that we’re not relevant and we’re expensive.
Even though each of our 4,600 newsagencies in independent we need to respond corporately to blog entries like these and get our spin out there. We are not expensive. We have an excellent range. Customers purchasing Back To School product from newsagencies are doing more for the economy than buying from K-Mart or Big W.
Debate on the future of newspapers
Jeff Jarvis today at his blog, BuzzMachine, deconstructs the newspaper, section by section. He post is an excellent contribution to the debate about the future of newspapers. While it’s written from a US perspective, here in Australia the newspaper sections are the same and the challenges very similar but I suspect our newspaper publishers do not feel the pressure being felt in the US. We are insulated by the size of our marketplace and the lack of true head to head competition. That is not a reason to ignore Jarvis’ opinion or the opinion of other equally eloquent and knowledgeable commentators such as Tim Porter.
In Jarvis’ own words: The point of this exercise is to peel away the layers of the onion that a newspaper no longer needs so it can get to the core of what it really is, what it does best, what it must be to survive and prosper. You can pose the question one of two ways: What do we kill to save money, or what do we kill so we can shift resources to more important things? Whichever, you can’t stay the same and certainly can’t develop new features until you cut the fat and flesh.
Jarvis argues that publishers need to drive newspaper readers online and to reconfigure their print product in terms of content so it is more relevant and cost model so it is a sustainable medium. Once you read the whole blog entry be sure to read the comments.
I wish we were having this conversation about Australian newspapers and that the conversation included newsagents. While News Ltd is in the final weeks of completing its review of newspaper distribution in Australia I’d prefer they put this project aside and engage in a robust review of the future of their newspaper products. Such a review should also include newsagents – the 4,600 small business operators created solely to distribute and retail, newspapers.
The games on competitions, DVDs, CDs, Calendars, Wrapping Paper and every other device being used to gain single copy sales does nothing to address the core issue of relevance which is central to the Jarvis analysis. As one who sells the product and relies of newspaper sales for a key part of traffic to my store, I crave a more relevant product. It goes to the heart of the future of my business and the relevance o the retail channel to which I belong.
Editor and Publisher is also reporting on the Jarvis post.