U.S. association publishers struggle with revenue decline and format issues

Only 8% of association publications in the U.S. said they expect publication revenue to increase in 2009, while almost half (49%) expect it to decrease.  This, according to the just-published survey by Folio:.

Advertising continues to be association pubs' largest revenue stream, and print advertising accounted for 68.8% for smaller associations (<25,000 members) and 62.1% for larger (25,000 +). Paid subscriptions account for 20.8% for larger associations, 13.4% for smaller. 

While many of the respondents are considering moving partly, or wholly, to digital publication, e-media revenues in 2008 remained a small percentage: 5.9% for smaller, 6% for larger, though they expect it to grow in 2009 to 7.5% for smaller and 8.2% for larger. The majority of respondents said that, while digital is gaining, magazines remain their top product -- 88% offer print titles. Most respondents said they offer between five and nine different publications, including print and electronic newsletters. 81% of the respondents offer electronic newsletters.

The role-altering challenges association publishers say they are facing include:

• Nichifiction ("people want more and more of less and less")
• Speed (something association pubs are not noted for)
• Peer-to-peer ("historically, associations have controlled the message -- now they are no longer in control")
• Data ("search engines are struggling with the amount of data out there and one-to-one databases are the key")
• Governance ("more boards are based on competence rather than tenure")