Ziff charges into on-line as pioneer BYTE departs; McGraw-Hill title's BIX service sold to General Videotex

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 1, 1992 by Liz Horton

McGraw-Hill's BYTE, credited with pioneering the first specialized on-line service for readers in 1985, is moving out of the electronic-information business, just as Ziff Communications moves aggressively into it.

BYTE has sold its BIX service, used by computer professionals, to General Videotex Corp. for an undisclosed sum. General Videotex has "the capability to expand at a faster rate than we can," explains BYTE publisher Ronald Evans. "We're in the publishing business here at BYTE, and we want to focus our energies." And though he says BIX was profitable, it was not considered a major revenue stream.

The sale frees BIX to expand its 30,000 membership, says Steve Laliberte, director of computer-related services at General Videotex and former director of BIX. "The biggest advantage is that now we can work with other high-tech publications. Before, we could really only hunt in the McGraw-Hill farm," he adds. BIX can now also look beyond BYTE's readership, which covered only 10 to 15 percent of the high-tech magazine market, says Labiberte. BYTE will continue to supply editorial, but GVC has already established relations with The C Users Journal and is in talks with other high-tech publications. The BIX service complements GVC's other online service, Delphi, which is more mass-market oriented.

The sale of BIX comes as Ziff Communications is developing ambitious plans for its on-line information service, ZiffNet - though neither Ziff nor GVC admits to seeing the other as competition. BIX focuses on high-end computer users and programmers, while Ziff's appeal is broader. But both say they break ground in treating the on-line service like a publication, tailoring editorial to a specific readership - unlike most on-line services, which post files from anywhere.

ZiffNet originated from PC MagNet, an electronic bulletin board created for PC Magazine readers four years ago to allow them to download utilities featured in the magazine. A joint venture with Compuserve provided national access to the service, and other Ziff publications created their own services. Last summer, services linking eight Ziff magazines were brought under the umbrella of ZiffNet, and a staff was brought together to create editorial material beyond that from the magazines.

"We are pursuing a path, for the first time on-line services, of a substantial investment in editorial content creation," says Michael Kolowich, vice president of Ziff Communications and managing director of Ziff Desktop Information. "We made the mental commitment to go fro being an extension of the magazines to being a full-fledged, special-interest information service focusing on buying, using, supporting and understanding computers."

Concludes Dan McCarthy of Communications Trends, an advertising research firm: "Ziff decided its on-line services were integral to what it does; BYTE decided it was tangential."

Ford, Hachette

sign global

marketing pact

Hachette S.A.'s global ad programs have captured the imagination of automotive manufacturers, which with nearly $1 billion in U.S. ad spending last year, make up the richest group of magazine advertisers.

Parish-based Hachette recently signed an unprecedented multimillion-dollar international ad pact with the Ford Motor Corp. were seeking similar deals with Hachette.

Ford's program provides the automaker's domestic and international operating units with discounts based on increased spending in Hachette's magazines worldwide. The company publishes 106 magazines covering the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. The Ford program marks the first time Ford's domestic and international units will coordinate media spending decisions - and indeed, one of the few times any major company has attempted a unified, transnational print spending plan. Traditionally, multinational corporations have marketed products on a country-by-country basis through local agencies.

For Ford,the biggest benefits are the savings and the opportunity to coordinate objectives across markets, says Bob Mancini, director of media services at Ford's agency, J. Walter Thompson. The companies would not disclose total dollar value of the deal.