Speculation starts about Canadianized editions of Hearst magazines

It was probably inevitable that the recent takeover by Hearst Corporation of 49% of the joint venture with Transcontinental Media producing Elle Canada and Elle Quebec would provoke speculation about similar arrangements with other big Hearst titles. And so it has with an item on the Huffington Post by Marc Weisblott though it contains little that would indicate we'll see Canadian editions of Cosmopolitan, Esquire or Car & Driver anytime soon. In fact American "spill" into the Canadian market has been demonstrated to be in long-term decline, according to Magazines Canada.

Bloggers think of themselves as journalists

Not only is the delivery of news and information changing quickly (iPad, we're talking about you) but so is the view of what constitutes journalism. A recent survey by PRNewswire in the U.S. (according to a story on Fast Company's site) notes that 52% of bloggers refer to themselves as journalists. The research was a survey of 1,500 "traditional and non-traditional" media sources. 

The article notes that some of this may be the result of "semantic drift" -- that is, people redefining the meaning of the word "journalism". But even more interesting is that 91% of bloggers use other blogs at least sometimes for story research, but only 38% use magazines and 35% newspapers.

As Fast Company points out, new technologies allow users to switch from blogs, magazine websites and device-specific apps so easily that the distinctions among them become essentially irrelevant.

[thanks, Alison]

When it comes to magazine subscriptions, Christmas comes but once a year

We always knew that magazine subscriptions had a distinct seasonality, but according to Peter Lebensold, the direct marketer and copywriter, we've now got at least one more way to pin that trend down.

Google offers a wacky little (free) service called Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends). It lets you enter a topic (Madonna, US Open Sudden Death, Maple Leafs, naked Paris Hilton, etc.) and see how often it's been searched on Google over time, and in various countries (and even cities).

In an attempt to further delay doing any productive work, I recently searched for "magazine subscriptions" and generated the attached graph (1 representing the average number of searches during this time frame, number for "All Regions"). A more detailed look at - for example - the 2007 numbers, shows the beginning of a steady climb in interest about 20 October, and then (surprise) a precipitous drop in interest from 24 December.

The data above is worldwide. Below, we've done the same search, but for Canada only with roughly the same result:

The writing is on the newsroom wall; editors believe news will soon be free

"The evolution of the 4th Estate is no longer questions of if, when or how. Editors now know the solution: Innovate. Integrate. Or perish." -- John Zogby, pollster, Zogby International.

According to a poll conducted for the World Editors Forum and Reuters, newspaper editors around the world expect that their papers will compete with the Internet by becoming free and concentrating on news and opinion. The editors were still optimistic about the future of their publications but believed they would have to adapt further for the digital age.

Some 86 percent of respondents believed newsrooms should become more integrated with digital services as two in three believe the most common form of news consumption will be via electronic media such as online or mobiles within a decade.

"For these editors the future is self-evident and our survey shows that they see the writing on the newsroom wall," said Zogby.

• 56 percent of respondents believed that the majority of news, be it via print or online, would be free in the future. (This was up from 48 percent who answered yes a year ago.)
• The free scenario was believed by 61% of editors from "emerging" markets in South America, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Asia.
• 48% of Western European editors were less likely to believe in news becoming free.
• North American editors' response was the average between these two views.
  

According to 704 senior news executives surveyed, the greatest threat to the industry was the declining number of young people who read newspapers while the increasing emphasis on speed meant only 45 percent of editors thought the quality of journalism would improve over the next 10 years. More than a quarter thought it would become worse.

To meet the many challenges, more than 30 percent of respondents wanted to be able to recruit more journalists while 35 percent would like to train the journalists they have in new media.

Nearly two-thirds also believe that some traditional editorial functions will be outsourced in the future.

E-letters a growing trend as readers seek quick and easy hits

More and more magazines are augmenting their offerings these days with by-request, ad-supported e-letters that focus on events, dining out (Toronto Life is a good example with its Preview, The Toronto Life Cottager and Wine & Food). This is a burgeoning trend, according to a Los Angeles Times story about the popularity and profitability of e-letters that filter and aggregate information for busy readers. While the LATimes story doesn't focus on magazines, there are lots of useful lessons here for magazine publishers who want to connect with readers.

"The fortunate thing for us is that we are requested by users to enter their in-boxes, which is a private space these days," says Pete Sheinbaum, chief executive of DailyCandy Inc.

"We appeal to people who like to be on top of things but don't have the time to do it," said Gary Foodim, general manager of Very Short List.

Flavorpill.com says it provides "filtered bits of knowledge that help you better navigate an ever-expanding sea of cultural options."

Culling the herd; the stragglers will get picked off in '08 says Ad Age

One of the trends that Advertising Age writer Jonah Bloom forecasts for 2008 is that there will be a culling of the traditional media heard.

Even the quadrennial kick of Olympics and election won't be enough to hide the fact that advertisers are spending more time and money speaking directly to consumers or trying to insert themselves into word-of-mouth networks. Along with marketers' ever-increasing frustration about the opaque returns on their media investments, this shift already has caused a drop in media's share of the marketing pie and a slowdown in revenue growth. Factor in the rising cost of raw materials, particularly paper prices -- which are expected to climb 25% this year -- and the shift in major media companies' investments to the digital space, and you've got something akin to a perfect storm. Smart media owners will make the tough decision to kill off the weaklings this year -- especially as they'll know that 2009, without the prexy circus, could look even worse.

Other trends he notes are that

• boomers will be (even more) ascendant and that we'll be seeing lots more ads for "handsome old folk surfing, skydiving and generally having more hair/a better time than you."
• social networks like Facebook and MySpace will soak up a lot of ads while at the same time "gated communities" will offer premium-service business models whose major attraction will be that they don't have ads.

Offshore copyediting; will it come to a magazine near you?

Signs of the times dept: The Miami Herald, owned by McClatchy & Co., is outsourcing copy editing of a weekly community news section to Mindworks Global Media, based in New Delhi, India. Mindworks will also monitor reader comments posted to online stories.

Earlier in December, The Sacramento Bee also owned by McClatchy said it would outsource some of its advertising production work to India. And in May, news website pasadenanow.com was widely criticized after editors hired two reporters in India to cover the Los Angeles suburb.