Foreign Exchange: American publishers are viewing their foreign brethren with renewed interest, and learning from their low-cost, high-efficiency ways of doing business

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March, 2002 by David Hessekiel

Traditionally, American publishers have considered themselves mentors to their international partners. Yes, they've expected foreign employees, joint-venture partners and licensees to advise them on local business customs. But when it comes to the art of successfully putting out a magazine, Americans have had a, shall we say, paternal attitude. But with profits scarce in the U.S. these days, many American executives are trying much harder to learn from their "lean and mean" foreign counterparts.

SMALLER STAFFS, HIGHER EFFICIENCY

Stephen Colvin, president, Dennis Publishing, says the British tendency to produce magazines with fewer editorial staffers than their American counterparts is largely a matter of attitude. "British magazines are produced more like newspapers--it's done a lot faster, with less rewriting, less trying for perfection," he says. "We're not creating a cure for cancer. We're just putting out a magazine and having a good time at it."

Colvin believes the enormity of the American market has contributed to the trend to hire bigger staffs than is common in the United Kingdom. "Everything in the United States is a big business--it's very easy to take yourself very seriously here," he says.

Greater use of long-term freelance staff also helps keep the full-time headcount down in the United Kingdom, he adds.

Working fast enabled Dennis to launch Blender just eight weeks after the editor was hired, and to launch Stuff in only six week, Colvin notes.

George Green, president of Hearst Magazines International since 1989, has long trumpeted the productivity of foreign publishers to his New York-based colleagues at Hearst Corporation--particularly the efficiency of their relatively smaller editorial staffs. "Foreign publishers are shocked by the sizes of the staffs that we have," Green says. "We've never started a foreign edition of Cosmopolitan with more than eight editors, which is about 20 percent of the size of the U.S. staff."

George Hirsch, chairman of the Magazine Publishers Association's international committee, says that most European publishers operate on an ongoing basis at staffing levels that Americans would associate with entrepreneurial start-ups. As American magazines succeed, the head count goes up, he says. But when the market sours, those same magazines face tough decisions: "Nowadays, you can't find an American magazine company that hasn't cut jobs," he says.

Hirsch cites the German edition of Runner's World as an example of how foreign publishers produce magazines with staffs that are skeletal compared to their American editions. Rodale and its German partner, Motor-Presse, put out the 54,000-circulation monthly with two editors and a part time art director, according to Hirsch, who is Rodale's international magazines director and the worldwide publisher of Runner's World. The business functions of Runner's World Germany, such as ad sales and circulation, are handled on a corporate basis by Motor-Presse. One ad sales person handles Runner's World Germany and several other Motor-Presse titles. By comparison, Runner's World has six sales people in the United States, plus a publisher.

GLOBAL COMMUNICATION

By promoting international dialogue, some publishers are already reaping more than just profits and royalty checks from their overseas editions. For example, the "brand franchise encyclopedia," given to all of Weider Publishing's foreign partners, includes best practices gathered from across the world, not just the American mother ship, says Linda Saint Marc, senior vice president, international group publisher for Weider's 16 foreign editions of Shape, Fit Pregnancy, Men's Fitness and Natural Health.

At Rodale, the editors of the 22 international editions of Men's Health have found creative ways to collaborate that improve quality and save money, says MaryAnn Bekkedahl, recently promoted to publisher of Men's Health in the United States from associate publisher of its international editions. Last year, for example, six editors from around the globe put together a wish-list of images and arranged to fund a single photo shoot in Germany. Rather than arrange multiple shoots of, say, hikers in Switzerland, hikers in France and hikers in Sweden, one shoot covered them all. "Everyone ended up getting great photographs for less than it would have cost any of them to do it on their own," says Bekkedahl.

In another joint project, a Men's Health editorial package on health scares combined articles from several international editions, including a piece on mad cow disease from the United Kingdom.

To stimulate such collaboration, Rodale holds "international summits," such as its January meeting in the Bahamas, for the top editors and executives of its 3 r editions of Men's Health, Runner's World and Preuention.

AMERICAN KNOW-HOW

Of course, American publishers still bring tremendous value to foreign editions. Business modeling, financial controls and brand strategy are cited most often as key contributions. When partners receive CD-ROMs carrying Hearst International's proprietary business modeling tools, for example, they almost always find that the advertising, circulation and financial analysis tools are far superior to their own programs, Green says.