Periodical Publishing
SIC 2721
NAICS 511120
Periodical publishers develop, publish, and market all kinds of magazines and journals, and may or may not perform their own printing. Publishers also may or may not have electronic Web versions of the issue currently on the stands. See also Newspaper Publishing and Printing, Commercial.
The international periodicals industry is a major source of information and entertainment and serves as a vital advertising medium for other industries. The world's most popular kinds of periodicals are news, sports, lifestyle, outdoor, and computer magazines. From the late 1990s through the early 2000s, the periodical publishing industry grew around the world with modest advances in mature markets, such as Europe and the United States, and more marked growth in developing markets, such as Asia and South America. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the industry suffered slower sales, massive returns of single-copy issues, and at some publishing houses, employee layoffs.
Following close after that disaster came the anthrax-related deaths of postal workers, leading consumers to throw away unread direct-mail solicitations they received and causing even industry leaders such as Reader's Digest to put direct mailings temporarily on hold. Nevertheless, a handful of magazines, such as People, sold well. Moreover, while men's magazines in general dropped dramatically in sales and women's magazines dropped or rose depending on title, some publications actually gained ad pages. These included outdoor magazines, because consumers turned to getaways in print for a vicarious experience while homebound.
A study by the Graphic Arts Marketing Information Service, entitled "Magazines in the 2000-2010 Era," estimated industry growth to be constant at around 5 percent. It concluded that classes of magazines would have different experiences. For example, weekly news magazines and trade publications were expected to see moderate decline due to Web competition.
New launches are always risky, with about 50 percent folding within twelve months, according to University of Mississippi journalism professor Samir Husni, who keeps track of all launches in his annual Samir Husni's Guide to New Consumer Magazines. New magazine titles released in late 2001 and 2002 were on particularly shaky ground, given the dry-up in ad sales and loss of direct mail effectiveness in the short run. In recent years, the most stunning magazine launch in terms of public recognition and overall success has been Oprah Winfrey's O. In 2002, Winfrey announced plans to launch a South African edition of her magazine.
Because publishers neared saturation levels in mature markets, with all sorts of periodicals covering a plethora of topics, some of them looked to new markets for expansion. They did this by acquisitions or mergers with foreign producers, joint ventures pushing new products, or the licensing of periodical titles to foreign companies for local-language editions. In the early 2000s, the United States was second to Europe in the production of periodicals, putting out more than one third of the number of titles published in Europe. In 2002, the United States distributed approximately 10,493 different periodicals, annually generating advertising revenues in excess of US$17 billion. By 2004, with the economy stabilizing, analysts were predicting over $93 billion in industry revenues by 2008.
The classification "periodicals" encompasses a variety of publications: business news magazines; statistical reports; comic books; fashion, women's, and home magazines; erotic material; religious periodicals; regional or "city" magazines; literary, travel, and general interest magazines; specialized business and professional periodicals; and a host of other periodicals such as newspaper magazines and supplements, and club and association newsletters.
For magazine publishers in developed economies in Europe, Asia, and North and South America, revenues are derived from two primary sources: sales to customers through subscriptions or the newsstand and income from advertising space sold to companies wishing to advertise in the magazine. In purely economic terms, a magazine's editorial content—its stories and images—can be seen simply as a vehicle for matching information or entertainment to an identifiable segment of the population that is willing to pay for it. Once this readership is identified, advertisers seeking to reach that group of consumers supplement the publisher's circulation sales revenues by paying for the opportunity to market their goods through the magazine's ad pages. In the United States, the amount of revenue a typical publisher derives from advertising versus sales (subscriptions and single copies) is roughly equal. In the world's less-developed media markets, however, where the number of potential advertisers is limited, magazine publishers must rely on sales to readers for a greater proportion of their revenue.
The International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP) is the only organization of magazine publishers with members from countries around the world. Founded in France in 1925, FIPP serves as a platform for the exchange of ideas and for the freedom, integrity, and development of the world's periodical industry. In 2005, FIPP reported 209 members in 53 countries, representing more than 110,000 magazine titles worldwide with annual advertising expenditure of about US$70 billion. With headquarters in London, FIPP's members include the United Kingdom, the United States, France, the Netherlands, Japan, and South Korea. FIPP itself changed leadership in 2001, as longtime President and Chief Operating Officer Per R. Mortensen departed for another corporate position and was replaced by onetime Magazine Publishers of America CEO Don Kummerfeld.
The characteristics of the world's periodical markets vary widely. While magazines in the United States come and go in substantial numbers every year, magazine markets like those of the United Kingdom are comparatively stable, with loyal readerships for specific titles. Similarly, while two-thirds of all new magazines in the United States are quarterly or bimonthly publications, the vast majority of mainland China's magazines are published monthly.
Other aspects of the periodical publishing industry vary widely around the world. The average number of ad pages in a new U.S. consumer magazine rose to 19, while magazines in mainland China carry only one to three ads per issue. Moreover, while subscriptions account for 90 percent of the sales of many consumer magazines in the United States, less than 10 percent of consumer magazine sales are subscription-based in the United Kingdom and even less in Asia. This rate is indicative of the emphasis on newsstand sales throughout Europe. There are several reasons for the meager subscription totals in Asia and Europe. Postage rates in most Asian and European nations are substantially higher than in the United States, making subscriptions sales a much costlier proposition for European and Asian publishers (and for outside publishers looking to enter those markets). In addition, while U.S. publishers maintain exhaustive mailing lists or rent them from other publishers, many other countries in the world have far less-advanced customer lists or have strict privacy laws regarding periodical sales via the mail.
Furthermore, population size also can influence the periodical publishing industry around the world. Given the United Kingdom's small population, for instance, British publishers are generally forced to use much smaller print runs than U.S. publishers. Per-copy production costs for most British magazines are consequently much higher, and British publishers do not have the luxury that U.S. publishers have of accumulating production cost deficits in anticipation of future sales. Similarly, while U.S. publishers in the early 2000s continued to seek ways to reduce the print costs of periodical titles, publishers in Japan continued to produce magazines that required the use of varying paper grades and printing techniques within a single issue. In unstable markets such as Russia, rampant piracy of printed material leads to huge losses through outright theft or illegal duplication, while limited freedom of the press in markets such as China and Singapore places editorial constraints on periodical publishers. Other factors, such as copyright law, postal efficiency, inflation rates, and sophistication of printing technology, all vary from region to region, rendering generalizations about the global periodicals market difficult. Since magazines are judged in far more subtle and subjective ways than other products—with the success of any given magazine resting heavily on matters of style, cultural expectation, and taste—the global periodicals industry in the early 2000s was still far from achieving real homogeneity. For example, Jordan produced only 11 periodical titles in 2002, and Bahrain produced 12. By contrast, Kuwait put out 51 different magazines that year, and Slovenia published 87 titles.
Canada Newswire reported magazine publishers are constantly challenged by postal rate increases and have benefited from unique services such as RR Donnelley's DistributionOptimizer Service. Usage...
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