IDG's Transformation: Biting The Bullet on Print
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
IDG, the privately-held B2B trade media biggie which has usually kept quiet about its numbers till now, has opened up a bit in this longish NYT story. The company has been taking the hard decisions on its print magazines, and it closed down InfoWorld print mag last year. Today, IDG says, the InfoWorld website is generating ad revenue of $1.6 million a month with operating profit margins of 37 percent. A year earlier, with both print and online together, it had a slight operating loss on monthly revenue of $1.5 million.
Also, for the whole company, in 2002, 86 percent of the revenue from IDG's publications came from print and 14 percent online. These days, 52 percent is from online ads, while 48 percent is from the print side. Last year, print and online publications accounted for 70 percent of IDG's $3 billion in revenue, with the rest coming from its conference business and its technology research firm, IDC.
By Rafat Ali