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<\/a><\/p>\nPRINT IS DEAD; LONG LIVE PRINT!<\/b><\/p>\n
Even with the growth of digital, print magazines are here to stay.<\/p>\n
By Leigh Flayton on October 10, 2013.<\/p>\n
The old saw, \u201cprint is dead,\u201d may be the most overused quotation since Mark Twain famously quipped about the news of his own demise more than a century ago.<\/p>\n
Yes, reports of print\u2019s so-called death are, as Twain said, \u201cgreatly exaggerated.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to industry experts at CPR: Create + Publish + Reinvent, a recent magazine conference in New York City, print still is one of the most\u2014if not the most\u2014critical components of their business plans. Andy Serwer, Fortune magazine\u2019s managing editor, said Fortune still gets the bulk of its revenue from print and that there\u2019s \u201cno silver bullet to digital.\u201d In fact, his primary goal is success in print, digital and live events, and Fortune drives advertising across all three platforms.<\/p>\n
When James G. Elliott, the president of his eponymous ad sales and marketing firm, started in the business more than three decades ago, he entered a yearlong training program at Ogilvy & Mather before officially working for the agency. He\u2019s seen the industry survive extraordinary change\u2014from its coming-of-age in the \u201960s, to the \u201cdecade of the deal\u201d that saw rampant agency takeovers in the \u201980s, to the digital revolution of today. But Elliott says there are four things he knows for sure:<\/p>\n
\u201cPrint is here to stay.<\/b><\/p>\n
Digital is here to stay.<\/b><\/p>\n
Mobile is here to stay.<\/b><\/p>\n
Social is here to stay.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
My first job out of college in the early \u201990s was in book publishing, and I remember many conversations at the time swirling around the idea of the end of the book. At first I was afraid\u2014after all, I wanted a career in publishing, and now it seemed it was going to end before it even began. After some hand-wringing it dawned on me that the only constant is, in fact, change. Talkies wiped out silent films but they didn\u2019t kill the movies. TV didn\u2019t destroy radio (and today there is even a thriving satellite radio industry). And cable television, DVRs and Netflix haven’t killed the movie theater, network TV or anything else for that matter.<\/p>\n
Serwer also spoke of Fortune founder Henry Luce, who conceived the publication in 1929 and published the inaugural issue in February 1930. Luce thought the financial crisis, soon to become The Great Depression, would be a blip, but the launch of his magazine turned out to be \u201ctough sledding,\u201d as Serwer called it. That prompted a collective chuckle from the conference attendees, and I nodded in solidarity when I heard the gentleman behind me whisper to his colleague: \u201cSome things never change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fit to Print<\/b><\/p>\n
Some encouraging facts about magazines<\/p>\n
More people are reading magazines.<\/p>\n
49.8 million read a print magazine in 2013 vs. 47.1 million in 2012, a 6% increase. \u2014 2013 Ipsos Affluent Survey for households with an income above $100k a year<\/p>\n
New titles are being published.<\/p>\n
870 new magazine titles launched in retail stores in 2012. \u2014Samir \u201cMr. Magazine\u201d Husni, director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the Meek School of Journalism and New Media<\/p>\n
Subscriptions are growing.<\/p>\n
Meredith has seen 70% growth in print since 2001; 68 million print subscribers then versus 115 million today. \u2014Meredith Corporation CEO Steve Lacy, the publisher of such stalwarts as Better Homes & Gardens and Ladies Home Journal<\/p>\n