Distribution highways - impact of the information superhighway on magazine publishing

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May 15, 1994 by Ron Scott

What is it about the offerings in our magazines that inspires readers to buy what they can get for free electronically?

People trust magazines more than TV, radio and newspapers. Asked to choose which is "the most effective medium for knowledge and usable ideas," 45 percent of respondents to a 1991 PCH/MPA survey replied, "magazines." By comparison, only 18 percent chose TV, 20 percent chose newspapers, and 2 percent chose radio; 15 percent replied "don't know."

We should ponder this amazing piece of data as we consider the impact of the electronic superhighway--which is all the rage of investors and pundits alike--on magazine publishing. What is it about the offerings in our magazines that inspires readers to buy what they might otherwise get for free electronically?

The authors of the study answer that question this way: "The primary reason that magazine buying and readership continues to grow is relatively simple--a magazine is the most effective medium for contributing to people's personal knowledge and in supplying them with the most usable ideas about areas important in daily living. Despite changing lifestyles, interests and mores, magazines continue to dominate television, newspapers and radio."

All this is true, but there is much more to the story. Why, exactly, are magazines the most "effective"?

Our editors have access to the same information as radio and television commentators and newspaper editors, but have more limited formats in which to present that information. Radio and television are much faster at delivering information than magazines ever could be, and so are newspapers. Both television and radio are interactive through call-in programming; and both deliver targeted audiences, either large or small, that are demographically defined, making them appealing to advertisers.

Finally, it costs more to deliver a magazine (on the roadways) than it does to deliver the same information electronically (through the airways). Why, then, are we still in business?

The PCH/MPA survey on media choices, individual publisher research, and massive doses of common sense give the answer in one word: credibility. Magazines have the greatest credibility of any information medium. That credibility has two sources: Our editorial is constantly defined and redefined by feedback from the marketplace, and we are unlicensed, unregulated and free of government influence.

Listening to our readers

That marketplace feedback comes, in part, from the ways in which we distribute our offerings to readers. It is informative to contrast our marketplace editorial feedback with that of our competitors. The best that television has developed to date is a diary format in which demographically selected owners of television sets record the channels to which their sets are tuned. Who is, or is not, watching remains a matter of speculation.

Newspapers have subscriptions (home delivery) and retail sales, as we do. But newspapers' circulation numbers do not seem to reflect any particularly successful editorial response to their declining circulations. Perhaps it is because they believe that they are more directly competitive with the electronic media than are magazines. Or perhaps daily circulation provides too many conflicting responses to allow editors to determine meaningful adjustments. Or it may be that the consolidation of newspapers into larger markets is part of the answer.

Magazines, then, are fortunate to have the channels of distribution they do. The harsh realities of our marketplace responses (return ratios and renewal figures) are not pleasant for editors or publishers, and they do not make circulators either happy or popular. But they are our reality check. They give us fair warning when returns are high and renewal rates are either low or indicate that lower pricing is needed in order to bring response rates up. And they tell us we are in tune with the market when return rates are low and renewal rates are high without price reductions or the need for increasingly expensive incentives.

Editors and publishers are, naturally, less than appreciative of circulation efforts when reports are not as they had expected. Yet it is these forms of editorial feedback that stimulate creativity, inform us of reader interests, wants and needs, and drive our continuing quest for excellence.

Free of influence

Our editorial credibility, founded in the First Amendment and protected and sustained by our collective, vigorous defense in courts both large and small, is the greatest threshold that electronic media must cross. Government involvement in and assistance to electronic media has been pervasive. From radio and television station licensing to government-sponsored cable franchising, from telephone regulated monopolies to electronic superhighway suggestions from our vice president, government involvement has tainted the credibility of the electronic media. Our readers, I believe, know this intuitively.

So we can watch the rise to prominence of the latest electronic competitor with interest--indeed, with fascination. It is surely a new wave of change, but until it is as free as we are, and until it is more harshly tested in the marketplace of editorial feedback, magazine publishers can continue to do what they do better than any other form of communication: Provide their readers with the most credible ideas, information and entertainment.