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Published on December 2, 2007

However, as those in the magazine publishing business are quick to point out, launching a new glossy is not the same as keeping it afloat. And with the Internet ushering in a new age, there is a collective fear that magazines may soon go the way of the dinosaurs. So what's the truth?

Trusted by magazine head honchos as the man with the global answer to the Thai problem, Donald D Kummerfeld jetted into Bangkok from the UK last week to address a workshop at the Magazine and Book Fair.

While upbeat about the future of the trade, the president and CEO of the International Federation of the Periodical Press stresses that magazines cannot afford to remain print-centric.

"Just looking at the fair, I can see the magazine industry here is very healthy and well-supported by advertising," he says. "But in many parts of the world today - the US, western Europe and Japan - there's a new phenomena competing for time, readers, money and advertisers. That's called the Internet. You have a relatively low penetration of broadband Internet here today. But you'll be soon confronting the competition from the Net here just we are in the US, Japan and western Europe."

Kummerfeld pinpoints readers and advertising as the two indicators of a magazine's success and survival.

And he sees reasons both for "cheer" and "fear" as he surveys the global magazine industry.

"The fear is that the Internet is turning people away from the print media and into the online world. This shift of attention is due to the culture of immediacy, instant gratification and social networking," he says.

However, the online threat won't undercut overall magazine circulation in most developed magazine markets. "It isn't even declining," he emphasises, pointing to the fact that despite the saturated market in the US, publications like Martha Stewart Living, The Economist and Elle are increasing their sales.

What's more, he adds, new titles are largely offsetting any decline in or closure of existing names. In fact, the print magazine readership is actually increasing in the print magazine readership is actually increasing in the wealthiest demographic (over US$100,000 or Bt3.4 million yearly income). And readers in the 18-to-34 age group continue to be heavy magazine consumers (preferring "timely, factual news"), despite spending more time on the Internet "as their primary media source".

Magazines who serve these readers, like Business Week, FHM and Seventeen, are making a major effort to pander to them with online editorials.

"As media options continue to proliferate, consumers are reducing the time they spend on all traditional media but the reduction is less for magazines than for TV and newspapers. Overall magazine readership is stable in most countries.

"It's also clear that far from cannibalising print, strong branded websites drive new readers to the print product and increase print circulation - obviously a win-win situation," he says.

Besides fragmented magazine readership, magazine advertising is also being transformed with the advent of online media. Kummerfeld believes that magazine advertising will decline as more advertisers move from magazines to online interactive platforms.

But the cheer is that magazine advertising, like most other traditional media advertising, continues to grow at a healthy rate (global magazine ad revenue was up 6.1 per cent in 2006 after a 5.3-per-cent increase in 2005) and magazine advertising revenues in the US are up 7 per cent so far this year, he says.

"While magazine ad revenue continues to grow, it is still too early to tell if there will be massive shifts from print magazines to online in the future. Most probably advertising will follow consumers. If they desert print magazines, so will advertisers," he says.

Kummerfeld cites Martha Stewart Living, Forbes and Runners World as examples of magazines with strong online traffic that do well in print advertising.

Given the new challenges in the multimedia world, he recommends magazine publishers catch up with the technology, saying the age of new media has no room for those who choose to remain print-centric.

But he's also confident that "long-form journalism" has a role to play, as print magazines remain the best platform for its consumption.

"Print magazines that do thoughtful, provocative, fact-checked editorials will survive in the digital age and prosper in a media world cluttered with often unreliable and unattractive editorials on the web," he says.

Whether lower-quality print magazines will survive is less clear, but a combination of strong print brands and strong online platforms will likely increase the success of both in the marketplace.

So what guarantees success in the online world, then?

Kummerfeld thinks a magazine's ability to integrate print and online both editorially and in advertising sales is one way of achieving success in a fast changing magazine environment. Examples of magazine that have achieved this successful blend include Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, Seventeen, Better Homes and Gardens and Forbes.

To succeed, Kummerfeld proposes four basic necessities: "high-level management commitment", "significant investment in new people and outside expertise", "editorial creativity" and "persistence".

Publishers need to also realise that while there will be little overall growth in print circulation in title-saturated markets, there will be room for new titles that serve new areas of interest. He adds that titles targeting selective upscale audiences and specialist titles focusing narrowly and deeply on specific areas of interest will do better in both circulation and advertising than those serving mass audiences.

The good news is print magazines will still be around in the future, he says, as an important medium for many categories such as fashion, design, art and food.

"And in 20 years you young folks can go to your favourite necromancer and let me know how these predictions turned out," he concludes with a grin.

Manote Tripathi

The Nation