vbthedog

The debate over whether to have an online magazine versus a paper based one has resurfaced of late. This is especially true in the last 24 hours with the mini-series “Paper Giants” on ABC1 showing the birth of Cleo magazine, and many blogs –Mia Freedman’s Mama Mia a case in point – discussing the relevance of print in this day and age.

What I have found interesting is the number of comments that hint the problem is not that a magazine is published in a physical form, but more that content over the last few years has become stale, ads dominate, celebrity gossip is king, deep and meaningful, well researched articles are thin on the ground and duplicity between magazines, recycling overseas content and blandness seems to rule.

All grist for the mill.

Others say that newsstand magazines are too expensive ($8.95 / edition seems to be the norm) compared to online editions and gossip – a major drawcard it seems – is free via the ‘net. (There is an irony that people want gossip free but also want the deep and meaningful, well researched articles as a freebie too.).

Ignoring the obvious that someone, somewhere has to pay for the development and creation of this content, there is also the interesting question of just how much this “free” content via the web does cost?

Let’s do some extrapolation here. Some very quick research shows that an ‘average’ ADSL connection costs around $49.95/month on a 2 year plan. That equals almost $600/annum. Let’s for the sake of the argument say that random browsing, Facebook, Twitter and downloading music (which you also pay extra for via iTunes say), movies (also technically chargeable) and email is worth 75% of that, meaning $150 is spent on other things.

Those other things could conceivable be reading magazines that you would normally subscribe to?  That, to see again you’ll have to login back for and pay on line time for yet again. Or print out and cost paper and ink and filing space.

Expensive.

And what is odd is that every person I have ever spoken to, when asked if they prefer a PDF file for a software manual to a ‘real’ paper version, it is universal that a ‘paper’ version is far preferable. It can be read in more places, is easier to add annotations to, re-read, filed for future reference, cross referenced, searched, can be taken with you and more.

Let’s now flip this and look at the role of the advertiser. The major strike weapon of the magazine advertiser is the full page ad. Can this be achieved via a website?

No.

What can you get? Banner ads, intrusive video ads (who likes the ones that popup unannounced and unwanted on the www.smh.site). And broadcast newsletters. That can simply be trashed without reading or the reader can easily unsubscribe to. Go to www.mailchimp.com and look at the stats of newsletter clicks.

A niche paper magazine (in our case camcorders and cameras) on the other hand has been purchased purposely. They want to know about the specific product written about. For the reader of more generalised magazines, they do not necessarily have an interest in anything else. This makes the readership of say 10 pages of a 60 page magazine very expensive to get a smaller less in-depth review than we would give. Also of note is that unlike most mainstream mag reviewers, Auscam reviewers and contributors are in the main full time experts in the video industry – there are TV producers, documentary makers, audio professionals and more. So the accumulated knowledge is also far greater than most mainstream equivalents.

Additionally, mainstream magazines are not going to cover tutorials on lighting, audio, effects, scriptwriting and so on. I’d argue that on a website alone, these are difficult to implement, but in conjunction WITH a website, a magazine can make these come alive.

And of course these scenarios apply equally to a magazine whether it is on video, photography, car repairs, polar bear husbandry or needlework!

My summation then is simply this: the movement of magazine content to web is seen by the industry as inevitable, as magazine sales are waning. Reading between the lines of public comment however tells me that the reason magazine sales are dwindling is simply as people are fed up with the lack of decent content. Anything else is an excuse and the industry is blinkered and trying to hide from it.