The final morning of the Magazine Innovation Center’s Act 6 was devoted to the craft and the power of storytelling.
As a child, Liz Vaccariello expressed a wish to her father that she might, through writing and editing, share stories with others. Decades later, she told that story in her first letter as Editor in Chief of Readers Digest, and the response of her readers was extraordinary. She received 400 letters that week. Since then, she has told a story in every editor’s letter, and her use of storytelling to connect with her readers has become a hallmark of her time at the Reader’s Digest.
Storytelling, Vaccariello told the group of students, faculty, and publishing professionals at Act 6, has made Reader’s Digest first among its competitive set in time spent with the magazine, with readers spending almost a full hour with every issue.
So what is a story? It has a beginning, middle and end; it is designed to interest, arouse, or instruct. But the key to a great story is its power to connect emotionally to the reader. Through that connection, Vaccariello said, stories become a powerful way to change something, to provide meaning, to build connections. And part of the job of a great editor is to find the great stories. That requires reading everything, and in so doing, to ask: do I feel something?
Readers look to Vaccariello’s publication to make them feel understood. To surprise them with a secret, or a laugh, or moment of delight, or an unexpected cause for pride. Even sadness and outrage are emotions that a reader will welcome when a great story elicits them.
Great stories can change lives, Vaccariello told the group. Storytelling in the context of family is a powerful bond from generation to generation. Children who hear stories from their parents and grandparents about how they, over the years, met and overcame adversity, are more resilient.
Sherin Pierce, the Publisher of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, North America’s oldest continuously-published vehicle for journalism and storytelling, followed Vaccariello with a story of her own: the story of how the Old Farmer’s Almanac was launched, grew and prospered for “225 years of love, luck and tradition.”
“We speak of disruption in publishing,” Pierce told the group. “Think of the disruption in the life of Robert B Thomas, who was born in 1766, and launched the Almanac when he was only 26 years old. He was born on a farm, and before he was grown he saw how a ragtag group of farmers stood up to the might of the British Empire.” That first issue was 46 pages, with a print run of 3000 copies. And there was no RDA, no placement fees…and no returns. With this auspicious start, Thomas tripled the draw the following year.
In 1816, Pierce related, late to meet his press date, the printer called to ask for Thomas’ July weather forecast. Thomas irritably replied, “Call for rain, hail and snow!” And the printer dropped that prediction, which briefly made a laughingstock out of Thomas, into the publication. But that was the year that the eruption, in the Dutch East Indies, of Mount Tambora, brought “The Year Without a Summer”—along with a July snowfall in Boston. It was a disaster for farmers, but it made a lasting name for Robert B. Thomas, and for his Almanac.
While the Old Farmer’s Almanac has changed with the times, many things have remained the same. The cover engravings of seasonal images and portraits of Ben Franklin and Robert B Thomas hark back to 1851, as does the iconic hole in the corner of the cover, useful to hang for year-round reference. The 1858 Almanac was used by the young lawyer Abraham, defending a client accused of a midnight murder. The Almanac’s corroborating proof that the night in question was moonless was key to Lincoln’s client’s acquital.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac has long been proud of its trend of continuous publishing. When the US Office of Censorship asked the publisher to cease publication for the duration of World War Two—two German spies had been found in possession of a copy, thought to be helpful in planning forays around weather and tides—the publisher asked for, and was granted, permission to continue, with the agreement to leave out the weather and continue with indications and proverbs for the duration of the war.
In a newsstand-challenged, era, the Old Farmer’s Almanac prints 4 million copies per issue, and sells 40% on the newsstand. And its brand pre-eminence, established the Year Without a Summer, remains as strong today as it was then. “There is only one Old Farmer’s Almanac,” Pierce told the group. “We’ve had that name since 1842. It’s what you think of when you think of an almanac. And rightly so, based on the specificity of its identification. “Farmer’s almanac’ is, after all, a generic term.”
Click on the video below to watch Liz Vaccariello presentation at the ACT 6 Experience:
Click on the video below to watch Sherin Pierce presentation at the ACT 6 Experience:
Stay tuned to watch the rest of the ACT 6 Experience on this blog…
Media-industry conferences run the gamut. You get the super trendy ones, like SXSW, in equally trendy locations. You get monster events like CES, to which media execs gravitate every January. You get the new-media boutique events, with the hottest digital-media brands represented and the young savants in skinny jeans with all the answers. You also have the more pedestrian ones, the workhorse events, not showhorse conferences.
There are association events, regional events, B2B events, marketing events, social-media events, hosted-buyer events, big-tent events like our own Folio: Show, and small executive forums.
And then you have the ACT Conference, the sixth iteration of which I attended last week in Oxford, Mississippi. (ACT is an acronym that stands for “Amplify, Clarify, Testify.”) ACT is run by Samir Husni, the Ole Miss J-school professor, who over the last 25 years has become one of the best-known people in the magazine industry.
The ACT conference is a different kind of event. It’s small. Only perhaps 100-130 people attend, give or take. Since it’s held at a university, the students also attend. Sometimes Samir pairs them with industry figures, mentee to mentor.
It’s way off the beaten path for the media industry. That’s part of its charm. It’s a different perspective for sometimes-jaded media people.
Each year, Samir attracts several major industry figures as speakers. This year, he brought in most of the participants in the supply chain of that most beleaguered part of the business: the newsstand. Samir hosted a special meeting of wholesalers and publishers. He brought in Hubert Boehle, CEO of Bauer Publishing, the German company that is probably the most successful company on the newsstand in the United States. Interestingly, Boehle said Germany, a country about one-fifth the size of the U.S. and Canada, generates the same revenue from the newsstand as does North America. The “why” of that is a story in itself.
