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AS READERSHIP OFUS NEWSPAPERS SLIPS,
BRITISH & CANADIAN PAPERS ARE FARING WELL
The latest Adweek Media/Harris Poll, completed in December, indicates that just two out of five American adults read a daily newspaper on-or-offline pretty much every day. Shockingly, 10% of adults never pick up a daily, and 81% read one just once a month, while 72% read a paper at least once a week.
It’s no wonder our electorate is so poorly informed and so susceptible to the falsehoods and misrepresentations that have become daily TV fodder in this incredibly partisan world.
Compare those dismal figures with two other English speaking nations. In Canada, 17% of adults read a daily newspaper online. A total of 13.9 million adults, three quarter of the Canadian population read a print edition each week. A study showed that half of the adult population read a newspaper “yesterday” and in a typical week, 78% have read one either on or offline.
In the United Kingdom, a new survey by Lightspeed Research found that two-thirds of Brits prefer reading a print edition, while one-third read both on and offline papers.
The study added that tabloid audiences were the most loyal to print editions of their favorite papers. But it also reported that brand loyalty was particularly high in the British newspaper arena despite the wide variety of papers to select from.
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HERE’S A SHOCKER TO PONDER:
WILL LITERARY AGENTS BECOME ANACHRONISMS?
Jeff Rivera posted a thought-provoking article on Media Bistro’s Gallery Cat. He asks whether there will be a need for literary agents in the near future now that authors are able to upload their work to devices like Kindle or turn them over directly to e-book formatters and distributors. A riveting question.
Agents have always been key links between authors and publishers. Their value extends far beyond just negotiating a contract. For authors, they open publishers’ doors, fight for rights, protect income and generally guide and support their clients. For publishers they serve as initial screeners, as sources of new titles and as buffers between them and authors.
Among the responses that Rivera solicited, one of the most thoughtful came from Ben LeRoy, publisher of Tyrus Books, who said, “Though devices like Kindle and the Nook add new wrinkles to the publishing tapestry, their biggest effect is most likely with readers and the machinations of the industry itself.” Well said!
Progress often means change, but there are segments of the status quo that will remain far too valuable to alter or discard, and agents are undoubtedly one of them.
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A NEW KIND OF MEDIA MOGUL
Oh, what this economic mess has wrought! The newest model of a media mogul no longer comes out of years of publishing experience. This time it’s banking. As head of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon is perhaps the nation’s top banker. Today he’s wearing a second hat, supervising three major companies, once considered stars of the media world.
As the financier behind troubled Reader’s Digest, American Media and Source Interlink Media, Dimon and his associates in essence control revenues of more than $5 billion. Add to that, the bank’s position in the Tribune Company, now struggling with its own bankruptcy, and you have one of the largest “conglomerates” in media. How our world has changed.
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WHAT COULD BE MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU AS AN AUTHOR
THAN PROTECTING YOUR REPUTATION FOR INTEGRITY?
Jon Friedman, columnist for Market Watch, said it all in his recent column on the metamorphosis of author and TV anchor Lou Dobbs. It’s a phenomenon that I have watched develop over the years with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Once one of the most respected TV analysts of the business world, both national and around the globe, he has become a cocky, self-aggrandizing blowhard, constantly interrupting and shouting down any guest who disagrees with him. Dobbs has elevated himself, at least in his own eyes, to the position of arbiter of the nation’s ills…or at least what he sees as the nation’s ills
As Friedman so aptly points out as he searches for the reason for Dobb’s transformation, it is his desperate grab for ratings. But does it work? Hardly, when you see that the rantings of “Mr. Ideology,” as Friedman calls him, not only have made him look ridiculous; they have also impacted the ratings he so cherishes. He has lost 31,000 viewers in the past year.
Those of us who produce words, printed or spoken, have a grave responsibility to our public. Let Dobbs’ experience be a lesson to any of us who are tempted to sell our integrity to increase our book sales.
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READERS DIGEST ASSOCIATION CONFIRMS
IT WILL FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY WITHIN 30 DAYS
As we predicted in a column several weeks ago, the Reader’s Digest Association, corporate parent of iconic Reader’s Digest and several other popular publications, announced it will be filing a pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition within the month.
What an upsetting turn of events for a publication that for years was a byword in households across the country, selling 17 million copies each month.
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BISG CONFERENCE ATTENDEES HEAR
FASCINATING STATISTICS EVERY AUTHOR CAN USE
Once again the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) was the source of some really valuable information for author and publishers as well, as they plan their marketing programs.
R.R. Bowker is an amazing source of info. You have seen me refer to it time and again in previous blogs. Kelly Gallagher, the company’s spokesman at the conference, offered a portrait of what the company found were typical buyers and readers of books in 2008.
The most frequent buyers are in their 50’s while the average age of all buyers is 45. Half of the American population 23 years and older purchased a book last year. Female buyers outpaced males by a ratio of 65% to 35%. That figure is heavily weighted by the number of women who purchased fiction. The one exception is science fiction which attracts more men.
