Supply Chain changes

Mondays are a great day for comparison of magazine performance in newsagencies. We have new issues of Woman’s Day, New Idea, New Weekly and TV Week. In my newsagency we track sales closely and what happens on a Monday can set the tone for the week. We compare Monday sales with the average of the last 8 weeks. Today was especially interesting. All titles were up between 10% and 15% except for New Idea which was down 10%. Woman’s Day and New Idea have received the same promotional space and they are next to each other in two prime locations in store. So the only reason we can attribute to the fall is the cover and accompanying poster. I’ve checked our basket companion sales data and New Idea single copy sales are steady, it’s the companion sales which are down.

The risk in considering this is that the dataset is small. However, based on past experience, in our shop, Monday performance is usually a good predictor of the rest of the week. I’m tempted to do something to push New Idea but instead will let it sit and see if the ‘prediction’ is right. What’s odd is that New Idea has been a very strong performer all year.

Courtesy of mocnews:

Report from Kansas City Business Journal that Handmark has signed a deal to bring Associated Press content ot mobile phones.

Report on mediweek that the International Herald Tribune is launching a new service to provide mobile phone users access to its news.

A report that Reuters has done a deal with Vodofone to provide access to Reuters video content.

The tail of the existing news and information supply chain isn’t aware of the changes these and related developments will ultimately have for them. These are primarily small businesses which rely on news and information product traffic to support the sale of others products in store.

Further to my post here in July about Google investing in a broadband over Powerline (BPL) company comes news that the world’s first large-scale trial of BPL technology began in Tasmania yesterday. BPL technology uses existing power lines and offers Internet access through every electrical power outlet in connected premises. Users plug a modem into the power outlet to connect to the Internet.

The large scale Tasmanian trial covers fast Internet access, VoIP and video delivery.

The Aurora website had details of their offering.

BPL shrinks the traditional supply chain for news and information and makes it more widely accessible. It provides a left field competitor to traditional communications infrastructure suppliers. While BPL has attracted plenty of criticism, the potential for consumers and content providers is enormous.