After publishing 5,000 informative and entertaining videos, we launch our new initiative: WatchMojo Live, straight from Manhattan. Expect a wide array of newsmakers and celebrities in the weeks to come, today, it’s business, new media and technology, with Tech Crunch co-editor Erick Schonfeld.
I’ve done hundreds of taped segments for WatchMojo.com since 2006, but I haven’t done a live show since 2005 when I stopped doing radio to focus on launching WatchMojo.com. Expect some rust…
This morning I wrote about Business Week mentioning WatchMojo.com in an article. Maybe that’s why I feel guilty and dirty reading this?
Bloomberg LP, the global financial data and news empire created by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, is the winning bidder for BusinessWeek.
Terms of the offer will not be disclosed by Bloomberg and BusinessWeek parent McGraw-Hill Cos. But knowledgeable sources say that Bloomberg’s cash offer is in the $2 million to $5 million range and that it has agreed to assume liabilities, including potential severance payments. It remains to be seen how much of the magazine’s 400-plus staff Bloomberg plans to cut, but reports of a planned scorched earth campaign are overblown, say sources. BusinessWeek editor-in-chief Steve Adler told his staff shortly after the deal was announced Tuesday that part of the deal guaranteed that McGraw-Hill benefits would be extended to employees for one year after the deal closes.
Man. What has the world come to? Read more.
I get the same emails in the morning as Business Insider does, but wait for them to go through it, summarize and condense them (that’s actually meant to be a compliment). Namely:
A GREATER-THAN-EXPECTED SHARE OF BUDGETS ARE MOVING FROM MAGAZINES TO VIDEO AND CUSTOM SPONSORSHIPS
Video advertising has been one of the only areas of growth in both traditional and online media during 2009, with marketers embracing professional content providers like Hulu over user-generated sites. In addition, marketers and agencies has noted an increase in spending on “private label media” or “owned propeties,” which falls under a sponsorship buy for most advertisers.
We believe these two trends affect the same types of advertisers that have traditionally been big spenders on magazines–premium national advertisers focused on branding campaigns. As a result, it’s no surprise that a greater share of budgets could be taken from magazines next year in favor of online video and sponsorships.
To be sure, we’re not talking enormous numbers here. The shift in share from magazines to online in the the new forecasts amounts to about $50 million. Still, for new categories like video and social media, it’s the direction that matters. $50 million is also about the same revenue many national magazines generate in a given year.
IRONICALLY, MAGAZINES ARE IN A GREAT POSITION TO CAPTURE ONLINE VIDEO AND SPONSORSHIP DOLLARS
This last part echoes my central observation between old media and online video: those who want can’t and those who can won’t, with those who can being TV media companies and those who want being print TV companies.
Here is the full text from Magna:
NEW 2010 FIGURES REFLECT IMPROVING ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
New York, October 13th, 2009 – MAGNA, a division of IPG’s Mediabrands, today releases an updated US Media Advertising Revenue Forecast.
Although the economy continues to face challenges on many fronts, expectations about the future have improved markedly during the past two quarters. Among major economic measures, Industrial Production (IP) and Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) have the highest correlations with advertising, and forecasts of these variables inform our predictions of advertising revenue growth and decline. While consensus forecasts for PCE have not changed meaningfully, expectations for IP have improved. As a result, we are moderating our 2010 advertising forecast and now expect normalized advertising revenues (excluding local TV political and national TV Olympic revenues) to decline 1.3% next year. This compares with our previously published expectations for a decline of 2.1% during 2010. In total, we expect suppliers to generate $159 billion of normalized advertising revenue next year.
Fourth Quarter 2009 Still Down Vs. Fourth Quarter 2008, But Path Toward Growth Next Year Is Clear
For the fourth quarter of 2009, MAGNA forecasts that US media suppliers will collectively generate 9% less advertising revenue on a normalized basis than they did when compared to the prior year period. Industry revenues will fall from $47.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 to $43.2 billion during the fourth quarter of 2009.
These figures reflect a moderating pace of decline compared to estimated revenue reductions of 13% during the third quarter and 18% declines during each of the first two quarters of this year.
As we previously forecast, the first half of 2009 marked the bottom of the ad-supported media economy’s decline. To illustrate the depths to which the economy fell during this period, year-over-year changes in PCE fell for three consecutive quarters between October 2008 and June 2009. Notably, there was no period since quarterly records were first published in 1947 which recorded any decline in PCE prior to the current downturn. Similarly, IP fell at a faster pace than at any time since 1975 during the past few quarters.
In this economic environment, turmoil was widespread among media suppliers. But fortunes in the second quarter were also relative, with direct media falling 11% and national media falling 13%, compared to local media which fell 26% primarily due to weakness in the automotive sector. Local advertisers generated $31 billion of non-political advertising revenue during the first half of 2009, less than any first half of a year since 1995. By contrast, direct and national advertisers were back to 2006 and 2004 levels, respectively, after more than two years of decline. Pockets of growth in the first half of 2009 included paid search and online video, and we expect these media types to lead the industry as the fastest growing major media categories for the rest of 2009.
