Magazine boss: We’ve been unfairly caught up in the story of newspapers’ decline
(l-r) Peter Zavecz (Pac Mags), Nicole Sheffield (NewsLifeMedia), Matt Stanton (Bauer Media), Geoff Hird (Publishers Australia)
Pacific Magazines director Peter Zavecz said today that is unfair to lump magazines in the same category as newspapers, which are facing much bigger problems.
Speaking at the Mumbrella360 conference held in Sydney today, Zavecz said magazines have become caught up in the story of the decline of print.
“I think we’ve been unfairly lumped into a print bucket that’s in decline,” he said.
“With the press, we all know the challenges they face. It’s news. If you’ve got channels that can deliver news faster and more conveniently for people, they’re going to turn to it.
“Magazines are different. It’s curated content. Even some of our news is curated news. Magazines are a separate entity [to newspapers]. Magazines are a more engaging sort of format than newspapers.”
Zavecz was on a panel with Bauer Media CEO and Magazines Publishers chairman Matthew Stanton, NewsLifeMedia CEO Nichole Sheffield, Pacific Magazines director Peter Zavecz and Publishers Australia and publisher Westwick-Farrow media Geoff Hird.
The problem with being lumped in with the decline of newspapers comes from magazines’ failure to market itself effectively, the panellists suggested.
“We’re growing our audiences exceptionally well. What we’re not doing well is not telling people about that,” said Hird.
Zavecz added: “The audience story, combined with our cross-platform growth and engagement, are stories we haven’t effectively told to media buyers. It’s something that we have to address moving forward.”
During the panel discussion, Bauer’s Stanton defended weekly titles saying they are still strong.
“The weekly market is still very strong, though it has its challenges. It’s more about the genres to be honest. You’ve got to chose your frequencies depending on your genre.”
According to the most recent figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), weekly titles are struggling, with circulations for all titles declining in the first quarter.
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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Mr Stanton and Mr Zavecs: Are you seriously arguing that magazine circ is not in serious, long-term decline, just as newspapers are? We can all read the ABC figures. Please provide examples of any magazines where circ is increasing? Or even just holding steady?
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“We’ve been caught up in newspapers’ decline!” Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I think you’ll find newspapers declines have generally been largely moderate against the plummeting falls of circ and readership of the magazine business (and closures). The bigger problem for magazines is young people are abandoning them (and that’s a dangerous business model.) If you’re growing up on an appetite of tablets, websites and social media, you ain’t ever going to switch to print.
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@Ex-mag person, a ‘magazine’ doesn’t have to be a printed product! They will adapt and change to suit the appetites and platform of choice of consumers.
Fashions come and go, and magazines that were once relevant and popular won’t be any more and will close, and others will take their place. A magazine is just like an app, something well-targeted and niche that people will pay money for.
The biggest challenge publishers face is keeping their product relevant and profitably monetised while the delivery/consumption method changes.
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@argo I think that if you look at home/design magazines, almost every one of the monthly titles recorded an increase last audit period, with a considerable rise for the sector overall. Same with most food titles. As Mr Zavecs says, it is curated content.
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@ LW…. read the story, it says “magazines have become caught up in the story of the decline of print.” So in this instance we are talking about printed products. The industry has been banging on about tablets and apps for a decade and it’s not taken on anywhere. Bauer tried and failed miserably. The only thing that is keeping these companies going are tabloid women’s titles aimed at 35-plus year olds. But they aren’t attracting younger readers who couldn’t care less about print. You talk about “niche apps” – yeah, good luck spinning a buck out of those! Too, young people get their media from films, online, video clips etc, etc, a static print product simply can no longer compete with that as a visual entertainment medium. Anyone who thinks mass market print products have a future is deluded (or is over 40.)
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@argo Women’s Fitness – fastest growing women’s lifestyle magazine up 21.4% in last ABC from 50,372 to 61,143 copies per month
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@lynne
Non- weeklies .in last audit figures Some 70 titles went backwards YoY, most by double digits . 15 or so titles actually grew and yes, all of those were in the home/health/ food category
https://mumbrella.com.au/circulation-declines-cleo-dolly-fashion-glossies-stabalise-206441
And here are the numbers for the weeklies – all have gone backwards despite Matt Stanton’s assertion that fw weekly market is strong
https://mumbrella.com.au/abcs-celebrity-titles-zoo-magazines-circulation-227102
While there are a few exceptions , all in all this doesn’t paint a picture of a healthy magazine market
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@exmagperson “But they aren’t attracting younger readers who couldn’t care less about print.”
I don’t know if you would count me as a ‘younger reader’, I’m almost 25 but I would say that one of the magazine’s biggest success stories in recent years is Frankie magazine, who I would imagine their main readership is women in their 20’s. Their circulation keeps increasing and increasing.
As other’s have pointed out, there’s no denying that while there have been some huge losses at magazines like Cleo and Dolly for example, there are a lot of niche magazines which are either steady or growing – home/lifestyle/food titles and the AWW are still going strong at around 400,000 copies sold every month.
For me, I still love magazines – maybe it’s because I thought I wanted to be a magazine journalist one day (frankly, glad I dodged that bullet!) But like this article points out the only mags of value to me nowadays are ones with niche content or more meaty articles – Australian Healthy Food Guide, Frankie, Real Living, Elle, Marie Claire etc
If it wasn’t for the internet I’d probably be buying Cosmo and Cleo, because that type of magazine is more irrelevant to my generation. What do they publish that I can’t find on the internet for free?
You could maybe argue that the stuff I read in magazines I still buy could also be found online for free, but there’s still an experience of sitting down and reading a magazine that I don’t get from a newspaper that’s still getting me to fork out the money for the print version every month. I don’t particularly want to read a magazine article online, but a newspaper article online suits me just fine – the experience is different.
Just a Gen Y perspective to add to the conversation!
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@Ex-mag person, I did read the story, especially the part where he talks about ‘cross platform growth’. I don’t think anybody in the magazine industry would be saying that printed static publications have a great long term future. But curated content, properly formatted and marketed, should always be able to attract a profitable price.
Who knows how magazines will end up looking? Maybe we’ll purchase them story by story, similar to Flipbook.
A huge amount of magazines are still sold in this country every day. Sure, there’s more competition for eyeballs now, but it’s a brave person who would write off the genre entirely.
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Aargh! Flipboard, not Flipbook…. Brain freeze…
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@ Samantha… One person reading Frankie magazine doth not an industry make. Regardless, media will go where media has always gone – and that’s where the ad dollars are. And the ad dollars certainly aren’t going into print. Be interesting if and when all that beauty/grooming ad spend in women’s mags dries up what will happen (regardless of how good the editorial is!)
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