After enjoying several years of stability, the total audience for 70 major American consumer magazines dipped from 2010-2011, according to a MediaPost analysis of data from GfK MRI. Although there have been audience fluctuations in the past, this large year-over-year decrease is ominous, coming as it does alongside falling newsstand sales and stagnant ad pages.
Read more here
Thursday, September 15
Monday, September 12
News Trends Tilt Toward Niche Sites
Like newspapers, portals like AOL and Yahoo are confronting the cold fact that there is less general interest in general interest news. Readers have peeled off into verticals of information — TMZ for gossip, Politico for politics and Deadspin for sports, and so on.
Part of the problem is the result of a fundamental shift in Web behavior. Media stalwarts erected a frame around the Web and organized, and sometimes produced, content. Now the frame around content is the Web browser itself, and consumers do their own programming and are more inclined to see news consumption as a kind of voting, selecting smaller brands that reflect their sensibilities.
Many of the news sites that are now having success on the Web — Business Insider, Gawker and Mashable, to name a few — are built on sensibility, which is generally a product of a small group of like minds.
There are exceptions. TMZ has thrived as a division of Time Warner, College Humor continues to crack wise as part of IAC/InterActiveCorp and CBS seems to have done well by CNET after acquiring it.
There are some parallels with the television world. The name NBC communicates very little other than generic bigness, while right now, FX, HBO, AMC and Showtime each convey a cachet that the big networks lack.
Business Insider has become marginally profitable in a short amount of time, Politico has begun to make money and TMZ has a sturdy enough Web brand that it was able to successfully build a television show of the same name. But all of them are hemmed in by the tyranny of small numbers.
Read more at the New York Times
Part of the problem is the result of a fundamental shift in Web behavior. Media stalwarts erected a frame around the Web and organized, and sometimes produced, content. Now the frame around content is the Web browser itself, and consumers do their own programming and are more inclined to see news consumption as a kind of voting, selecting smaller brands that reflect their sensibilities.
Many of the news sites that are now having success on the Web — Business Insider, Gawker and Mashable, to name a few — are built on sensibility, which is generally a product of a small group of like minds.
There are exceptions. TMZ has thrived as a division of Time Warner, College Humor continues to crack wise as part of IAC/InterActiveCorp and CBS seems to have done well by CNET after acquiring it.
There are some parallels with the television world. The name NBC communicates very little other than generic bigness, while right now, FX, HBO, AMC and Showtime each convey a cachet that the big networks lack.
Business Insider has become marginally profitable in a short amount of time, Politico has begun to make money and TMZ has a sturdy enough Web brand that it was able to successfully build a television show of the same name. But all of them are hemmed in by the tyranny of small numbers.
Read more at the New York Times
Magazine Newsstand Sales Halved from 2001-2011
The combined newsstand sales of 68 major American magazines declined by nearly half from 2001-2011, a MediaPost analysis of Audit Bureau of Circulations data revealed. According to ABC FAS-FAX circulation reports, this group of leading weekly and monthly magazines saw total average newsstand sales plunge from 22,019,953 in the six-month period ending June 2001 to 11,562,028 in the six-month period ending June 2011 -- a 47.5% decline over the course of the decade. Newsstand sales have declined steadily, dropping every single year from 2001-2011. After slowly declining from 22 million in 2001 to just over 17 million in 2007, shedding 23% over the course of seven years, the rate of loss increased from 2008 to 2011 -- shedding another 32% in just four years.
In one of the more ominous developments, women seem to be losing interest in many newsstand titles traditionally aimed at them, which are responsible for a large share of total newsstand sales.
Although magazine publishers are looking to sell both digital single copies and subscription intended for consumption with tablet computers, e-readers and online, digital newsstand sales remain fairly low. In August Time Inc. revealed that it had sold a total of about 600,000 digital copies of People, Time, Sports Illustrated and Fortune across all platforms, and Conde Nast said it had sold a total of about 106,000 digital editions of its various magazines through Apple's iTunes store in the preceding six weeks, per Adweek.
In one of the more ominous developments, women seem to be losing interest in many newsstand titles traditionally aimed at them, which are responsible for a large share of total newsstand sales.
Although magazine publishers are looking to sell both digital single copies and subscription intended for consumption with tablet computers, e-readers and online, digital newsstand sales remain fairly low. In August Time Inc. revealed that it had sold a total of about 600,000 digital copies of People, Time, Sports Illustrated and Fortune across all platforms, and Conde Nast said it had sold a total of about 106,000 digital editions of its various magazines through Apple's iTunes store in the preceding six weeks, per Adweek.
