Posts Tagged ‘Hachette-Filipacchi’
The Exodus Begins
25 Feb 2009
by Rebecca Rolfes
Hachette Filipacchi Media, one of the world’s largest publishers, dropped its membership in the Magazine Publishers Association.
Six months after Jack Kliger, one of the best chairmen MPA ever had, retired as CEO of Hachette, the company left the association.
For those of you not in the magazine industry, the MPA is not a small association. It represents approximately 225 domestic companies publishing more than 1,000 titles, nearly 50 international companies and more than 100 associate members. And although I am abundantly aware that print is dying (like a stake in my heart after an entire career as a print journalist), it’s hard to believe that this could go away. 
Be that as it may, Hachette didn’t love the MPA enough—at least not any more. In this industry, as in many if not most others, if you were a magazine publisher, you belonged to MPA. You just did. Everyone did. And even though, as a trade association, MPA’s membership is based on size and therefore can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, you paid it. And then you paid more to attend the conferences or to get the research or to fund the lobbying effort.
Magazines, however, no longer enjoy what is affectionately known as “the thump factor.” When a magazine lands on your desk, it needs to make an impressive thump. That promises a meaty read and lots of ads. Remember when Fast Company could serve as a doorstop? Remember when InStyle was too fat to comfortably tote onto the subway?
Hachette, publisher of such still-strong titles as Elle and Road & Track, needs to drive revenues. That’s what all publishers, all companies and all associations need to do in this economy. Tony Silber, editor of Folio, the trade magazine for magazine publishers, wrote recently about how this is just the tip of the iceberg. Others will leave MPA, American Business Media, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the Newspaper Publishers of America and on and on. An industry that was already in trouble because its business model was crumbling fell off a cliff when the recession hit.
When this recession ends, things will not go back to the way they were. No one will think, “Well, that was unpleasant but things are back to normal.” There will be a new, totally different normal. And it may not include newspapers or magazines with thump. It may not include these associations.
It may not include your association.
If you are not helping your members drive revenues, you will be just as dead as print media. If you are not ahead of the trends in the troubled industries your members work in, you will be off the cliff as well. It’s not about losing a champion (ref: the past-chairman’s retirement), it’s about what have you done for me lately, today in fact. Today and tomorrow. The exodus has begun. Don’t join it.
