Tag Archives: The Economist
The Economist saw profits rise 23 percent in 2007
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Dan Sabbagh of The Times of London reports that The Economist reported a 23 percent increase in profits in 2007 on higher advertising numbers.
Sabbagh writes, “Revenues at the Economist Group, which produces the upmarket weekly magazine, rose 8 per cent to £266.4 million as the flagship title showed no signs of falling victim to the media downturn that has put other publishers under pressure.
“Print advertising revenues for The Economist newspaper were ahead by 16 per cent in the US, while global circulation improved by 9 per cent to 1.3 million, and the company wants to expand the title in India and the rest of Asia.
“Group margins improved from 15 per cent to 17 per cent.”
Read more here.
WSJ's Ip leaving to join The Economist
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Greg Ip, who has covered the Federal Reserve and the economy for The Wall Street Journal for the past seven years, is leaving the paper to become the U.S. economics editor for The Economist, reports Robert MacMillan of Reuters.
MacMillan writes, “Greg Ip will join The Economist magazine as U.S. economics editor, he told Reuters on Tuesday, after covering the Fed since 2001 for the Journal. He likely will join the weekly in late July, he said.
“At The Economist he will be responsible for writing and reporting on the U.S. economy and economic policy, including the Federal Reserve, he wrote in an e-mailed statement.
“‘This is an extraordinary opportunity for me to expand my horizons, to learn a more analytical and critical style of writing, to serve a rapidly growing and discerning readership worldwide, and to work with a remarkable group of journalists and editors who share my passion for economics,’ he wrote.
“Ip’s stories in the Journal have been widely followed by financial market participants seeking clues into the Federal Reserve’s thinking about interest rates and the economy.”
Read more here. And here is Dow Jones Newswires, which is owned by the same company as the Journal, following the Reuters story about one of its co-workers.
Economist shows strong ad sales in first quarter
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Diego Vasquez of Media Life Magazine writes about magazines that have bucked the downward cycle in ad sales in the first three months of 2008 and focuses on The Economist.
Vasquez writes, “They’re heeding an age-old maxim of magazine publishing: Invest during downturns, as others cut back, and you’ll win market share.
“In some ways, the Economist best exemplifies this aggressiveness. The title competes in two of the roughest ad categories, newsweeklies and business titles, which were each down nearly 14 percent over the quarter, yet its ad pages were up more than 5 percent.
“For that, North American publisher Paul Rossi credits the magazine’s ongoing push to build circulation in the U.S. market, which rose 13 percent in second-half 2007, to 720,882, over the year-earlier period, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
“Circulation helps push up our rate base, which is good, but what it really does is grow the readership numbers,” he says.”
Read more here.
Economist.com rolls out new design
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The Economist magazine unveiled a new design for its Web site that is cleaner and easier to find stories.
An announcement on the site stated, “We have removed long lists of articles and replaced them with a pithier selection. The navigation that runs down the left-hand side of the page, and throughout the site, is now completely visible right away, with no need to scroll down ‘below the fold’. By rolling your cursor over the main categories of content you can reveal more detailed sub-categories.
“A second aim was to make more content readily accessible—strange as it may sound, to combine greater simplicity with greater depth. At the top, four main items of content rotate before settling on the lead story. You can readily scroll through all the columns. There is more breathing room for our blogs. Articles from the print edition are easy to find via the cover image.
“A new feature brings to the fore the articles that have proved most popular with readers. You can choose between three different measures of this: the articles that have attracted the most comments, the ones that readers have recommended the most (by clicking on the ‘recommend’ button next to the text) and those that have been most read. So you get to influence what appears on the home-page.”
Read more here.Â
The Economist is hip, yo
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Mark Sweeney of The Guardian newspaper in London writes Tuesday about how The Economist magazine is popular with young readers after it was the subject of a rap song and a Facebook group.
Sweeney writes, “The rap, created by US students Ike Edgerton and Chris Misa under the name Psikotic, is a tribute that includes samples of Economist journalists such as Edward Lucas and Anthony Gottlieb from the title’s audio podcasts.
“The chorus of the rap runs: ‘He reads the Economist so he can get the gist, its solid competence gives him confidence that his intelligence is correct.’
“Other lines praise editorial standards such as ‘The style in which they write is simple and concise, how do they get their sentences so precise?’”
Read more here.Â
11 out of 16 biz magazines post first-quarter decline in ad sales
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A majority of the 17 business magazines posted a decline in ad sales in the first three months of 2007, according to data from the Magazine Publishers of America analyzed Monday by Talking Biz News.
Eleven magazines saw declines, with five posting increases. Conde Nast Portfolio did not publish in the first three months of 2007.
The biggest declines occurred in the personal finance category, with Smart Money reporting a 17.7 percent drop in ad dollars to $10.5 million in the first three months. Its ad pages fell 21.4 percent. Kiplinger’s Personal Finance fell 17.2 percent in ad dollars to $8.5 million, and its ad pages fell 20 percent. Money magazine saw a 6.3 percent decline in ad dollars to $28.1 million, and a 5.5 percent decline in ad pages to 147.
Among the big business magazines, BusinessWeek fared the worst, with a 15.5 percent decline in ad dollars to $53.9 million and a 19.4 percent drop in ad pages. In comparison, Forbes reported an 8.3 percent drop in ad dollars to $61 million and a 13.2 percent fall in ad pages, while Fortune posted a 1.7 percent increase in ad dollars to just below $50 million for the quarter and a 0.9 percent drop in ad pages.
The biggest gainer, however, was Fast Company, which reported a 35.5 percent increase in ad dollars to $7.2 million, followed by the Economist, which reported a 27.3 percent jump in ad dollars to $31.3 million. Wired magazine also had a strong quarter, with a 22.8 percent increase in ad dollars to $20.5 million.
The only other business magazine to post a gain for the quarter was Inc., which saw a 4.6 increase in ad dollars to $17.9 million. Its major competitors, Entrepreneur and Fortune Small Business, saw declines of 5.8 percent and 15.3 percent, respectively.
See all of the data here.
Economist CEO resigns, to be replaced by publisher
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The Economist Group CEO Helen Alexander will resign at the company’s annual meeting on July 15 and be replaced by Economist publisher Andrew Rashbass, according to a release.
Alexander had been with the magazine since 1985, when she was a marketing manager. She become CEO in 1997. In the past five years, the company’s operating profit has increased 75 percent, and circulation has increased by nearly 50 percent to 1.3 million.
Rashbass has been publisher for the past three years. Before that, he was managing director of Economist.com. He joined the company in 1997.
“I’m proud of what we’ve achieved and privileged to have led such a winning team,” said Alexander in a statement. “Now is the time for a new chief executive to take over. The temptation would be to stay too long, but it’s the right time fgor me to move on.”
Economist is No. 1 on Adweek's Hot List
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Lucia Moses of Adweek writes about why The Economist magazine is the No. 1 publication on Adweek’s annual Hot List.
Moses writes, “American culture’s loving embrace of The Economist coincides with its stunning business successes here in recent years. Racking up impressive ad and 
circulation numbers, the news and opinion title has blown past other newsweeklies and business magazines, many struggling to redefine their mission in the digital age. In recognition of the title’s remarkable performance, publisher Paul Rossi and editor [John] Micklethwait are AdweekMedia’s Executive Team of the Year. The magazine also earned the top spot on this year’s Magazine Hot List.
“The London-based Economist began publishing in 1843, but its becoming a force in the U.S. is a relatively recent development, the result of geopolitical events and the publisher’s own strategic moves. Before the ’80s, the brand had no U.S. ad sales presence. Then came 9/11. Three years later, parent The Economist Newspaper Ltd. identified the U.S., along with India and Asia, as growth markets for new readers and advertisers. In January 2005, the company tapped Rossi, a longtime Economist ad salesman who at the time served as publisher of its Web site, to be publisher of the North American print edition and its extensions. Last December, Rossi added the title of executive vp of The Economist Group North America.
“While certainly well-respected, The Economist suffered under the perception that it was difficult to read and was a pure business magazine. To change that, it launched marketing blitzes in major markets including Boston, Baltimore and Denver. Readers and advertisers responded in a big way.”
Read more here.
BusinessWeek, Portfolio, Economist, Bloomberg, Wired are Ellies finalists
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Lucia Moses of MediaWeek reports Wednesday that the finalists for the National Magazine Awards, better known as the Ellies, have been announced, and among business magazines, Wired, BusinessWeek, The Economist, Bloomberg Markets and Conde Nast Portfolio are finalists.
Moses reports that Wired is a finalist in three categories, BusinessWeek and The Economist are finalists in two categories, while Conde Nast Portfolio is a finalist in one category in its first year. Bloomberg Markets is a finalist for the first time in the public interest category.
Last year, Wired magazine received a National Magazine Award in the general excellence category for magazines with a circulation betwene 500,000 and 1 million. The Economist was a finalist in the category.
In addition, BusinessWeek received an award in the interactive service online category for its B-School Channel feature on its web site. The magazine was also a finalist in the general excellence online category.
Read more here.
The Economist must attract readers in smaller markets
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Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman writes Friday that for The Economist to continue growing in the United States, it must find readers in markets other than New York, San Francisco and Washington.
“While the Economist tailors its city-by-city marketing in the U.S. to the tastes of each market — it had a tie-in with Chicago’s Second City comedy troupe, for instance — Rossi and his troops invariably hammer home the same general point.
“‘The common thread in terms of the execution of the campaign is to think differently about us,’ Rossi told me in an interview last week.
“Anyone who has read the magazine could back up that assertion. Although I view Time and Newsweek (not to mention U.S. News & World Report and the Week) as sophisticated and worthwhile in their own right, the Economist is the smartest weekly magazine around.”
Read more here.