Tag Archives: Fortune
Fortune plans to expand its editorial franchises
by Chris Roush
Lucia Moses of Adweek writes that Fortune magazine wants to double down on editorial franchises in 2012 as it tries to build on the popularity of its Fortune 500 list to appeal to readers and advertisers.
Moses writes, “Starting in 2012, Fortunewill have editorial features for all 18 of its issues. The new ones will include ‘The Shape of the Future’ that will name the people, companies, and ideas that will most influence the world in the years ahead. ‘How it Works’ will explore the secret sauce of products and concepts. There also will be ‘Best Advice I Ever Got’ and ‘Venture Special,’ a look at small businesses.
“‘The big franchise issues score the highest when it comes to reader opinion,’ said Jed Hartman, publisher of Fortune. ‘They also perform great for advertisers, and they also have that third ingredient: They’re picked up by the press or they’re influential in the community.’
“Publishers also like franchises because they can easily be extended to other platforms, widening their advertiser appeal. This year, for example, Fortune launched Executive Dream Team editorial feature and got BMW to sponsor a complementary event.
“Andy Serwer, the managing editor of Fortune, said the franchise calendar carried another bonus. Because advertisers like franchise issues so much, Fortune can devote more editorial space to long-form journalism. ‘That means they’re fat issues, and then we can do all this other stuff,’ he said.”
Read more here.
Bloomberg Businessweek outperforms other biz glossies in third quarter
by Chris Roush
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Bloomberg Businessweek reported a 49.5 percent increase in advertising revenue and a 39 percent rise in ad pages during the third quarter, continuing its rebound after a lackluster performance in 2008 and 2009.
The magazine, acquired by Bloomberg in late 2009, reported ad revenue of $49.7 million and ad pages of 340.10 in the third quarter, according to data released Monday by the Publishers Information Bureau and analyzed by Talking Biz News.
In comparison, Fortune magazine reported a 10 percent increase in ad revenue to $56.4 million and a 4.5 percent increase in ad pages to 420.56 during the three months ended Sept. 30. Forbes magazine posted a 0.7 percent decline in ad revenue to $42.1 million and a 4.1 percent drop in ad pages to 293.30 during the same time period.
The gains by Bloomberg Businessweek continue its strong performance from the first six months of the year, when it had a 27.7 percent rise in ad revenue and a 15.8 percent increase in ad pages.
The only other business magazine with similar strong growth in the third quarter was the Harvard Business Review, which posted a 32.9 percent increase in ad revenue to $3.2 million and a 25.8 percent jump in ad pages to 72.13.
Fast Company also reported an 18.3 percent gain in ad revenue to $8.6 million and a 13.5 percent rise in ad pages to 99.65.
Two Dow Jones & Co. publications reported mixed results. Barron’s posted a 20.1 percent gain in ad revenue to $13 million and a 15.6 percent gain in ad pages to 265.05 during the quarter. However, personal finance magazine SmartMoney posted an 11.7 percent decline in ad revenue to $7.1 million and a 15.9 percent drop in ad pages to 73.05.
Other personal finance publications also struggled. Kiplinger’s posted a 4.5 percent decline in ad revenue to $4.8 million but a 12 percent rise in ad pages to 72.09, while Money magazine reported a 0.7 percent decline in ad revenue to $30.0 million and a 5.1 percent drop in ad pages to 138.33 during the quarter.
Growth at tech-oriented magazine Wired slowed in the third quarter. After posting a 37.7 percent gain in ad revenue and a 26.6 percent gain in ad pages during the first three months, Wired’s third-quarter ad revenue growth was 6.9 percent while its ad pages fell a half of a percent.
See all of the magazine data here.
Forbes leader defends Advoice program
by Chris Roush
Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer at Forbes, defends the magazine’s Advoice program, which gives companies an opportunity to post content on the business magazine’s website.
Dvorkin writes, “Now we’re taking dead aim at the disruptive forces before us by reconceptualizing how to fulfill the needs of our readers and advertisers alike.
“Our AdVoice program is a bold and critical part of our larger strategy–to position the most authoritative content from journalists, authors, academics, experts and marketers, too, at the center of a social media experience. AdVoice is for marketers, informed content creators in their own right. It provides them with the same tools that I or any of our staffers and contributors use to publish content on Forbes.com. It offers marketers a voice–a way to supplement traditional forms of advertising–and a unique opportunity to engage customers with thought-leading ideas in a credible news environment. Transparency is essential. I’m identified as a FORBES staffer; a marketer’s post carries the AdVoice label.
“Last week AdVoice demonstrated a new reality, exciting for us but perhaps discomfiting to traditionalists. SAP, a huge software company and an AdVoice partner, published an intelligently provocative post about Apple and the iPhone 5. Readers flocked to it. Powered by Facebook and LinkedIn shares it rose to the No. 1 spot in our most-popular-story module, nestled among posts written by staffers and contributors. An SAP post a few weeks ago on Salesforce.com hit the No. 2 spot.
