Outlook for Print Magazines, Yahoo Media Cuts, New Dow Jones Media Group, Peak Content, TFP’s Top 10 InDesign Tips

Happy 2016, and welcome back to Technology for Publishing’s roundup of news and tips for media industry pros! This week, we’re sharing stories about why magazines will continue to struggle despite signs of life for other print media, more layoffs at Yahoo, a new Dow Jones media group, what content saturation means for publishers, and more.

Quartz magazines image

  • While there’s been much talk about the comeback of print, a Quartz report says that won’t include magazines. According to McKinsey, global spending overall will increase 5% annually over the next five years across all media segments except print magazines. While it says newspapers that are successfully “marrying” their print and supplementary digital content are doing well, that strategy hasn’t worked for consumer magazine titles. Why? In part because their longer articles and commentary don’t easily translate into short news updates, which is typically what plays well on digital. Add in the much higher risks and operational costs associated with print versus digital and, well, “it’s been tough,” as Quartz notes Condé Nast offered when it recently shut down Details.
  • Yahoo Media chief Martha Nelson recently shared how she intends to move forward despite major shifts at the company, but those plans may be changing in the coming weeks. Business Insider reported that, in yet another move to turn around the struggling company, CEO Marissa Mayer is expected to announce a round of layoffs that are likely to hit the media business particularly hard. Over the past year, headcount has been slashed by 14%, and the upcoming cuts will reportedly affect at least another 10% of Yahoo’s remaining workforce, which still stands at 10,000 employees. Yahoo’s so-called digital magazines have been a big focus of recent reorg moves, the BI article says. For one, the company just shut down its Yahoo Screen video hub, which was aimed at building out the magazines, and it has yet to release 2016 budgets for magazine divisions, putting the brakes on their coverage.
  • Elsewhere, Dow Jones is setting up a new publishing group that will include Barron’s, MarketWatch, Mansion Global, and potentially new brand launches, though not The Wall Street Journal, Politico said, noting that CEO Will Lewis is looking to provide “autonomy” for the other publications. The new Dow Jones Media Group will focus on video and collaborate on projects with parent News Corp. Heading the operation will be Almar Latour, who is leaving his post as executive editor at the Journal.
  • And The Media Briefing provided much to chew on with a sobering look at how today’s hyper-accelerated rate of content creation has saturated the market and what that will mean for publishers going forward. The report suggests recent shifts in advertising—including big declines in print advertising as more consumers get their news on social platforms—indicate an inflection point that “will put additional pressure on traditional media organizations.” Who will survive the inevitable shakeout? Those media companies that sharpen their strategic focus, adopt iterative practices, and invest in revenue innovation, it says.

On the Technology for Publishing Blog

Image: Quartz

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Posted by: Monica Sambataro

Monica Sambataro
Monica Sambataro is a contributing editor and copyeditor for Technology for Publishing. Her publishing background includes work for leading technology- and business-related magazines and websites.
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