Still Waiting for Those Tech Ads

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, August 1, 2003

Byline: Michael Learmonth

In 2001, flat became the new up. Since then, many publishers have seen actual, old-fashioned ups - as in actual pages. But for publishers dependent on tech advertising, the flat-is-up paradigm is still the guiding principle for budgeting in 2004. Customers are buying month-by-month, and though advertising activity has picked up, nobody is counting on the trend to hold.

"In general, the whole budget process is more conservative because there's a lack of forward visibility," says CMP Media COO Steve Weitzner. "Now, if we can see three months out, we're lucky."

So how do you manage the budget to show growth in a flat economy? At CMP, Weitzner says, it will mean continuing efforts to cut costs - while preserving core products and values. So the company is looking for savings in areas of the business that don't face the customer. "Audience development, sales, and editorial tend to be audience-centric, and we try to maintain our investment in those areas," Weitzner says. Streamlining production with new technologies, reducing development time for new products, and reducing the cost of space and office perks are prime targets for winnowing.

Another is identifying new markets and launching products on the cheap. One example is Secure Enterprise, an IT security magazine. Rather than develop a unique circulation file or buy a list, CMP partnered with an organization of qualified readers, the Computer Security Institute. Editorially, the new magazine is an offshoot of other CMP titles, Network Computing and Network Magazine.

"We pooled all these constituencies and editorial know-how and brought it together to create a publication," Weitzner says. "We're trying to bring down the amount of time it takes to create and bring things to market."