"Editors have to start thinking like product managers." I Disagree
By Matt Holliday, editor, Pennsylvania Magazine, November 23 2011
David Fry, who spoke at our Branson conference and who is an expert in digital formats and websites, while attending another conference, posted this comment on his Facebook page: “Time, Inc’s president of Digital: ‘Editors have to start thinking like product managers’.”
Here’s my response to that comment:
I always bristle when someone refers to a printed magazine as being a content delivery vehicle. It’s not. It’s a gateway to a community with which its subscriber or newsstand buyer identifies. It’s a piece of a relationship puzzle. It’s not just content. If all magazines delivered was content, like you can find all over the Internet, then magazines would cease to exist.
They exist because people SUBSCRIBE to them. Subscribers are people who have chosen to pay for a periodical that will come sometime in the future with content that is unknown but predictable. It’s how well the magazine does in providing the predictable surprise and connecting that subscriber to his or her community (original reason for purchase) that will determine whether or not the subscriber will renew.
A printed magazine is a stand-alone item. It’s an escape. You cannot do anything else with it except swat flies. . . When moving a magazine’s materials to an electronic environment, now there is plenty to distract the reader from connecting to his or her community. . . and away from the relationship that caused the person to spend the money in the first place. That’s how I see it.
Please note that the comments above are not about the format of the content; it is about what is really being purchased in the first place. Today, digital is certainly part of the equation at building and connecting with a community and building the related relationships with subscribers.
Comments:
I also agree. The sense of community is key. When I lived in Canada in the 70s, we listened to CBC Radio. It did (and still does) for a a whole country what we regionals do or should do for our smaller communities; that is, make our audiences feel like they are part of and take pride in being Canadian, Nebraskan, Pennsylvanian, Vermonters, what have you.
Aside from the daily news (often of fresh disasters), CBC would run several hours each day of smaller, human interest, often positive features, not just from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, but from small communities like Yellowknife, NWT, Bathurst, NB and Cornerbrook, NFLD. The effect was for everyone to feel connected across, and part of, Canada.
It doesn’t have to be restricted to “conventional” media, but it is especially important for regionally focused publishing to foster a sense of community in their areas and create good feeling about it, even among “outsiders” such as potential visitors, expatriates, etc.
By andrew on Feb 08, 2012
I couldn’t agree more with your observations. My interaction with my subscribers underlines your point that these people have taken the step of affiliating with a community. They are members, not just readers. I suspect this may be the reason that some smaller, focused publications like ours continue to survive in a media environment that is otherwise chaotic.
This may be coming to an end at some point under the avalanche of alternatives out there. But I wonder: It could be that being part of a community will be even more valuable, more comforting, in an uncertain, disconnected future than it is now.
By cmadson on Feb 07, 2012