Next Issue Media released a study today indicating the U.S. periodical business can recognize $3 billion in interactive revenue by 2014. It's a prediction predicated on some challenging assumptions --- lots of devices, lots of familiarity, touchscreens and colour --- but the Oliver Wyman study identifies some major gains ahead for 230 periodicals:

1. Higher renewal rates of subscriptions if an interactive edition is available --- 64% instead of 55%.
2. Greater revenue from bundled print/interactive packages, something consumers so far like.
3. Bill-me-later interactive editions heavily reduce churn rates to 25% from 45%, again yielding greater revenue.
4. Cross-selling advertising through recommendation engines through the editions will drive revenue from other products.
5. Availability of interactive editions will triple uptake from non-subscribers to the print periodical, to 15% from 5%.

The study nevertheless indicates some immense challenges for publishers: devices need to be encouraged, archival material made available, workflows changed, partnerships established, among other things.
 
 
Normally the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog is filled with the dire news of declining newspaper circulation and revenue. But in his latest post, Alan Mutter is sounding a bit of a clarion call to publishers: They can win by using Apple's iPad properly.

For the first time, Mutter says, a device is there to play to the strengths of the print medium's depth of content. Given everyone is starting on equal footing to create applications and functions for the iPad, Mutter believes print publishers can create winning strategies by acting swiftly and decisively.

The strength of print is in its subtle and deep exploration of issues. It is a lean-back medium, a solitary one, and a medium in which drama can be built with words when neither audio nor video is available.

What he advocates (apart from action now) is unclear, but Mutter says it's not feasible simply to migrate content. New functions and depth need to emerge, or else the glaring weakness of print online will be repeated.
 
 
James Kristie, the editor and associate publisher of Directors and Boards, uses his blog to find peaks and valleys and pronounce on governance. His latest: Print media has bottomed out.

Times have been tough, "but we may have put the bottom in" with Thursday's announcement of the death of Editor & Publisher magazine, Kristie surmises.

"It's said that they don't ring a bell at tops and bottoms of the market. But I'm calling a bottom in the death plunge of the print media industry. There may be some more pain to come, but could there be any louder clang than the killshot to Editor & Publisher to signal a coming bounceback for the print media? I say no."
 
 
The Austin Business Journal features a chin-up takeout on the fate of print advertising. The conclusion: There is plenty of life left in it.

For the foreseeable future, print will play an integral role in the planning for advertisers, it concludes. Digital growth is obvious, as is media fragmentation, but print is by no means dead.

While a new business model is needed, consumers are bound to stay loyal to print to a large extent --- and, thus, so will advertisers.
 
 

Barron's posits this week that an investor in old media today will have a fatter wallet in the years ahead. All it will take for traditional companies to prosper is for them to muddle through the recession, watch some of their rivals wither, and scoop up the market in the process.

The financial weekly suggests the old-media-are-dead mantra is not accurate or informed.   It could be decades before either print or broadcasting are irrelevant in the media conversation.

Interestingly, Barron's posts the piece in behind a firewall, so the best you can do is view its first of four pages if you're not a subscriber.

 
 

There are some harrowing observations from Sir Martin Sorrell, considered one of the world's luminaries on the advertising business. In short, the change is secular, the disintermediation strong, and the profitability of old media changed forever.

Low-cost business models have undermined and unsaddled the legacy media and its traditional profit picture, he notes. Principally, the seeds of difficulty were planted by new media operations aiming to give content away. O

 
 

Deloitte has published a study of United Kingdom consumers indicating they prefer print advertising over online advertising to help them make purchasing decisions.

Some 59 per cent pay attention to print advertising in magazines, and 56 per cent said they pay more attention to newspaper advertising over anything online. Television advertising remains the most effective.

The survey's authors say it indicates traditional media maintain a strong grip on UK consumers.

 
 

Mark Briggs in Journalism 2.0 suggests it might not be attractive any longer to teach print in journalism school.

Reasons: print's decline, online's rise, the cost of producing a school paper and the futility of the exercise in the long run.

Interesting idea. Here are a couple of others: At its heart all journalism depends on writing. Is it sufficient to teach writing for online, when it's clear there are differences in print and online reading traits? Second: Print isn't disappearing. It's getting smaller, but it's not going to be smaller than other media locally for at least a dozen years, so why steer students away from the largest (if getting smaller) employer?

Your thoughts?

3 Comments
 
 

Well, to call either Ron Rosenblum or Jeff Jarvis titans might be a stretch, but Rosenblum (former Los Angeles Times critic) returns to public view today with a column in Slate that suggests Jarvis of Buzzmachine is a little too eager to walk on the downed bodies of print.
Jarvis, in turn, didn't turn his cheek and quickly zinged back on Buzzmachine.
Entertaining reading, somewhat, but talents like them have better things to do with their days ---- like Twitter.

 
 

Eric Schmidt believes the economic model for high-quality journalism is under great stress. He hints of a future of fewer voices. And he's not merely a bullish new-media-replacing-old-media guy. He laments the loss of quality and the arrival of unmediated, frictionless publishing.
The Google CEO sees the Internet as a "cesspool" of unfiltered, inaccurate information, and he suggests brands are an antidote to the whirl of anything-goes information and opinion. In the end quality will win, he believes. Of course, that quality can exist alongside ads served up by Google, which he repeated has no interest in entering the content business.

 
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