Samir brought in Andy Clurman, CEO one Active Interest Media, of the most successful enthusiast-media companies in the country; and Liz Vaccariello, editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest; Sid Evans, editor in chief of Southern Living; Sherin Pierce, Publisher/VP, The Old Farmer’s Almanac; and Daniel Fuchs, Publisher and Chief Revenue Officer, HGTV Magazine, among others.
Samir brings in those people because of his stature in the business—and because of his decades-long advocacy. Samir Husni is an unapologetic believer in the enduring strength of print media, and that’s what his conference is about. No ifs, ands or buts. I gave the conference-opening “State of the Industry” report, and truth be told, I thought about that contextual reality before I made my presentation. LOL.
Samir calls himself “Mr. Magazine.” Last I saw his car, it was even on his license plate. I’ve known him for a long time. In that time, he’s been tireless and persuasive, generous and inclusive. Maybe “Mr. Indefatigable” is just as appropriate.
Because of his advocacy, plus his unrelenting determination to make his case and push his cause, plus his 30-year run of cataloging all the print-magazine launches of the year—and selecting the most important 30 of them—Samir is as well-known and respected as anyone in the business. Now, for the last several years, he’s added a worthwhile media conference to his portfolio—one with a decided point of view.
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* Tony Silber is vice president at Folio: and he published those reflections on the Folio: website here. Reposted with permission.
This is the segment of the ACT 6 Experience that focused on making money in print and what people are doing today to ensure that the revenue streams continue, whether it’s from circulation or advertising. Magazine Power is going to be a combination of the different ways and means by which people can still generate revenue from print, whether it is advertising in established magazines; advertising in new magazines, or bookazines and how those publications are making money.
Making Money in Print and the power of magazines was moderated by Brian F. O’Leary, Principal, Magellan Media Consulting Partners, with the following panelists listed in alphabetical order: Newt Collinson, Chairman and Founder, Collinson Media & Events, Jim Elliott, President, The James G. Elliott Co. Inc., Daniel Fuchs, Publisher and Chief Revenue Officer, HGTV magazine, and Fred J. Parry, Publisher, Inside Columbia Magazine.
What follows are the individual presentations of the panelists followed by the panel discussion moderated by Brian F. O’Leary.
Click on the video below to watch Newt Collinson:
Click on the video below to watch Jim Elliott:
Click on the video below to watch Daniel Fuchs:
Click on the video below to watch Fred Parry:
Click on the video below to watch the panel discussion:
And stay tuned as we post more videos from the ACT 6 Experience and more reports from Linda Ruth about the ACT 6 Experience.
Cover Data Analysis For Editors – This riveting panel discussion about how print editorial staffs can learn more about consumers, their likes/dislikes, and how to attract more newsstand buyers in a competitive, distracted world was a big hit at the ACT 6 Experience. The panel of distinguished editors from Reader’s Digest, Southern Living, First for Women, Simple Grace, Success and Hoffman Media discussed and dissected magazine cover lines, cover image types, positioning, and “do’s” and “don’ts” regarding covers, all using smart data modeling.
The Cover Data Analysis For Editors panel took place on Thursday April 21 and was moderated by Joshua Gary from MagNet. Panelists were (in alphabetical order):
Brooke Bell, Director of Editorial Operations, Hoffman Media, Josh Ellis, Editor in Chief, Success magazine, Sid Evans, Editor in Chief, Southern Living magazine, Carey Ostergard, Deputy Editor, First for Women and Simple Grace, and Liz Vaccariello, Editor in Chief, Reader’s Digest magazine.
Click on the video below to watch the entire panel discussion from the ACT 6 Experience.
Stay tuned for more videos from the ACT 6 Experience.
In a keynote address at the ACT 6 Experience, Professor Naomi S. Baron, Executive Director, Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning, and Professor of Linguistics (World Languages & Cultures, CAS), at the American University in Washington, D.C., professor Baron presented her latest research regarding millennials and print.
The results of her study may surprise you. Click on the video below to watch her presentation at the ACT 6 Experience:
More presentations and reports from Linda Ruth will be posted as they become available. Stay tuned.
Gil Brechtel and Josh Gary from MagNet coordinated the “Reimagining the Newsstand” segment at the ACT 6 Experience. Gil moderated the first panel on “Reimagining the Newsstand.”
The focus was on the newsstand business, its relevancy to publishers, how to stabilize it, as well as the current and future roles of each of the channel members… wholesaler, national distributor, retailer, and publisher, and how we as an industry engage the retailer to promote and increase sales.
Wholesaler participants included David Parry, President & CEO of TNG and Shawn Everson, Chief Commercial Officer of Ingram Content Group. Three CEOs of magazine media companies also joined this segment of the ACT 6 Experience. They are Hubert Boehle, CEO of Bauer Magazine L.P., Andy Clurman, CEO of AIM (Active Interest Media) and Eric Hoffman, CEO of Hoffman Media.
Videos of all the presentations will be posted on this site in addition to Linda Ruth’s reports. Linda, thankfully, accepted the role of the scribe of the ACT 6 Experience. All the videos are at the bottom of this blog.
And now for part 2 from Chapter 3 as reported by Linda Ruth.
Hubert Boehle, CEO of Bauer Media, came to ACT 6 to talk about the German newsstand magazine market, and lessons the US might draw from it.
