Magazines: Underwhelming, not undervalued

According to the New York Times, magazine publishers are trying to figure out if they can raise their prices without losing subscribers.

The answer is no.

I subscribe to more than twenty magazines, including Time, Newsweek, US News, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, GQ, Sports Illustrated, Wired, and GOOD.  I read every single magazine cover to cover.  I love magazines.

With some magazines, it can take weeks to finish reading through an issue because there are so many stories worth reading and so much detail to absorb. A pile going on ten inches high sits on the table next to my bed, filled with ‘must read’ issues and articles from these magazines.  WIth other magazines on my list, it is rare that I find anything interesting or truly valuable from issue to issue.  It happens, but not often.  Most weeks I can breeze through an issue in minutes and send it off to the recycle bin without a second thought.  The only reason i stay subscribed is because the subscription fee is cheap enough that I can wait around for the occasional ‘must read’ article.

If the prices go up, however, the number of magazines that I subscribe to will drop for sure.

I just don’t think magazine publishers understand — most content today that they produce isn’t worth paying big money for.  The topics are predictable. The coverage is bland and generalized. The interviews are cookie-cutter.  And so much of the magazine is filled with advertisements that — a) don’t speak to me as a reader, b) fail to provide me with any action that I can easily take, or c) don’t relate in any significant way to the content that I am paying to review — that I barely get any content in the first place.

In today’s article, the CMO of Heart Magazines, Michael A. Clinton, was quoted saying “We’re realizing that the product is undervalued.”  I think he meant to say underwhelming.

I understand magazines are losing money.  But, if publishers want their products to survive, and more importantly generate revenue from the content that they are offering, most are going to have to step up their game.  More and better content is the key – and if you make that available, the audience will be there, with money to spend.  I say that as a subscriber and someone who believes in the value of magazines.  Raise the prices on your current offering and you will find yourself in a deeper hole with no prospect of digging yourself out.

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Brian Reich

Brian is Managing Director of little m media which provides strategic guidance and support to organizations around the use of the internet and technology to facilitate communications, engagement, education, and mobilization. He is well known for his expertise in new media, web 2.0, social networks, mobile, community, ecommerce, brand marketing, cause branding, and more. Reich, the author of Media Rules!: Mastering Today’s Technology to Connect With and Keep Your Audience (Wiley 2007). He blogs at Thinking About Media and contributes as a Fast Company Expert. Previously, Reich was a principal of EchoDitto, one of the most successful online communications agencies in the nation, Director of New Media for Cone Inc, a brand strategy and communications agency in Boston and a Senior Strategic Consultant and Director of Boston Operations for Mindshare Interactive Campaigns, an interactive public affairs agency. From 2000 – 2004, Brian ran how own strategic communications firm, Mouse Communications. Reich has worked in and around politics, including helping to direct dozens of campaigns across the country. He spent two years as Vice President Gore’s Briefing Director in the White House, handling both official activities and activities during his 2000 presidential campaign. Brian serves on the board of Investigate West, independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to the art and craft of investigative and narrative journalism. Brian served as an adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University in Washington, DC and is currently teaching a course on consumer behavior and marketing at Columbia University in New York. Brian attended the University of Michigan and is a graduate of Columbia University. He and his wife, Karen Dahl, live in New York City with their son, Henry.

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