The consumer appetite for celebrity news has exploded in recent years. But shortsighted strategies, poor management and the recession have hit traditional celebrity media hard—so hard the nine magazines covering the space is too many, consolidation is inevitable as advertising and circulation erodes, and even the market’s dominant Web sites should be “looking over their shoulders.”This, according to a new report from DeSilva + Phillips, a New York-based media banking firm, released today.
The rise of “feisty online alternatives” and the recession have sped up the decline of some celebrity media franchises, according to the report. But “timid magazine management” is also to blame.
As a result, celebrity magazines “have the most to lose” in terms of audience and revenues—“and they will certainly lose the most in the years ahead.” People, the report notes, is perhaps the only magazine to prove itself as a multi-platform leader—accounting for 24 percent of the category’s print circulation, 28 percent of its ad pages and “an eyebrow-raising” 43 percent of its revenues.
Even People, however, has “to face the same nagging issues: the segment’s dwindling readership base, the buyers’ market for advertising, and cost pressures across the board that are painfully compressing margins," the report said.
Celebrity Media M&A
The report points to the $1 sale of TV Guide, a magazine that once was acquired by Rupert Murdoch for $3 billion, as emblematic of the erosion of print’s value. “How [a] magazine is worth nominally .000000001 percent of what it was 20 years ago is a story for a B-school case study,” D+P managing director Ken Sonenclar, the author of the report, wrote. “But what’s most noteworthy now is that the sale excludes TVguide.com and the TV Guide Network cable channel, which were sold separately in January to Lions Gate Entertainment, the Vancouver-based film company, for $255 million. That’s where the seller realized growth and value.”
In terms of the future of celebrity media M&A, “select Web sites”—such as perezhilton.com—“should be acquisition targets” as they appear to resist the recession’s downward pull and continue to attract eyeballs and advertisers.”
But “few gossip sites” have built the kind of loyal audiences or barriers to entry to warrant serious M&A interest.
A bigger fear for celebrity magazine publishers now is that the recession will end much differently than those in the past. Specifically, even when the economy eventually recovers, advertisers will direct their budgets to the Internet and television—and away from magazines. “The fear is justified,” Sonenclar wrote. “Magazine publishers’ eventual recovery will be slow, painful, and partial at best.”
He added: “Long-term winners online will have roots in print, TV and the web—and so will the losers.”Original here
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1 comment:
Interesting content.
Just wanted to share some information that I came across in a few articles discussing about recession and how we can adopt a different marketing strategy to promote our business. It’s quite eminent that most of the advertisers and businesses are taking to online advertising medium since the Internet has now become a necessity to reach global audience. However, even today there is still a huge chunk of people who do not access Internet and to reach this segment of the society; we can rely on the print media. This in fact would be a great choice for anyone whether they are looking out for global, national or local exposure.
Since the economies are now at the bring of recession, it’s a good idea to consider print media as well in the marketing mix so that you can extend your reach further to get additional traffic to your website or business. You can try a blend of online and print advertising through a reputed ad agency that can help you professionally.
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