An American publisher might wonder why we in the US magazine market might want to look to Germany as a model to emulate? As an answer, the example of Bauer Media itself might provide sufficient reason.
Bauer Media, a German publishing company, represents the largest seller, in terms of units, of magazines in the United States. On a dollar basis, Bauer is the second-largest media company in the US. Further, in a newsstand-challenged age, newsstand accounts for 90% of the Bauer publications’ sales.
A second reason to look to Germany for inspiration might be found in the nature of the German magazine market itself. Germany has a quarter of the population of the US, but its magazine revenue is equivalent—roughly $2.5 billion in each market. The average consumer in Germany spends about four times as much on magazines as the US consumer. Also, while sales and revenue have declined in both the US and Germany, the declines are not equivalent; Germany’s has been considerably smaller.
Boehle identified several reasons for the differences in the magazine market, focusing on each player in the magazine publishing supply channel; and he suggested initiatives based on these differences. First, looking at the wholesale network, he finds it much more concentrated In Germany , with a much higher level of service. In an area the size of California, he pointed out, there are 54 wholesalers, who, owing to their density, know their customers well and visit them daily. Partly in consequence of this service level, Germany’s average overall magazine sales efficiency stands at 60%. By comparison, the average sell-through in the US is 26%. How, Boehle asks, can we create a better service level in the U.S? How can we support our wholesale partners to enable them to provide this level of service to their retailers?
Part of the answer to that tracks back to the magazine publishers. Because publishing is profitable in Germany, publishers support their newsstand circulation. With higher efficiencies, and the lower costs resulting from fewer unsolds, there is more profit to all supply chain partners. This frees up a higher remit per copy sold to be paid to the publishers. Germany, in fact, remits about 60% of every retail dollar to the publisher, with 100% of sold copies paid a week after off sale. This allows for cover prices that are considerably lower, which in turn leads to multiple purchases by consumers at retail.
The overall health of the newsstand channel is supported by the fact that German subscription prices are not deeply discounted, as they are in the US. The price of each issue of a magazine subscription is roughly the same as the same issue purchased on the newsstand. What similar incentives, Boehle asks, could be created that would encourage US publishers to invest in newsstand?
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While the US market is finding its incremental revenue through up-priced one-shots, specials, and bookazines, Boehle suggests that this approach is, at best, a band-aid to the problem. It takes a regular frequency to addict a customer to a magazine, a frequency that is supported by cover prices that make multiple purchases affordable. Germany’s market provides its readers hundreds of weeklies and bi-weeklies, as compared to the US market which provides only a handful of comparable frequency products.
And with the larger publishers now using their checkout space to rotate their bookazines into, checkout space, which relies on the addictive and frequently-turned weeklies for its vitality, begins to lose its effectiveness. Profitability drops as the checkout titles are unable to provide the needed turns as frequently as needed.
Another way to develop excitement and addiction at checkout is to provide frequent new releases to browse and buy. In the US, all publications go on sale the same day of the week. In Germany, they go on sale every day, incentivizing customers to look for fresh magazines more frequently.
How can the US magazine market learn and benefit from these lessons? Perhaps, Boehle suggests, wholesalers might consider penalizing publishers with low subscription prices. Perhaps checkouts space should be reserved for higher-frequency titles. Publishers might consider reversing the push to higher-cost product and implementing lower cover prices.
In fact, we in the US might re-think the entire checkout system. In Germany, magazines aren’t sold at checkouts—the mainlines are placed so you see them right away, coming into a store. The impulse at the checkout is becoming obsolete, as today people spend their time in the checkout lane looking at their phones. From a publisher’s point of view, each checkout lane has to be treated as a separate retailer, with its own allotment and order regulation, its own placement fee; and from a wholesaler’s point of view, the excess product in the checkout lanes exacerbates the return situation. Might it be possible, Boehle suggest, to rethink the dichotomy between checkout and mainline and, again emulating Germany, work on getting highly-visible mainline displays established in the vicinity of the checkouts,near the front of the stores?
David Parry, the CEO of TNG, North America’s biggest magazine wholesaler, responded by speaking of TNG’s experience as a wholesaler with enormous fixed costs and declining net profits, in a market very different from Germany’s. Parry cautioned that, in getting publications to retailers throughout the country, in reimagining the newsstand, it is essential that the pressures are alleviated for all channel partners, and that continued viability is ensured all along the supply chain. With weekly delivery to over 70,000 retail locations in the US and Canada, and service provided at more-than-weekly frequency at retail level by over 10,000 TNG merchandisers who provide real-time reporting, a first order of business needs to be to ensure stabilization and survival of this channel, before looking to increase store visits or publisher remits.
With 23 million units delivered weekly, and 1.2 billion annually, across an enormous geographic area, the challenges here are very different from the ones faced in the compact German market. TNG, however, is working to develop new and innovative services far beyond the delivery of magazines.
Parry acknowledged that all channel partners need to constantly innovate. But far from letting go of front end placement, he said, it is critical that we defend that space, as a priority among all channel partners. With beverages and snacks competing in droves for that placement, we are fighting for all the checkout space we can get. It is understood that people are making the lion’s share of their purchases within 100 feet of the front door, and that space is not simply up for grabs. Major consumer goods companies are looking at that same 100 feet, and they are tough competitors.
TNG has experience with retailers that back up this perspective. Parry mentioned Chief Auto Parts, which tried four times with magazines, in four different places in their stores, and nothing worked until they put magazines at the front end. Other retailers, including, as an example, Loblaws, cut back on the placement of magazines at the front end and their customers protested. The chains were forced, by customer demand, to reinstate magazines at the checkout.
