The State of the Magazine Industry

(MoneyWatch)  Magazine publishers have had the comparative luxury of sitting back and watching the long, slow-breaking tsunami that is the web pummel the newspaper industry for long enough now that they somehow seem better positioned to survive their own gathering storm.

That, at least, is one impression from this week's first-ever Innovation Summit held by the Magazine Publishers of America. There's less panic here among executives than sorting through of various strategic alternatives.

The consortium concept, as pushed by Journalism Online (Steven Brill), turns out to have competition, according to John Squires, Executive Vice President of Time, Inc.
"We're talking to a the various players," he told the convention, "There may be five or six such options out there, which is good for publishers, though maybe not for consumers."

There is the usual Google-bashing (alternating with its close alter-emotion, Google-lust) here, as well as the ongoing attacks on aggregators, and debate over Fair Use, but there also are voices supporting open-source, cooperation across platforms, breaking down old competitive boundary lines, and a willingness to experiment with technology.

Perhaps most significantly, many in decision-making roles at magazines seem to understand that mobile represents a huge opportunity for their industry. They anticipate the improvement in screens, including the introduction of color and video, that will enable them to migrate from print to smart phones and eReaders, and are preparing plans for how to do so.

The business model supporting magazines -- a mixture of ads, special issues, subscription and newsstand sales -- is somewhat more robust than that supporting most newspapers, though of course all numbers are down badly in this recession.

Plus there is that one irksome statistic that makes everyone shudder: All of these industry leaders presenting hundreds of titles, collectively reap more or less the same annual take from advertising (north of $20 billion) as does one company whose six-letter name starts with a "G."