Our longer-term forecasts remain in-line with prior expectations, as MAGNA forecasts total normalized media supplier advertising revenues will rise by a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.2% between 2009 and 2014.
Get the pdf here.
WatchMojo mentioned in Business Week article on online video content producers, written by Aymar Jean Christian:
Overdo it and you lose your audience, says Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, chief executive of online video site WatchMojo.com. Overexposure of a product will be more glaring in a three-minute Webisode than a longer TV show. “Are users that dumb to sit through and watch something that is blatantly commercial?” he asks.
Also re-published on MSNBC.
+ 1 for WatchMojo!
This passage which talks about magazines’ fate and Conde Nast in particular explains why WatchMojo produces videos the way it does, at an atomic level, by trying to have an entertaining and informative video for every category, sub-category, title, tag and keyword imaginable:
Just as other media have been disaggregated – the atomic unit is no longer the album but the song, the equivalent in news was the publication or the section or the article and now is the post – so is the essential element of the magazine no longer the publication but now the article, at least for now. So what separates a magazine article now from a newspaper article or a blog post except, perhaps, length (and online, length is often seen as a liability)?
This is sad. Conde Nast is one of the finer magazine and media companies… but I guess no one is immune to the realities of the macro (economy) and micro (print) economies.
Conde Nast is shutting down a bunch of magazines:
Conde Nast told shocked staff today it was closing Gourmet magazine, Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride, surpassing expectations of perhaps one or two shutdowns as a result of McKinsey’s analysis.
The shutdown of titles across the Conde Nast portfolio this morning demonstrated, even more than arrival of the McKinsey consultants hired to deflate the company’s massive spending, that the polish was off the luxury publisher.
Here is the full company memo:
Read the staff memo from Mr. Townsend:
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 10:16:52
To: Conde Nast Publications-All
Conversation: Announcing Changes within Condé Nast
Subject: Announcing Changes within Condé Nast
We have now completed an extensive review of our business — an important undertaking given the dramatic changes in the U.S. economy. The review has led us to a number of decisions designed to navigate the company through the economic downturn and to position us to take advantage of coming opportunities.Conde Nast’s success comes from the ability of our publications to attract readers with a wide range of interests, as well as advertisers who value them. But in this economic climate it is important to narrow our focus to titles with the greatest prospects for long-term growth.
As a result of our review, Brides will increase its frequency to monthly to solidify its position as the most important brand in the bridal category, and Modern Bride and Elegant Bride will close.
Gourmet magazine will cease monthly publication, but we will remain committed to the brand, retaining Gourmet’s book publishing and television programming, and Gourmet recipes on Epicurious.com. We will concentrate our publishing activities in the epicurean category on Bon Appétit.
Finally, Cookie magazine will be discontinued, and resources that had been dedicated to its publishing will be invested elsewhere.
The editorial and business staffs of Modern Bride, Elegant Bride, Gourmet, and Cookie all have earned their magazines large and devoted followings. We have been proud to publish these titles, and we are grateful to the staffs for their hard work and dedication.
These changes, combined with cost and workforce reductions now underway throughout the company, will speed the recovery of our current businesses and enable us to pursue new ventures. In the coming weeks, we hope to announce initiatives to develop digital versions of our brands that will make use of new devices and distribution channels.
The sound of ad dollars evaporating:
The US media has lost more than USD10bn in advertising revenue during the first half of 2009, bringing the industry total down to USD56.9bn. Research group Nielsen says this shows a year-on-year decline in US ad revenues of 15.4% - the largest drop in the decade.
Some of the heaviest drops were in newspaper and magazine advertising with national publications declining 22.8% and 21.2% respectively, attributed to the migration of classified advertising to the web. The Newspaper Association of America recently reported that newspapers had suffered a total loss of 30% of ad revenues in Q2 2009 compared to the previous year.
So-called “spot” advertising - scheduled at short notice - fell by 17.4% in the top 100 local TV markets and even internet advertising, from which Nielsen excludes search engine spending, slipped 1%.
Apparently, long form journalism doesn’t work online, according to venerable Time magazine, says Josh Tyrangiel, Managing Editor of TIME.com.
Read more on Beet.tv. Does the same apply to videos?
This is surprising:
Conde Nast will shut down one of its web-only brands, Men.Style.com, when it gives two of its titles, GQ and Details, their own websites in October.
The move marks a partial dismantling of Conde Nast’s strategy of creating web-only brands to house magazine content, such as Style.com, Epicurious.com and Concierge.com, and the realization that in many cases the best brand for the web is the one that’s been successful in print.
Don’t get me wrong, this should have been the strategy from Day 1, but Men.Style.com was a great site (I say was because I only checked it out when I was at AskMen, which was years ago).
Ultimately, Conde Nast has great brands and the sooner they come to life online, the better. I wonder if this was something the consultants at McKinsey advised or if this was in the pipeline before they entered the scene.
Maxim had the brand, clients, and global reach to become a premier media company of the 21st century. Unfortunately, it put its head in the sand, went into denial mode, and proved to be more enamored with being a print media company than simply a media company.
Today’s news (which I’ve known for some time but couldn’t blog about) was no news. Cerberus basically shoves Quadrangle off the Titanic…
PLAY