Yet, Parry acknowledged, checkout merchandising does drive up costs, and TNG’s merchandisers do need to be in many stores up to three times a week. With the physical wire checkout pockets getting thinner, they need to be restocked more often, and that requires merchandising presence in the stores.
What, from the viewpoint of a major wholesaler group, can be done then, to strengthen the supply channel and build profitability for channel partners?
Parry suggests working collaboratively to re-invent checkout space; focusing on promotions and events calendars to generate excitement at retail, finding new places to display product in stores through outposts, and capitalizing on trends and opportunities. Local interest is big: Texas Monthly can outsell People in some markets. Adult coloring books came out of nowhere to sell over $15 million at retail. Publishers and wholesalers need to get a seat at the table with the retailers to find ways of supporting magazine sales together. Try using beacon technology and instant coupons; participate in mixed displays and cross-merchandising opportunities.
And constantly innovate.
Click below to watch Hubert Boehle’s presentation at the ACT 6 Experience:
Click below to watch Shawn Everson’s presentation at the ACT 6 Experience:
Click below to watch David Parry’s presentation at the ACT 6 Experience:
And click below to enjoy the debate moderated by MagNet’s Gil Brechtel:
Gil Brechtel and Josh Gary from MagNet coordinated the “Reimagining the Newsstand” segment at the ACT 6 Experience. Gil moderated the first panel on “Reimagining the Newsstand.”
The focus was on the newsstand business, its relevancy to publishers, how to stabilize it, as well as the current and future roles of each of the channel members… wholesaler, national distributor, retailer, and publisher, and how we as an industry engage the retailer to promote and increase sales.
Wholesaler participants included David Parry, President & CEO of TNG and Shawn Everson, Chief Commercial Officer of Ingram Content Group. Three CEOs of magazine media companies also joined this segment of the ACT 6 Experience. They are Hubert Boehle, CEO of Bauer Magazine L.P., Andy Clurman, CEO of AIM (Active Interest Media) and Eric Hoffman, CEO of Hoffman Media.
Videos of all the presentations will be posted on this site in addition to Linda Ruth’s reports. Linda, thankfully, accepted the role of the scribe of the ACT 6 Experience.
Here’s Linda’s report on Andy Clurman’s presentation…
Andy Clurman of Active Interest Media spoke of the integrated approach and expanding reach of a successful publishing company. AIM is a case study in the flexibility and adaptability referenced by Folio’s Tony Silber on Act 6’s Day 1. The evolution of AIM has been such that, although it looks from the outside like a magazine publishing company, it has become much more than that.
Yet AIM was built for and by magazines. AIM publishes special interest titles in categories grouped around marine, sports, home, healthy living, outdoor, and horses. With six different groups, each of which encompasses multiple sub-groups, and over 50 magazine brands, AIM creates events, videos, and marketing services. They have a digital audience, membership programs, and have created an online education program. The brands and the business were built on magazines, and around the content, authority, and audience of their magazine program.
Clurman points out that, in building a company around the enthusiasm of the audience, entire groups can be, and are, run without a stitch of advertising, based on the wants and needs of the audience itself. As is indicated by the company’s name, the audience is actively engaged, connecting through print, digital, events, video, newsletters, classes, and social media.
For AIM, partnerships with specialty retailers are an important piece of their brand development and monetization strategy. This could range from a connection relating to products that the retailer carries or highlights in the stores to, at the extreme end, creating an SIP based on the retailers priorities and making it available exclusively in retailer stores.
Keys to building their brands, including publications that have dwindled and been marginalized, include upgrading the value of the publications through improving paper quality, cover and concept testing, developing specialty distribution, and partnering with distributors and retailers. It’s important to break down the silos and start talking to one another if we’re going to break out of the rut we’re in. We need to prove the efficacy of magazines as merchandisers.
Magazines are the story-tellers that amplify the value of the products found in partner retailer stores. This creates a basis for mutually-beneficial partnerships.
Click below to watch the first video from the Reimagining The Newsstand featuring GilBrechtel :
Click below to watch the second video from the Reimagining The Newsstand featuring Eric Hoffman:
Click below to watch the third video from the Reimagining The Newsstand featuring Andy Clurman:
Stay tuned for more reports from Linda Ruth and more videos from ACT 6 Experience…
The magazine newsstand is an American icon, a pleasure in itself to visit and browse. The channel, as we know, is compromised: what happened? John Harrington of Harrington Associates opened the Magazine Innovation Center’s Act 6 with an explanation and summary of the history of the magazine distribution
For 40 years the old system of magazine distribution supported hundreds of wholesalers, who received their publications via national distributors and distributed them to regional retail chains. It was a profitable system, although one which passed along only 27% of the cover to retailers. As retailers grew more powerful and were able to demand higher discounts, and the power in the distribution system shifted to retail, the economic viability of the system was compromised, and remains compromised today.
To understand the degree to which this system has been compromised, Harrington took us through the history of the channel. In 1994 sold 2.1 billion magazines, at a value of almost $4 billion at retail, with a sell through of 41%.
Eleven years later, in 2015, we saw a sale of only a quarter of those units, fewer than a half a billion copies. Despite cover price increases, we saw a loss of 40% in revenue, commanding only $2.5 billion at retail. Efficiency has dropped to 26%, creating huge economic pressures on the system that handles the publications.
Harrington presenting at the opening of Day 2, ACT 6 Experience
What happened? At the same time that the market shifted incrementally and over time, there were three major events: the great disruption of 1995, the Anderson News ext of 2009, and the Source Distribution collapse of 2014. At the same time, digital and mobile information delivery grew.
In 1995 retailers threw out the old rules. The power they accumulated through their consolidation forced consolidation on wholesalers as pricing and service were reconstructed in ways mandated by retailers. The distribution channel was reconstructed and reconfigured as wholesalers lost their economic vitality, and most went out of business. By 1999,four wholesalers accounted for 90% of the business.
Retail chains had changed their footprints from regional to national, giving them more power and the need to work with fewer, and consolidated, vendors. More magazines were published, at the same time the mega-titles on which wholesaler profitability was based were disappearing. With more publications to handle, the profitability of each was considerably reduced.
In 2009, when Anderson News went out of business, 25% of the distribution channel vanished literally overnight. At the same time, the Great Recession resulted in a loss of the discretionary income that supports the impulse buy that drives sales of magazines at the newsstand.
In 2014, Source Distribution collapsed, leading to an overnight loss of 30% plus of sales, leaving two major wholesalers and one direct distributor.
Today we face a recession hangover, where consumers grew used to living without their magazines; many who depended on print now receive their information via digital media. Publishers shifted their focus to digital expansion and grew increasingly disenchanted with traditional channels. And the business has become fundamentally unsound.
How can we as an industry reverse or repair these disastrous trends? Or is this once-profitable channel to disappear entirely? These are questions we’ll explore throughout the coming days of Act 6.
And you can click below to watch John Harrington’s presentation at the ACT 6 Experience:
In an age which, six years ago, industry trend-spotters widely believed would be post-print, magazines are not only surviving—they are thriving. They have shown themselves to be flexible, adaptable, and robust. The creativity of publishers in creating multi-media platforms and leveraging them as a driver to print is a testament to that.
Folio magazine’s Tony Silber and Southern Living’s Sid Evans gave a structure to these concepts to the full room of attendees at the opening banquet of Dr. Samir Husni’s Magazine Innovation Center’s ACT 6. There are more titles on the newsstand than there were a decade ago; print advertising retains its credibility and authority with consumers; and magazines are an immersive, personal, and connective medium.
Opportunities are also challenge for publishers, and we can’t ignore that reality. While that Google and Facebook have become primary drivers of audience to publishers websites, they also leverage publisher content and audience, at no cost, to build their own sites and ad revenue; in doing so, they have built their own annual ad revenues to a point which eclipses that of the entire publishing industry.
Sid Evans delivers the keynote at the opening of the ACT 6 Experience
Yet, as Evans pointed out, a reader who spends four minutes on a website will spend ten times that with a single issue of Southern Living; that four minutes allocated on the webpage could be spent on the cover alone. And as to the Southern Living reader wrote: “Top three books of all time: One: The Bible. Two: To Kill a Mockingbird. Three: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of Southern Living.”—what website can claim to receive a letter like that from a reader?
As we move into the content of the MIC’s ACT 6, we’ll look forward to hearing more about the re-inventions that publishers are implementing for their publications and their businesses in this age which has, in fact, not emerged as post-print after all.
Click below to watch Sid Evan’s opening keynote at the ACT 6 Experience:
And to watch Tony Silber’s opening remarks click below:
Hearst Magazines’ Success Kicks Print Into High Gear & Proves This Is No Time To Stop Believing In Ink On Paper – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With David Carey, President, Hearst Magazines.
“The print is dead movement was, I think, largely led by newspaper journalists who were maybe feeling in their own newsrooms what was going on and they were extending it to any traditional form. I think what’s happened is every sector of media, literally every sector, is in a period of enormous disruption and I think that has put the magazine industry in context, and I guess that we look at disruption as opportunity. People will succeed and make money from disruption and people will find themselves challenged and we want to obviously be in the former.” David Carey
On a recent trip to New York to present Mr. Magazine’s™ and min’s 30 Hottest Magazine Launches of the Past 30 Years, David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines, took a few minutes out of his busy day to talk to me about the company’s continued belief and success in print and the accomplishments they’ve achieved with combined partnerships with other media platforms and businesses. I met David at his office on the 43rd floor of the Hearst Tower in New York City.
David is a man who runs Hearst Magazines with a clear focus and gives all credit to the spectacular teams that he works with and their creative ideas and executions. From the recent partnership with Verizon, which he gives total credit to Neeraj Khemlani, who is co-president of Hearst’s entertainment division, to the first-ever joint venture with Snapchat, which David praises Joanna Coles for leading, he knows the value of a great partnership, and great teams.
While other companies are trimming and stifling new print magazine launches, Hearst is putting their best print foot forward and proving that ink on paper can not only survive in this digital age, but flourish as well. And along with Hearst’s outstanding digital platforms, the company intertwines print and pixels in a way that promotes and propels both platforms successfully into the future.
So, I hope you enjoy this extremely positive and interesting interview with a man who has proven that he knows how to lead with strength and vision in an age where print and pixels merge and the power of both are celebrated; the Mr. Magazine™ interview with David Carey, President, Hearst Magazines.
But first, the Mr. Magazine™ Video Minute with David Carey followed by the sound-bites:
And now for the sound-bites:
On Hearst’s secret sauce that keeps them growing and flourishing with new launches and bigger and better-quality magazines: Well, the credit goes to the team. One of the lines that I use with the team is if you don’t like change; you’ll like relevance even less. The industry continues to need to evolve what it does and how it accomplishes its goals. And the Hearst team does a great job with that. And then on our digital operations to figure out that scale has to be our friend, that we have too much self-inflicted complexity, that the only way to make digital work is to have a giant, global content ecosystem, where content gets to travel across brand and across geography without permission, friction or cost.
