‘How old School publishers can win in the digital age’

Satell, G. (2014) ‘How Old School publishers can win in the digital age’, [internet]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/10/05/how-old-school-publishers-can-win-in-the-digital-age/2 [24/12/15]

• Old publishers face a problem not with technology or talent but CULTURE
• With the emergence of digital magazines has been removed as a method to reach a national audience – with the emergence of tablets ‘magazines’ display advertising business has come under attack as well’ ‘profit margins once in the mid-to-high 20’s, are now in the low teens’
• Publishing executives are unwilling to except that ‘the economics of digital are fundamentally different from print’
• According to Satell paywalls (the practice of preventing people from accessing content without a paid subscription) ‘represent the greatest threat to old-line publishers’ because they offer a replacement for ‘distribution revenue from print’
• PAYWALLS WILL NOT WORK, why?
• Innovation is being obstructed by  the chinease wall – the separation of business and journalists in old publishers. – creating a new business model requires ‘collaboration’ between these two sectors
• ‘the publishing industry has clearly failed to adapt’
• Samir Husni (director of the magazine innovation centre) ‘magazine publishers today earn less than 3% of their revenue from digital’
• You would think that without this move into digital old publishers would be going out of business but it is the OPPOSITE. ‘they continue to profit and grow’ ‘even launching successful new print titles like All recipes, HGTV and Food Network’
• Old line publishers are surviving because they are good at their craft and provide their readers with what they want (back to trust thing again) ‘editors know what their readers want and journalists are skilled at delivering it powerfully’