The average price paid for a book last year was $10.08.
The 15 hours per week book readers devote to the Internet is higher than the time they spend watching television, Impulse buying accounts for more than half of book sales, Gallagher said. Dave Thompson of Random House expanded on that stat telling the audience that store displays are the first awareness of a book for most readers. 44.4% of readers fall into this category. Close behind are e-mails and online advertisements.
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CHANGING PICTURE IN PUBLISHING
IS AFFECTING STUDENTS AS THEY JOB HUNT
The combination of staff layoffs and shut-downs by print publications has had a severe impact on college students as they plan their careers. Bloomberg.com ran in interesting sidebar to the issue. For decades it has been almost axiomatic that the editors of the Harvard Crimson, one of the more prestigious college newspapers, would continue as journalists after graduation.
This year, Bloomberg reports, only three of the 16 graduating seniors who serve on the executive board are headed for careers in journalism.
What choice do college grads have today in the face of the scarcity of job openings? The American Society of News Editors claims newsroom positions on newspapers fell by 11% last year, the largest drop since the group began monitoring employment. The picture in the magazine world is similar with closings running ahead of new start-ups.
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WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE
MEDIA JOB MARKET?
An interesting article ran recently entitled “The Media’s Lost Generation.” It appeared on TheBig Money.com, a division of Slate. Lesley Blume, the author, writes, “Today’s journalists—including those both sidelined by layoffs and those still clinging desperately to their workplace desks—have been left to wonder whether the very idea of ambition makes sense anymore.”
In essence what Blume is stating is the fact that there seems to be little or no future in the publishing industry “ravaged by the recession and the infringing Internet.”
The article contrasts the traditional “clear, relatively linear trajectories” of a career in the media, starting as an editorial assistant and gradually climbing to the level of editor with the hopelessness of today’s job market. And the same seems to be true in broadcast, according to Blume.
The most telling sentence in the article states, “For many, goals are no longer defined in specific terms such as `I’d like to be the style section editor at the New York Times;’ rather, journalists now describe their aspirations in broader strokes: `I’d just like to be a published writer.’”
The simple suggestion one hears so often that jobs abound on the Internet just isn’t so, and won’t be so until the digital world eventually discovers a model that works. Right now, all is in flux. Periodicals are dabbling in the digital world only to find it’s a bit of a quagmire. Undoubtedly, time and economic pressures will help them gain a strong foothold, but for now, I’m afraid the concerns that Blume has expressed do rule, and no one in the industry is benefitting.
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ARE MAGAZINES MAKING THE TRANSITION
TO DIGITAL EFFECTIVELY?
With ad volume in print consumer magazines down substantially in 2008, eMarketer’s analysts anticipate ad spending will drop by 16.2% this year. Carol Lynn Krol, a senior analyst, says, “Years of inflated circulation rate bases have backfired.” She further explains that “Magazines chased volume, banking on a larger set of readers to justify advertising rate increases. Unfortunately, that bloated universe of readers often proved less profitable.”
But just converting to a digital format won’t solve the problem alone. Once again, the quality of content to attract readers is key. Jim Spanfeller, Forbes.com CEO told eMarketer, “They’re not putting out a product that is compelling for an online audience. You have to get your brand online.” He says that 95% of magazines haven’t done that.
But all is not lost according to eMarketer’s Krol. She points out that unlike many newspapers, magazine publishers aren’t offering all of their offline content free of charge when placed in online format. Krol says, “As a result, they have the opportunity to develop premium content models and to package the offline and online products together.”
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LATEST DEVELOPMENTS ON THE
NEWSPAPER FRONT
When Scripps locked the door at the Rocky Mountain News, a group of out-of-work staffers took the proverbial bull by the horns and began organizing a paid digital paper called InDenverTimes.com. Their primary competitor would be Dean Singleton’s Denver Post, at one time part of a joint operating agreement with the News.
Three highly respected local entrepreneurs have agreed to finance the operation if the staff is able to secure 50,000 paid subscribers by April 23rd, the date of what should have been the newspaper’s 150th anniversary. If successful, the plan is to launch on May 4. The start-up team of 30 ex-staffers is attempting to tap the list of 210,000 mid-week former subscribers of the News as the nucleus of the audience for their new paper.
Meanwhile, a bit further west, a political powerhouse joined the effort to keep ailing newspapers in San Francisco alive. US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked the Justice Department to take a fresh look at anti-trust provisions that have ruled the newspaper world in the hope of allowing a joint effort of The Chronicle and the Bay Areas News Group, another Singleton organization that owns and operates the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times and the Oakland Tribune.
Some interesting proposals have cropped up under the mounting pressure of newspaper closings. Let’s hope this become contagious, for a democracy without a vibrant, functioning press will not survive for very long.
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