On Hearst’s partnerships and whether they’re still a viable opinion: Yes, we’re talking about partners all of the time. We generally prefer the partnership model, because we do believe when two companies contribute financial resources and management talent, promotional platforms that you can use and significantly boost your chances of success. So, partnership is out preferred course.
On why he thinks it took the magazine and magazine media world seven years to discover that print was neither dead nor dying: The print is dead movement was, I think, largely led by newspaper journalists who were maybe feeling in their own newsrooms what was going on and they were extending it to any traditional form. I think what’s happened is every sector of media, literally every sector, is in a period of enormous disruption and I think that has put the magazine industry in context, and I guess that we look at disruption as opportunity. People will succeed and make money from disruption and people will find themselves challenged and we want to obviously be in the former.
On whether he ever envisioned that Hearst Magazines would be where it is today when he assumed the position of president: I knew going in that we had things that were uniquely suited to Hearst; we have a parent company of remarkable strength. The corporation, because of what Frank Bennack built and now his transition to Steve Swartz, you have a company, unlike other media companies that perhaps you could imagine threats to their existence; Hearst is the opposite of that. From our entertainment division assets, to our business media assets, to 30 local TV stations, which do exceedingly well in political years; and our newspaper division that has seen growth and profits now four years in a row, there’s that can-do spirit that’s part of what we do as well as the financial ability to invest.
On Hearst’s partnerships with entities such as Complex and Vice: Those are with our entertainment division as you know. This news relationship with Verizon that we have is a very important one. We’ve formed this Verizon relationship that’s going to be programming content for the Go90 platform and then Verizon came into our Awesomeness business, not just ours; it’s owned 51% by DreamWorks and 49% between Hearst and Verizon, so for Hearst to now have this relationship with Verizon is fantastic, given their power. The credit goes to Neeraj Khemlani, who is co-president of our entertainment division and did a brilliant job on that. We haven’t worked so closely with Complex yet, but we’ve had ideas with Vice and have been discussing different things that we can do together.
On how he decides which partnerships to accept: We take everything seriously. But there are a couple of important considerations. The first is; we do spend a lot of time early on in a chemistry check, because we know these partnerships ideally last for a very long time and the signing of the deal is the easiest, least stressful piece, right? We do spend a fair amount of time making sure that it feels like we have a good relationship with the partner, because that’s just like the people who are your closest associates in the world. So, there’s a good chemistry period.
On the hardest decision he’s made since becoming president of Hearst Magazines: We make a lot of decisions; we’re always rethinking flows and structures and what people do and how they do it. And you deal with human beings and some are great with change and others are not so good with it. And we’re a culture that’s sensitive to people and we balance implementing, at times, disruptive actions with respect for the individual.
On what someone would find him doing if they showed up unexpectedly at his home one evening: I spend a lot of time reading our magazines; there are all sorts of interesting and thoughtful analyses of trends across the world. I do very much believe in interdisciplinary thinking, that the answers to some business problems are found by looking at other industries, not just our own. So, I like to consume as much as I can.
On the next big thing coming up with Hearst Magazines: I think that we’re at it every day. We run in spurts as I mentioned to you. We have big initiatives and they all come in kind of when they’re ready. But our teams are thinking about how to advance and evolve other businesses every day.
And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with David Carey, President of Hearst Magazines.
Samir Husni: What is your secret recipe when it comes to Hearst magazines? You’re still launching new magazines; you’re not firing people en masse; you’ve upsized all of your magazines; almost every magazine in the portfolio is bigger and on better paper. What is the secret sauce that other companies aren’t finding?
David Carey: It’s simple. A: we step on no cracks when we walk down the street and we sleep under a pyramid at night. (Laughs) People have not realized the mystical powers of these forces.
Samir Husni: (Laughs too).
David Carey: Well, the credit goes to the team. One of the lines that I use with the team is if you don’t like change; you’ll like relevance even less. The industry continues to need to evolve what it does and how it accomplishes its goals. And the Hearst team does a great job with that. So, whether we are looking at our print businesses in terms of what’s the right way to produce our products and the creation of the Hearst Design Group led by your alum, Mr. Newell Turner, and bringing three teams together into one big team to produce three different products, running against the traditional standards of the business and those businesses today are not only economically healthy, but gave us the confidence to do a pilot issue of Metropolitan Home, a great mark that we acquired, it was defunct, with the Lagardère acquisition and a chance to bring it back.
And so we’re always kind of thinking differently. Recently we made the move to have Jay Fielden not only continue to oversee Town & Country as editorial director, but also be the day-to-day editor in chief of Esquire. Jay is a real talent; he did a fantastic job at Town & Country.
So, we stretch our teams and we stretch our thinking.
And then on our digital operations to figure out that scale has to be our friend, that we have too much self-inflicted complexity, that the only way to make digital work is to have a giant, global content ecosystem, where content gets to travel across brand and across geography without permission, friction or cost. And that was one of the most disruptive decisions we made, over the course of my career, but one of the biggest, because the profit growth that we’ve had from digital has allowed us to make our numbers and has taken pressure off of the organization. So, that has allowed us to avoid a large staff restructure and so on, because we’ve met our numbers for our U.S. business, largely by taking business model risks that have paid off. But our teams have implemented brilliantly.
Samir Husni: The word on the streets is you’re not only launching new magazines, you’re bringing back magazines from the dead and putting them back into print, such as the case with Metropolitan Home. And this is the first major test where you didn’t partner with someone else, such as with the last three or four magazines that you launched. Is there still talk about other partnerships?
