For those of you that have been paying attention to the death knell being played for the newspaper and magazine publishers, I can assure you that the end is not coming anytime soon. Nor will it for hardcopy products in general.
Yes, the companies in these industries are facing unusually tough times. However, they are still very much alive and profitable. What we are really seeing here is sea change in consumer preference for the mediums used for information consumption, driven in great part by the demand for real-time delivery, especially for commoditized content (what I like to refer to as "disposable" content). Real-time delivery is an area that print is obviously not suited for.
I would also argue that the demand for information and its over all consumption is at an all time high – the storage vendors like EMC and Network Appliance do a great job telling this story and substantiating it with fact.
It is the shift in delivery and medium that is unsettling for publishers and for Wall Street. Rest assured though as the fog lifts and the path forward becomes clearer companies in these industries will adapt and survive, perhaps with less revenue, better margins and maybe even with a similar net. What troubles me most is the premature change Wall Street is trying to force in the name of the almighty dollar. You want to be a catalyst for change, fine. But it’s gotten down right hostile and it’s just not healthy for business.
In the end, as the “disposable” content falls out of print (stock tables, TV listings, news feeds, etc.) these companies will be paired down to their absolute roots: Well respected premium information creators/providers – they will no longer be classified by the terms newspaper or magazines, which imply a specific medium and distribution. The physical printed products they offer will likely become one of many premium priced product offerings, perhaps even with personalization and a greater degree of localization. Remember high value content that consumers view as their own will always be a perfect fit for committing to a hardcopy medium.
If you're intersted in reading up on this further you can check out some recent blog postings from Fred Wilson and Jason Calacanis about Sam Zell's acquisition of The Tribune Company, the Google effect, etc. Another great read is Web vs. Print from Wharton.
I can tell you that the one thing I am disappointed in is About.com’s publishing strategy for books. With all that great fresh content from their online experts, why in the world would you print 100,000 books in advance and let them go stale on the shelves? This one was ripe for a print-on-demand publishing model including not only the authored book content but also relevant up to the minute content from their online experts. This was a big chance for a major media outlet to show they really got it ! This is what we at SharedBook call “reverse publishing” - from Web to print instantaneously. Well, in my opinion, they blew it.
In any case, I’m just back from the On Demand conference in Boston, MA. After walking the show floor in the Boston Convention Center I can certainly tell you that there is a whole industry rallied around the next generation of hardcopy output. These are the companies we don’t talk about when we talk about the death of print publishing. Maybe that’s because they’re positioned to flourish this new world order. Xerox and HP are jockeying for the leadership position in the digital press market. Kodak repurchased its interest in NextPress a while ago and is making a go of it as well. And OCE in my opinion has shown some real innovation in partnering with The New York Times to print its International Edition on location at the Olympics. Once you’re printing on a digital press, low volume runs become a reality and so does personalized output.
There’s also a whole finishing and software market intertwined into the digital press industry. Everything from inline binders, trimmers, UV coaters, image and file processing, and workflow tools that enable the creation of a physical product from a digital file without the intervention of human hands. It is absolutely fascinating to see all this equipment in action and the place to do it is at On Demand.
Maybe I have it wrong, but my take is these industries make it and so does print!
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