“Jonathan Becher, SAP’s chief marketing officer and an AdVoice writer, says AdVoice enables his company’s employees to write with ‘authenticity’ and join the conversation.”
Read more here.
What Forbes taught a biz journalist
by Chris Roush
Leigh Gallagher, an assistant managing editor at Fortune, writes about her time at rival Forbes from 1998 to 2004 in the wake of the publication of former managing editor Stewart Pinkerton‘s book “The Fall of the House of Forbes.”
Gallagher writes, “Pinkerton, who left in 2009 under, well, not-so-happy circumstances, also delivers one of the best characters in all of journalism in Jim Michaels, the ferociously talented editor who ran the magazine from 1961 to 1999. While I was there, Michaels was a much-feared overlord who was seen and heard mainly through his scathing all-caps comments on stories, viewable for all to see in the company’s editing system. (Among them: ‘I DON’T CARE WHAT THE ANALYST THINKS. WHAT DO YOU THINK??;’ ‘I ASSUME YOU UNDERSTAND THIS BECAUSE YOUR INITIALS ARE ON IT. I DON’T. FIX IT. JWM;’ and ‘THIS ISN’T REPORTING. THIS IS STENOGRAPHY. WHY IS THIS PERSON STILL ON STAFF???’). As Pinkerton recounts, Michaels would rewrite stories at the eleventh hour or kill them entirely; he kicked writers who quit out of the building; tortured his lieutenants; and ran such stressful story pitch meetings that writers were known to throw up before them.
“But he was also a brilliant editor — it was said he could edit the Bible down to six words — who left his imprint on some of journalism’s biggest names. ‘My column today consists of techniques I learned from Michaels,’ Fortune columnist and seven-time Loeb Award winner Allan Sloan told me recently. ‘I cannot tell you the influence he had on my career.’ (Read Allan Sloan’s 2007 tribute to Michaels here.) Pinkerton delves deeply into Michaels’ biographical and family history, which will be new material even to most Forbes veterans.
“The book ticks through the various eras of modern-day Forbes, from the birth of the Forbes 400, the magazine’s annual ranking of the richest people in America, through battles over who would succeed Michaels. (When Bill Baldwin ushered in a gentler management style, Pinkerton writes, the ‘collective Zoloft … bill for the edit staff almost certainly plummeted to a postwar low.’) These sections are dotted with anecdotes of the Forbes culture I knew well: late nights and idiosyncratic personalities, boozy lunches at Gotham Bar and Grill (which Pinkerton admits to keeping in business), screaming matches between Dennis Kneale, the new managing editor who’d blown in from the Wall Street Journal, and a then-retired Michaels; early fumbles with ‘digital convergence,’ including the ill-fated CueCat experiment where subscribers were mailed a plastic barcode scanner to access advertiser content online.”
Read more here.
Fortune names Barnett new ME for website
by Chris Roush
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer sent out the following message to the staff on Thursday:
I am very pleased to announce two noteworthy personnel moves. First Megan Barnett will now be the managing of editor of Fortune.com. Megan of course has been the acting head of Fortune.com and doing a great job of it under some tough circumstances, so the decision was an easy one and the move well deserved. Congratulations Megan!
Also Daniel Roberts has been hired as a full-time reporter. Dan has already developed a reputation as a dogged reporter (grrrr!), is super hardworking, and has demonstrated some nice writing skill as well. Bravo Dan!
Stay tuned for more hiring news over the coming weeks and months.
Barnett replaces Dan Roth, who left the magazine for LinkedIn. Since joining Fortune in 2010 as deputy managing editor, she has helped oversee the launch of several new sections of the web site, including the finance-focused Term Sheet.
Before joining Fortune, Barnett was the deputy managing editor for the financial news site Minyanville and deputy editor for the web site of Conde Nast Portfolio. Previously she held writing and editing positions at Smart Money, US News and World Report, and The Industry Standard.
Barnett was an equity research associate on Wall Street before becoming a business journalist.
WSJ names new banking editor
by Chris Roush
Colin Barr of Fortune magazine will start Monday as the new banking editor of The Wall Street Journal.
He replaces Jared Sandberg, who left the Journal in late May to become editor of Bloomberg.com.
Barr tells Talking Biz News via e-mail that he will work for the Money & Investing section. Thursday was his last day at Fortune after nearly four years as a senior writer for the magazine.
Barr was named one of the top 25 finance bloggers this year by Time, and won a 2006 SABEW Best in Business award for the weekly Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street column.
Before joining Fortune, he was a writer and companies editor for nine years at TheStreet.com, and before that an editor at Dow Jones News Service.
He’s a 1991 Penn State graduate.
Forbes responds to Fortune article
by Chris Roush
Peter Kafka of All Things Digital has the internal correspondence at Forbes Thursday morning about the article in the latest issue of Fortune about the business magazine’s finances.
CEO Steve Forbes wrote that “though the intention is to harm our business, it will not adversely impact Forbes because it highlights a very difficult time in the past when all the media industry was going through unprecedented upheaval.”
He added, “Forbes has the finest team – you – in the media world today. Forbes is profitable and is successfully navigating these extraordinarily turbulent seas. The company continues to grow and thrive with powerful new strategies and talent.”
Monie Bagley Feurey, the senior vice president of corporate communications, will release a statement to the media later today that states, “Since 2010, the company has pursued its strategy of putting journalism at the center of social media. This strategy is at the cutting edge of media today, which is why it is garnering support from audiences and advertisers alike.
“Elevation Partners are enthusiastic supporters of the direction of the company and have been full participants as these strategies have been developed.”
Read more here.
Financial strain at Forbes
by Chris Roush
Katie Benner of Fortune writes that competing business magazine Forbes had recently violated covenants of a loan and parts of the debt are being sold at less than face value.
The company went through a restructuring with the help of a firm that works with distressed businesses to get back into the good graces of its lenders.
Benner writes, “In 2009 the company had an operating loss of $19.7 million. By 2010 the company showed operating income of $2.7 million. That $22 million improvement in profitability was driven by a revenue gain of around $9 million and about $13 million in cost cuts.
“Forbes Media says its renewed profitability means that it is out of the woods, thanks to the business plan it worked out with Alvarez & Marsal in 2010. And it says the company is confident that it will be able to refinance its revolving line of credit when it comes due on July 6, 2012. Forbes Media said in a statement: ‘It is not up to the banks whether to refinance. It is up to Forbes. [We] have numerous financing options as we go forward.’
“That is technically true, but what should not be forgotten is that the deal with Elevation that set this chain of events in motion has been a failure. It burdened Forbes Media with debt that it ultimately struggled to pay, so much so that the company had to be gutted. Five years later Forbes Media’s earnings power has declined precipitously, and Elevation is nowhere near the return on investment it had predicted. The Forbes family was able to take a lot of money off the table. That’s timely because it is running out of trophies to sell. Last year the Forbes family motor yacht, The Highlander, was put into dry dock, its crew laid off.”
Read more here.
Biz magazine ad revenue growth doubles rest of industry
by Chris Roush
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
The 13 business magazines reported ad revenue of $588.2 million in the first six months of 2011, up 8.6 percent from the first six months of the previous year, far outpacing the 4.0 percent increase for the entire magazine industry, according to data released Thursday by the Publishers Information Bureau and analyzed by Talking Biz News.
Ad pages also rose 4.1 percent to 6195.95 for the business magazines, which also outperformed the 1.3 percent decline in ad pages for the entire industry during the first half of the year.
The increases continue the biz magazine industry’s rebound after years of declines. Ad revenue rose 9.6 percent and ad pages rose 7.2 percent in 2010 after a 21.7 percent decline in ad revenue and a 28.7 percent decline in ad revenue in 2009.
The strongest performer in the first half of the year was Wired, which saw a 37.7 percent increase in ad revenue to $43.9 million and a 26.6 percent increase in ad pages to 412.44.
Among the biggest business titles, Bloomberg Businessweek continues to outperform Forbes and Fortune. It reported a 27.7 percent increase in ad revenue to $98 million and a 15.8 percent increase in ad pages to 15.8 percent.
In comparison, Forbes reported a 2.6 percent rise in ad revenue to $111.7 million and a 3.2 percent decline in ad pages to 767.18 for the first six months of 2011. Fortune reported a 4.6 percent increase in ad revenue to $84.2 million and a 1 percent decline in ad pages to 629.06.
The personal finance magazines continue to struggle.
Money magazine’s ad revenue fell 9.8 percent to $50.9 million in the first six months of the year, while its ad pages fell 13.7 percent to 236.38. SmartMoney’s ad revenue fell 8.2 percent to $17.4 million and its ad pages fell 13.1 percent to 179.50.
Fast Company performed well in the first six months of the year. It saw a 21.7 percent rise in ad revenue to $21.3 million and a 17.1 percent rise in ad pages to $246.69.
See all of the magazine data here.
A blast from the past
by Chris Roush
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Talking Biz News is operating this week from Syracuse University, where it is perusing the papers of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster, a two-time Pulitzer winner.
We’ve run across a curious document in box eight — a clipping from the Charlotte Observer newspaper dated April 19, 1970.
Sloan writes, “During a brief interview, he summed up the business news coverage of most newspapers in one word: “lousy.”
“Royster said he felt that newspapers were victims of a tendency to create an artificial — and harmful — distinction between business news and other news.
“‘I don’t think of business as really being separate from other news,” Royster said.
“It’s part of the basic life of a community — there’s nothing that has more effect on a community than the business situation. These are bread-and-butter matters to every citizen.’
“According to Royster, papers as a rule make a great effort to cover disasters and politics, but fall down when it comes to covering business in their local communities.”
Sloan, of course, is now senior editor at large at Fortune and the winner of more Loeb Awards than any other business journalist. But at the time, he was a struggling sports reporter trying to make the switch to business news.