David Carey: Yes, we’re talking about partners all of the time. We generally prefer the partnership model, because we do believe when two companies contribute financial resources and management talent, promotional platforms that you can use and significantly boost your chances of success. So, partnership is out preferred course.
But in this particular case, we had the mark and Newell had a vision for it. And we were able to officially produce it out of the Hearst Design infrastructure. The way this worked was different, we didn’t need to assemble a team and hire a bunch a people. We managed to fit it in within the workflow, both sales and editorial, of the existing population of managers. And so it was a different model. This group found that they could stretch even beyond Elle Décor, Veranda and House Beautiful. It made sense because we had a mark, Metropolitan Home, for many people they still remember it fondly. And this is our way to kind of test that reservoir of good will that hopefully exists for the brand.
This was driven by Newell. He came to us with this plan, had a vision for it, believed that we could do it in a way that made sense financially and we like to empower our managers. And our discussion with Newell was to go for it.
Samir Husni: One thing that I’ve noticed this year in following magazine media and the marketplace, no one is saying that print is dead anymore. That mantra has vanished. Why did it take us seven years to discover that print is neither dead nor dying?
David Carey: The print is dead movement was, I think, largely led by newspaper journalists who were maybe feeling in their own newsrooms what was going on and they were extending it to any traditional form.
I think what’s happened is that the rest of the world has been caught up in this absolute state of chaos. And suddenly, magazines don’t seem as chaotic. The cable TV business seems incredibly chaotic. Parts of the digital business, you have Yahoo, one of the big players, looking at revenue declines of 15% per year, and all the disruption there.
I think what’s happened is every sector of media, literally every sector, is in a period of enormous disruption and I think that has put the magazine industry in context, and I guess that we look at disruption as opportunity. People will succeed and make money from disruption and people will find themselves challenged and we want to obviously be in the former.
It’s been important for those that long-thought certain industries had a get-out-of-jail-free card forever and that proved not to be true. I believe that has changed the thinking around magazines, and for the good. We always believed it, of course. People would look at other things as sure bets and the good news is that there are no moats around any business, no matter how large, that business is available and it’s up to you to determine whether you’re going to succeed or fail. I don’t care if you operate a digital company, a television network, or a magazine company.
Samir Husni: In 2010, did you envision that Hearst Magazines would be where they are now when you assumed the position of president?
David Carey: I knew going in that we had things that were uniquely suited to Hearst; we have a parent company of remarkable strength. The corporation, because of what Frank Bennack built and now his transition to Steve Swartz, you have a company, unlike other media companies that perhaps you could imagine threats to their existence; Hearst is the opposite of that. From our entertainment division assets, to our business media assets, to 30 local TV stations, which do exceedingly well in political years; and our newspaper division that has seen growth and profits now four years in a row, there’s that can-do spirit that’s part of what we do as well as the financial ability to invest.
I knew we had a team that knew how to innovate and not take everything they do too seriously. And I think at the same time we’ve pushed that hard against the conventional thinking, or in some cases the disruption that has impacted some of the other companies in the industry,
I’m proud of where we are, but I do believe that we can go much further. I give our team high marks that we have still a lot more to get done and a lot more to accomplish.
Samir Husni: How much are you going to push those new partnerships, whether it’s with Complex or Vice or other entities? Are you going to bring them into the fold or is it as you were reported in the New York Observer and also told me: “you wake up at night and think about these things?”
David Carey: Those are with our entertainment division as you know. This news relationship with Verizon that we have is a very important one. We’ve formed this Verizon relationship that’s going to be programming content for the Go90 platform and then Verizon came into our Awesomeness business, not just ours; it’s owned 51% by DreamWorks and 49% between Hearst and Verizon, so for Hearst to now have this relationship with Verizon is fantastic, given their power. The credit goes to Neeraj Khemlani, who is co-president of our entertainment division and did a brilliant job on that. We haven’t worked so closely with Complex yet, but we’ve had ideas with Vice and have been discussing different things that we can do together.
We get a lot of people who knock on our door and want to co-create media with us, in what used to be only print, but now in other interesting incarnations. In digital of course, in the fall we created the new digital business with Lena Dunham around the “Lenny Letter,” which was a very successful newsletter with a clear, concise voice. We’ve created a new digital business and partnership with Lena and her production partner.
Of course, we also did our new joint venture with Snapchat, their first ever joint venture was with Hearst. Joanna Coles did a great job leading that. We announced our relationship with Condé Nast, so this is just in a few months, and then with Verizon.
In just a four or five month period, we’ve partnered with Condé Nast and Verizon and Snapchat and Lena Dunham. We’ve been thinking about these pop-up magazine concepts for some time. And many people come to us because they’ve seen the great success of Oprah or Food Network and some of them have good brand recognition, but maybe not in terms of promotional resources, a real big company behind them. So, we’ve been thinking about what to do.
What we first did with Carine Roitfeld and Harper’s Bazaar, as you know, four times per year she publishes this brilliant portfolio that runs across every edition of Harper’s Bazaar globally in the same month. And no one does that, right, simultaneous global content creations. We’re trying something different on that.
And what we’re going to do with Linda Wells in the fall, and of course, Linda is the highly-respected, long time editor of Allure, we’re building internally is the Wells Report and we’ll see what the final title will be, but it will be a content play that will run across Elle and Marie Claire, Town & Country and Harper’s Bazaar, partial circulation and you take a concept that would reach a slice of those audiences, and we have a lot of those individuals who approached us, that could work as a pop-up magazine, maybe not work as their own dedicated franchise, but could very much work as a horizontal content play.