Read more here
Print Media Ad Revenues Continue To Slide
According to a recent note by UBS, print ad growth came in at negative 8.9%, below estimates of a 7.7% decline, to the benefit of other media segments which will receive funds flowing out of print media. Revenues on classified sections deteriorated substantially, with growth down to negative 10.9% versus estimates of a decline of 5.1%. National print advertising was marginally better than expected, falling 8.8% compared with estimates of a 10% drop.
UBS now estimates full year 2011 print advertising growth to fall 6.6%, while in 2012 they expect a decline of 5%, in both cases worse than their previous expectations.
With New York Times’ total company advertising declining 4% in the second quarter and no positive revisions on digital ad revenue growth, UBS now expects The Gray Lady’s third quarter advertising revenues to decline 5.5%.
Read more at Forbes
UBS now estimates full year 2011 print advertising growth to fall 6.6%, while in 2012 they expect a decline of 5%, in both cases worse than their previous expectations.
With New York Times’ total company advertising declining 4% in the second quarter and no positive revisions on digital ad revenue growth, UBS now expects The Gray Lady’s third quarter advertising revenues to decline 5.5%.
Read more at Forbes
Sunday, September 11
Report Details Rise of Social Media
Social media account for 22.5 percent of the time that Americans spend online, according to (a new Nielsen Company report), compared with 9.8 percent for online games and 7.6 percent for e-mail. That makes social media the No. 1 specific category and the No. 2 category over all, behind “other” ways Americans spend time online, among them perusing adult content, visiting retail Web sites and reading about subjects like sports and health.
The social media brand that Americans spend the most time with, the report finds, is Facebook, by an enormous margin. During May, when the report was compiled, Americans spent 53.5 billion minutes on facebook.com from computers at home and work. (That was up 6 percent from 50.6 billion minutes in May 2010.)
Behind Facebook during May was Blogger, at 723.8 million minutes; Tumblr, at 623.5 million minutes; Twitter, at 565.2 million minutes; and LinkedIn, at 325.7 million minutes.
Read ore at the New York Times
The social media brand that Americans spend the most time with, the report finds, is Facebook, by an enormous margin. During May, when the report was compiled, Americans spent 53.5 billion minutes on facebook.com from computers at home and work. (That was up 6 percent from 50.6 billion minutes in May 2010.)
Behind Facebook during May was Blogger, at 723.8 million minutes; Tumblr, at 623.5 million minutes; Twitter, at 565.2 million minutes; and LinkedIn, at 325.7 million minutes.
Read ore at the New York Times
Computer Generated Articles Gaining Traction
Narrative Science, a start-up in Evanston, Ill., offers proof of the progress of artificial intelligence — the ability of computers to mimic human reasoning. The innovative work at Narrative Science raises the broader issue of whether such applications of artificial intelligence will mainly assist human workers or replace them. Technology is already undermining the economics of traditional journalism... will “robot journalists” replace flesh-and-blood journalists in newsrooms?
The company, founded last year, has 20 customers so far. Narrative Science (earns) less than $10 for each article of about 500 words — and the price will very likely decline over time. Even at $10, the cost is far less, by industry estimates, than the average cost per article of local online news ventures like AOL’s Patch or answer sites, like those run by Demand Media.
Read more at the New York Times
The company, founded last year, has 20 customers so far. Narrative Science (earns) less than $10 for each article of about 500 words — and the price will very likely decline over time. Even at $10, the cost is far less, by industry estimates, than the average cost per article of local online news ventures like AOL’s Patch or answer sites, like those run by Demand Media.
Read more at the New York Times
Great digital expectations
In the first five months of this year sales of consumer e-books in America overtook those from adult hardback books. Just a year earlier hardbacks had been worth more than three times as much as e-books, according to the Association of American Publishers. Amazon now sells more copies of e-books than paper books. It accounts for less than a quarter of physical book sales. But Amazon sells 60-70% of e-books in America.
Read more at The Economist
Read more at The Economist
Disappearing ink
More quickly than almost anyone predicted, e-books are emerging as a serious alternative to the paper kind. Amazon, comfortably the biggest e-book retailer, has lowered the price of its Kindle e-readers to the point where people do not fear to take them to the beach. In America, the most advanced market, about one-fifth of the largest publishers’ sales are of e-books. Newly released blockbusters may sell as many digital copies as paper ones. The proportion is growing quickly, not least because many bookshops are closing.
The music and film industries have started to bundle electronic with physical versions of their products—by, for instance, providing those who buy a DVD of a movie with a code to download it from the internet. Publishers, similarly, should bundle e-books with paper books.
Read more atThe Economist
The music and film industries have started to bundle electronic with physical versions of their products—by, for instance, providing those who buy a DVD of a movie with a code to download it from the internet. Publishers, similarly, should bundle e-books with paper books.
Read more atThe Economist
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)