Some Eyeballs and Eardrums Are Worth More Than Others

While watching Top Gear on BBC America, I shop for an “I AM THE STIG” t-shirt on the BBC America website as a gift for my husband. While reading Real Simple magazine, I watch Clean House on the Style channel and plan a trip to The Container Store for more storage bins for toys and clothes for my kids. It’s a wonder I can pay attention to all of these messages, yet I am making decisions based on my media consumption.

Ad revenue takes a nose dive, jobs fall off as well

But with the global credit crisis and continual news of lost jobs in lots of different sectors, are my eyeballs and eardrums worth less than they used to be? Apparently so. Take a look at this post and graph from Peter Kafka on his Media Memo column: Why You’re Losing Your Magazine Job. The quarterly changes in ad pages for 2006, 2007, and first quarter of 2008 were nearly flat, hovering around 1% to 3%. But last summer, they took a nosedive to the double digits, 14% drop in number of ad pages. The data is from MinOnline, the Media Industry Newsletter. They also report this week that automotive magazine ad revenues dropped by more than $400 million in 2008. Now, online advertising revenues totaled $5.7 billion in the second quarter of 2008 – compared compared with $5.1 billion in the second quarter of 2007. Magazine advertising revenue for full-year 2008 closed at $23,652,018,533. That number, $23 billion, contains a lot of commas. It would appear that your eyeballs while looking at a website are worth less than while reading a magazine. Actually, I guess I’d have to calculate the cost per pair of eyes based on magazine circulation or website viewers. Are online ads easier to track conversions from, compared to print media, and therefore more valuable in measurability and value for the investment?

Faster news cycles, content delivery must keep up

You also have to wonder, why is the printed word declining so much faster than other media? A commenter on Peter Kafka’s blog entry responds, “The notion of waiting on tomorrow morning’s paper for the news is almost lunacy to anyone under the age of 30.”

For both the magazine and newspaper, just employing a web editor is no longer enough. They must meet their readers where they live, as the Christian Science Monitor is striving to do. Read more about combining print and web content deliverables in Michael Silverman’s informative blog entry, News is Hot, Newspapers Are Not. They will not abandon the printed, indepth background coverage that their readers crave, but will deliver a weekly print publication in addition to the web content. I think we’re witnessing the future of news”papers” and it’s quite an exciting time.