So, we’re piloting the Linda Wells project with great hope and we have others behind it. Since we did the Lena Dunham deal with “Lenny,” we’ve had many others who are successful, content names in their own right, approach us to do something similar. Our hope is that we can do a couple of these a year. We could probably do more if we want to respond to all of the inbound queries, but we want to execute each one well. That’s why when we talk print, we do it in an every two-to-three-year cycle, because we want to make sure that we can really focus and do it right and then move on to the next one.
Samir Husni: What do you use as a filter? I’m sure you’re bombarded by people who want to partner and who want to do a pop-up magazine. What’s the filter; which ones make it to David’s desk?
David Carey: We take everything seriously. But there are a couple of important considerations. The first is, we do spend a lot of time early on in a chemistry check, because we know these partnerships ideally last for a very long time and the signing of the deal is the easiest, least stressful piece, right? We do spend a fair amount of time making sure that it feels like we have a good relationship with the partner, because that’s just like the people who are your closest associates in the world. So, there’s a good chemistry period.
And then we do research and we test to see if the concept will be able to grow and be able to command an audience and drive advertising. But I would say one of the most important considerations is; are these people who we’re going to spend a lot of time with, ones that we can problem solve with? You hope problems never come, but they do come. As a result, there are projects that I won’t name; two projects in the last two years that came up that I thought were really, highly promising businesses, but we weren’t so sure the partnership was going to be strong and we passed on something that we thought could have been successful, but might have been choppy midway through because we didn’t have good alignment with the partner.
Those are the decisions that I make with Michael and Ellen. Those are hard decisions, to walk away from something that might have been a good business, but the partner has some questions. But we have to do that.
Samir Husni: For an outsider, people look at you and at what you’re doing and think: wow, David’s life at Hearst has been nothing but a rose garden. But what has been the most challenging time you’ve had?
David Carey: Part of our day, every day is filled with the good stuff and part of our day is filled with the tough, operating decisions and problems that you get around the world and that you have to manage.
Samir Husni: What has been the hardest decision that you’ve made since you became president of Hearst Magazines?
David Carey: We make a lot of decisions; we’re always rethinking flows and structures and what people do and how they do it. And you deal with human beings and some are great with change and others are not so good with it. And we’re a culture that’s sensitive to people and we balance implementing, at times, disruptive actions with respect for the individual.
It wasn’t a hard decision. The implementation of Pub Works is filled with complexity and opportunity. I do believe at my core that this is a significant advancement for the entire industry, not just these two companies. But we have a lot to do between now and then. You can’t be afraid.
The age-old question, and people have different personal characteristics; the age-old question that people always ask is: what keeps you up at night. And I don’t like that question. The reality is nothing. I sleep well every single night and I always have. And maybe I’m fortunate that that’s me, because we have all sorts of issues, things that go right and things that go wrong. You wake up the next day and you try to solve them again. And we’ll solve a bunch of them, but we won’t solve them all.
Samir Husni: So, rather than me asking you my typical last question about what keeps you up at night; if I showed up unexpectedly to your home one evening, what would I find you doing; reading a magazine; your iPad; watching television; or something different?
David Carey: People have different media consumption habits; this is not a statement which some people make because they try to come off as intellectuals, but I really don’t watch TV; when you don’t watch TV you have a lot of extra time on your hands, a lot of extra time.
I watch maybe two or three hours per week of TV, maybe. So, that gives me a lot of time to do a lot of other things. I don’t really like sports; I’m not good at playing them and I’m not really interested in them, except with my sons in a live setting at a baseball or football game.
So, I spend a lot of time reading our magazines; there are all sorts of interesting and thoughtful analyses of trends across the world. I do very much believe in interdisciplinary thinking, that the answers to some business problems are found by looking at other industries, not just our own. So, I like to consume as much as I can.
Again, I also get more than a handful of emails at all hours of the day and so I’m communicating all through the day and evening. It’s a weird statement to make, but part of my personal career success is that fact that most people watch TV 20 or 30 hours per week. If you only do that two hours per week, you have a lot of time to do a lot of other things, from reading books for enjoyment to playing games and just everything else. That will eliminate me from being head of Hearst Television; I can cross that job off the list. (Laughs) But I have friends who talk about this show or that show and I don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s just one of those things. My wife and kids will watch every Housewives show, you name it, but it’s something that never really attracted me.
Samir Husni: And what’s the next big surprise we’re going to hear from Hearst Magazines come October 2017, since October seems to be the launch date for new magazines?
David Carey: I think that we’re at it every day. We run in spurts as I mentioned to you. We have big initiatives and they all come in kind of when they’re ready. But our teams are thinking about how to advance and evolve other businesses every day. I don’t know if we have any significant step-function changes in what we do, but I think that being open to everything is how we spend our time.
As a child, Liz Vaccariello expressed a wish to her father that she might, through writing and editing, share stories with others. Decades later, she told that story in her first letter as Editor in Chief of Readers Digest, and the response of her readers was extraordinary. She received 400 letters that week. Since then, she has told a story in every editor’s letter, and her use of storytelling to connect with her readers has become a hallmark of her time at the Reader’s Digest.
Sherin Pierce, the Publisher of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, North America’s oldest continuously-published vehicle for journalism and storytelling, followed Vaccariello with a story of her own: the story of how the Old Farmer’s Almanac was launched, grew and prospered for “225 years of love, luck and tradition.”
Mr. Magazine 