The decline in ad dollars is far outpacing magazine audience decline. The new generation of media buyers needs a re-education, argue the publishers.
Today's Audit Bureau of Circulations numbers paint a grim picture for many titles. There are some roses in terms of circulation, but they sit amid a thicket of thorns.
But circulation is only half the story. As with newspapers, cross-platform audiences for many magazines remain strong – even if the publishers haven't figured out how to properly commercialise them yet.
"When you group together our offline and online assets with social media and digital, many audiences continue to grow quite exponentially," said Peter Zavecz, director of magazines at Pacific Magazines, speaking in the Magazines Special Report in today's print edition of AdNews.
"It's a paradox. The fall-off in advertising greatly exceeds the fall-off in audiences. The biggest challenge for us at the moment is to convince advertisers. We are our own worst enemy. We have to change the language we use and the way we go to market because it just does not resonate with the new generation of media buyers."
Bauer director of sales Tony Kendall agreed. "The biggest challenge is convincing advertisers that magazines, from a branding and call-to-action point of view, are a very strong medium. And that's about convincing media agencies as well."
Part of the problem when it comes to convincing marketers is that magazines have historically been grouped with newspapers – where the numbers have typically been even less rosy.
"We have still got challenges around being lumped in with newspapers," Kendall said. "We are doing a lot to distance ourselves from that. The fact of the matter is newspapers have a fair amount of their content available online every day. Magazines have always been a very different read and a very different reason for purchase."
Pick up a copy of today's AdNews, in print or on iPad, for an in-depth look at the magazine industry – the shift to the screen, building communities, luxury in the long-tail and more.
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