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What modern magazine publishers need to be successful: The Media Roundup

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James Hewes, FIPP: “If you miss the opportunities of the future, you will have no publishing business”

This is definitely a piece you should read beyond the headline. Rather than advocating jumping on new trends, Hewes continues by saying, “publishers must diversify into multiple revenue streams, not simply change one revenue stream for another.” Put the NFTs down.

I’ve seen Hewes do ‘State of the Industry’ speeches at a number of events and they’re always an excellent listen, so I’m pleased to see WNIP’s Jez Walters has captured this one. And there are some real gems in here.

For modern magazine media publishers to be successful, he argues that four critical enablers needed to be present moving forwards: “A great company culture, a diverse and inclusive workplace, the right technology, and a commitment to operating sustainably that can be demonstrated to readers.”

Why email advertising innovation has stalled, and how publishers can move forward

Email has struggled to shine commercially as part of a product mix. For many publishers, it is still an incremental revenue stream providing just a small percentage of inventory. Now, however, email is beginning to be seen as a more powerful product in its own right. What is changing, and how can publishers prepare to take advantage of new technologies to enhance their email advertising capabilities?

The symbiosis of ads and subs, with the NYT’s Lisa Howard

The interesting bit in this for me was how hard the NYT has clamped down on third-party data and targeting. “A lot of media companies have come out and said, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’re first-party,‘ but then they layer in all of this other third-party stuff to get scale. We sit on over 100 million registered readers who understand our data privacy policy, and we build off of that.”

Inside NYC’s independent magazine shop, Casa Magazine

This is 100% the sort of story Peter would pick but it’s not his day so I’m pinching it instead. This is a lovely escapist piece about a ‘magazine mecca’ store in NYC, carrying over 2,500 titles and frequented by big-name celebs. Ironically, much of the shop’s success is owed to the very digitization of content that causes shops like his to struggle in the first place. Their Instagram account went viral, amassing nearly 40k followers to date.


This content originally appeared in The Media Roundup, a daily newsletter from Media Voices. Subscribe here: