madcomments

Digital continues to divide publishers

Posted in Media, Digital, Nikki Preston May 14th, 2007 by Nikki Preston

At the PPA conference this week there was a lot of talk about digital, and not just in the AOP sessions – across the entire event.

However, the chiefs of some of the UK’s most well known publishing firms seem divided about which way to go and are hesitant in investing in something that could well be replaced by a better technology within months.

Firms like Dennis and Nat Mags have already embraced the digital bandwagon with e-zine’s Monkey and Jellyfish respectively. But each faced heavy criticism from Future’s Stevie Spring, BBC Mags’ Peter Phippen and H Bauer’s David Goodchild, while the more reserved types kept saying it was more about “brand building”.

Sure FHM, NME, Vogue, Marie Clare and Wallpaper*, are all great brands, but their greatest strength is the printed editions – so take that away and what will consumers remember – the fact that it was a great magazine that failed to attract enough readers and went down the tubes?

But is doing nothing really the best option?

Basically if readers are going online then I think publishers would be stupid not to follow the trend. And I’m not just talking about having a holding page, I mean giving readers something unique with video interviews and behind the scenes footage so both the online and offline offerings complement each other. So perhaps some of the publishers should stop talking about what their rivals are doing and start thinking digitally themselves.