Media Link-ed - The Sale of Business Week: Yesterday's News? - Michael Kassan - MediaBizBlogger

In all the coverage of the decision to put Business Week up for sale, a good deal of the focus has been on who (Bloomberg? Thompson/Reuters?) if anyone, will buy the 80 year-old weekly chronicle of business activity in the U.S. and around the globe. Interestingly, many say that Business Week is the latest victim of the digital era. I asked Media LinkIndustry Category Specialist Karl Spangenberg, who worked at various magazine companies in general management and advertising sales roles (including U.S. News & World Report, Time Magazine, Business Week and Datamation Magazine), what he thinks. He told me, "Don't blame it on the Internet."

Karl continued: "It took some time to think the unthinkable, that McGraw-Hill wouldever consider selling Business Week at all let alone as a distressed property. This prospect made for some very unsettling days for me and my peers who grew up in the warm embrace of big brand newsweekly magazine icons like Business Week, Time, US News, and Newsweek. Throughout our college and early careers, these editors, writers, and photographers kept us current, made us feel smart, and gave us confidence. As I have reflected over the past few days on the 'unthinkable,' and have moved past denial, I recollect the voices of discontent around the newsweekly field 20 years ago: newsweeklies are irrelevant at best and headed for oblivion. But wait, that prediction came during the pre-Internet days.

"Blaming the demise of Business Week on the Internet with its trillions of ad impressions, millions of web sites, and creeping ranks of citizen journalism is obvious and convenient. Who needs an editor's point of view when I can give you mine on national health care or value investing? But by 1990 the potential, yet not impending, death of newsweeklies like Business Week was becoming well-defined and was perhaps even inevitable long before the Internet became the news medium of choice for nearly everyone under the age of 30.

"The newsweeklies began to unravel years ago from the same forces that the Internet exponentially liberated: an explosion of media options for getting news, information, and entertainment, starting with cable and special interest publishing and expanding to community newspapers and more radio stations. For years now, the editors at Business Week, Time, and other weeklies were constantly under attack for not being able to keep up with national broadcast, cable, and local TV news. Their reply, and a good one, was that the newsweeklies could be relied upon to provide "insight and analysis" that a minute-by-minute reportage cycle, including newspapers, could not deliver. In short, the newsweeklies provided the "first draft of history" on key topics of the day; however, the other news media were taking note, and they began to add analysis to their daily reporting that made the newsweekly claim debatable if not spurious.

"Nonetheless, the expansion of consumer choice in getting the news, even if the Internet had not come along to explode choice even further, has been a real threat to Business Week for a long time. Throw into this combustible mix a Folio report from the fall of 2008 that the median age of magazine readers has reached 45.1 (meaning essentially that they have failed to capture the imagination of younger readers) and top it off with a worldwide recession that has caused an advertising industry depression, as well as the Internet, and you have some very sick newsweeklies, including the revered Business Week. And we cannot forget about the punishing economics of print publishing with the ever rising costs of postage, paper, labor, and ink for many years.

"At the end of the day, newsweekly magazines do not have to die in a digital world. Paper and ink do not define editorial excellence or the relationship that exists with readers that advertisers can enjoy through adjacent commercial messaging. The magic comes from the journalistic quality, insight, and guidance that helps consumers stay informed, make smart decisions, and feel confident. Brands like Business Week do have a life in the brave new digital world, but it requires a reset on the "how," something that few magazine brands have figured out yet.

"Business Week's own Sarah Lacy writes: 'There's an obvious option for these magazines: Ruthlessly collapse the print and online staffs, run everything online as soon as they write it, except one or two cover-length, long-form glossy pieces. Those will anchor the print issue, rounded out by the best stories from online. Then cut the money spent on trying to court new subscribers, shifting the entire marketing budget to promote the Web or real-life conferences and branded events. You could even use reader comments to flesh the online pieces out more for the print edition, driving more engagement in both the print and online versions. Voila! One publication, not two pretending to be one. And guess what? One publication is a hell of a lot cheaper, even if it's printed on dead trees.'

"Business Week may not get that chance under McGraw-Hill ownership, and that may be a good thing. Consumer magazines do not have a strategic fit with McGraw-Hill today with its legacy text book division, b2b publishing, and financial services like Standard & Poor's. In fact, McGraw-Hill probably should have divested itself of Business Week when the going was good. Today it is not; however, it still makes strategic sense cutting the brand loose, hopefully to a next-gen publisher that can figure out how to make the editorial voice resonate with an audience that advertisers will value. Just like it used to be. Just don't blame the Internet for the Business Week fall. Let's hope that McGraw-Hill can turn it into a graceful dive by letting a consumer-focused digital publisher take it from here."

Michael E. Kassan is Chairman and CEO of Media Link, LLC, a leading Los Angeles and New York City-based advisory and business development firm that provides critical counsel and direction on issues of marketing, advertising, media, entertainment and digital technology. Michael can be reached at michael@medialinkllc.com

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