The Lasagna Chronicles
Masthead magazine's online service (sub. requ'd) has an excellent report today (probably by Editor Bill Shields, though it's not credited) on the speech last week by Maclean's Publisher and Editor Ken Whyte to a conference at the Rotman School at U of T on the subject of turnarounds.Go here to read the whole report, which has Whyte joking that he says Maclean's is a magazine with the mind of the Economist and the body of People magazine.
Of interest, note that Whyte is now acknowledging publicly that the magazine's newsstand sales in 2005 averaged a dreadful 5,500 copies an issue. Whyte continues to use newsstand sales as a "key metric" for the magazine, even though such sales have always been a tiny proportion of Maclean's circulation. He also quotes former Publisher Paul Jones comparing the former staff of the magazine to a not-very-good potluck supper. We wonder whether Jones knew he was speaking for attribution...
Next month, we will start to see the real metrics -- the first full circulation figures for the magazine in the Whyte era.
posted by D. B. Scott at
12:08 pm
2 Comments:
Re: newstand sales as a "key metric." Whyte is correct. He picked up this idea from Ted Byfield of Alberta Report newsmagazine. I know this because I worked for Byfield for seven years and he was always concerned the stength of the magazine's newsstand sales.
You only have to think about a newstand sale to understand why. The consumer who buys a magazine at a newsstand has hundreds of choices. He or she usually looks through several magazines because something on the covers has caught their attention. They look inside and story that caught their attention seems interesting. As well, there are other pieces that seem interesting. They buy your magazine because you have succeeded in capturing their interest while hundreds of others failed.
Newsstand sales are an effective measure of the quality of your cover and your story line-up. That's why they are important, though their contribution to total revenue may be small.
D'Arcy Jenish
It is not to deny that newsstands are a useful indicator. But for the health of a magazine, nothing beats the commitment of a reader subscribing, converting and renewing. That, and advertising sales are the key metrics. A magazine (like Alberta Report) can have great single copy sales, but still fail.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home