Seminar Spawns Optimism For Magazine Market
The magazine industry is in the midst of a revolution with opportunities outweighing risks in the sector, according to Paul Keenan, chief executive of Emap Consumer Media, who was speaking at MediaTel Group’s latest seminar this morning.
Fellow panellist, Future plc’s chief executive, Stevie Spring, was equally optimistic. “The buying and reading of magazines is alive and well,” she said, indicating that the magazine marketplace was both diverse and dynamic. Customers were key, she said, with consumers dictating the future direction of the medium and “keeping us on our toes”.
The main focus for the sector was competition for people’s attention, said David Hepworth, industry heavyweight and the editorial director of publisher Development Hell. Once the consumer’s attention had been grabbed, he said, the challenge was then to get them to engage.
As the discussion inevitably turned to the evolution of digital mediums, Marc Mendoza, managing partner of Media Planning Group, was adamant that as digital has not been the death of television, online will not be the death of magazines. There was nothing new in sectors going up and down, he said, whilst Keenan agreed that there were cyclical elements to the industry at the moment and that it was crucial the opportunities around digital should be embraced.
Hepworth felt that most discussions surrounding digital have so far been on the crude side. “We’re going to have to up our game to work out what is good about the internet and what is not,” he said. Magazines are more powerful than we give them credit for, he argued, with the main challenge being to convince people that they needed a magazine. “Once they get it, they love it,” he insisted.
Media journalist Ray Snoddy was sanguine about the market, urging the industry to avoid talking about gloom and saying that creativity was at an all time high. Referring to the 0.8% year on year growth the magazine market has experienced in the UK, Snoddy pointed out that the national newspaper industry would be only too happy to report this sort of figure. “If [the national newspaper industry] got even within 100 miles of that, it would be Champagne from now til next Friday,” he said.
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