Regionals: strategies for a changing environment

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Feb 1, 1991 by Bill Dorn

In the last two issues of FoLio:, we looked at how business and consumer magazines are dealing with the current economic situation and changing publishing environment. To get an updated reading on the situation in local and regional publishing, FOLIO: asked Bill Dorn, president of Minnmedia, Inc., a magazine consulting firm, to assemble a panel of regional publishers to discuss the current state of business within this segment of publishing.

The group, which gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., included Howard Fish, publisher of Adirondack Life and Berkshire and president of California Business, Inc., publisher of California Business magazine; Don Richards, executive vice president of MCP, Inc., publisher of Business Journal of Milwaukee and group publisher of weekly business journals in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and San Jose; Bob Felsenthal, associate publisher of Crain's New York Business, formerly marketing director of Crain's Chicago Business; Faith Gallo, at the time of the roundtable, publisher of Detroit Monthly and current president of the City and Regional Magazine Association; Michael DeSimone, publisher of Regardie's and formerly with Washingtonian; and Tom Casey, publisher of Atlanta, which was acquired in late 1989 by American Express Publishing Company.

Dorn: The turbulent times in the magazine business nationally are reverberating down to the local level. Some marginal publications are already shaking out, and more are going to fall by the wayside. What experiences are you having? What is happening in your market and other markets that you observe?

Fish: Any magazine's most compelling challenge is to demand significant attention from its readers, and I think local and regional magazines have that built in-if they are properly run, that is.

In the cases of magazines that have failed, there has not been a clear editorial niche. In an up market you can try to force yourself into a niche, but as for a distinctive editorial niche, I think that many of these titles had their day and then lost it editorially. It is very difficult when you are a Manhattan, inc. to argue that you have a compelling editorial mission that is distinctly yours, and that a story that is going to appear in your magazine could not be in New York Magazine, Esquire or Forbes.

The magazines that have failed did not find a compelling reason for a reader to say that, whatever happens, I will renew my subscription to this magazine because it interests me or benefits me.

I think everybody here will say that, as competition increases, their investment in editorial is probably leading all cost increases. My readership studies show that readers of Adirondack Life and Berkshire also read The New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler and Vanity Fair, among other national magazines. They have a choice of whether to get my magazine or certain national magazines. It is very difficult not to justify paying top dollar for editorial if you are pursuing an 80 percent-plus renewal rate among readers who are making these choices.

If you have an editorial niche that you are going after and it matches the interests of the readers, it then becomes attractive to advertisers-and there is no reason your title can't succeed.

Gallo: I thought when Manhattan, inc. started it was going to do the same thing Regardie's did here in Washington.

Felsenthal: I would say Manhattan, inc. did have a very strong niche. They could have become like Regardie's. But their ad pages eroded significantly in the past few years because of changing editors. There were a lot of other problems, but they had, I believe, almost twice as many ad pages three years ago. They probably were much closer to profitability then than in their last year.

DeSimone: Bill Regardie takes a personal interest in everything happening in his magazine. Editorially, we have found the niche. Washington, being a very intense reader city, will read good quality editorial, so we have taken the good read and combined it with a number of useful tools. We take a diversity of subjects and incorporate them in one quality magazine that people expect to see every month. We have attracted advertisers and intelligent readers and luckily for us, readers in a very good income range who can buy anything advertised in the magazine.

We are constantly adjusting what we do, constantly making adjustments to make the magazine a better product. To be successful, you have to stay in tune with your readership and with your magazine.

Felsenthal: And your advertisers.

DeSimone: Absolutely your advertisers. You have no magazine without them. If you don't make the cash register ring, then you don't work.

Richards: Bill Regardie has such a strong influence on that magazine, what happens if he gets hit by a truck?

DeSimone: Hopefully he's not hurt very badly ! Richards: We always used to say that you can't pay a good sales manager enough money to generate the cash. just listening to this conversation, we are saying that you can't pay a good editor enough money to generate a good, readable product.