Tag Archives: The Economist
How The Economist engages readers
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Marketwatch.com media columnist Jon Friedman interviewed Paul Rossi, managing director of The Economist in the Americas, about how the magazine attracts readers.
Bloomberg Businessweek ad pages up 49 percent in first quarter
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Bloomberg Businessweek saw a 49 percent increase in advertising pages in the first three months of the year, according to data released Wednesday by the Publisher’s Information Bureau.
Its ad revenue rose 65 percent to $46.2 million for the quarter, easily the best performance among the business magazines.
Fast Company and Wired magazine also posted double-digit gains in the first quarter. Fast Company reported a 20 percent increase in ad pages and a 24.7 percent increase in ad revenue to $7.9 million. Wired’s ad pages rose 41.3 percent, and its ad revenue rose 55.8 percent to 19.1 million.
Bloomberg Businessweek increased its share of the advertising market among The Economist, Fortune and Forbes, gaining 6.7 points, while the other three magazines posted declines in share.
In April 2010, Bloomberg Businessweek relaunched with a new design and a complete rethinking of the newsweekly format. The magazine has increased the number of issues it publishes each year from 47 to 50 and increased the number of editorial pages by 20 percent.
“While our competitors have had to retrench, Bloomberg Businessweek has been opening new sales offices, hiring top talent, and adding new products and platforms to offer advertisers engaging ways to reach our audience,” said Hugh Wiley, publisher of Bloomberg Businessweek in a statement. “Our first quarter results are proof positive that advertisers have embraced our redesign and that our continued investment in the brand is paying off.”
The magazine will announce a new iPad app this month.
Among its competitive set, which collectively posted a 6 percent increase in pages, Bloomberg Businessweek far outpaced The Economist, which posted a 4 percent increase, and Forbes and Fortune, which fell 10 percent and 5 percent respectively.
Forbes reported a 4.4 percent decline in ad revenue to $44.8 million, while Fortune’s ad revenue rose slightly in the quarter to $33.7 million. The Economist’s ad revenue rose 7.6 percent to $30.5 million.
See all of the magazine data here.
Economist hires firm to help it sell subscriptions
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The Economist has hired Havas Digital to help it sell print, digital and iPad subscriptions, reports Kunur Patel of Advertising Age.
Patel writes, “It remains to be seen whether The Economist is moving toward accepting Apple’s terms for iPad subscriptions. When Apple introduced its iPad subscriptions system in February, many publishers balked, considering hurdles to gathering subscriber data and Apple scooping 30% of revenue. Popular Science was one publication to test the new system and has so far sold more than 10,000 iPad subscriptions
“So far The Economist is not selling subscriptions through Apple’s App Store under the plan Apple announced in February. Havas Digital declined comment on the matter. The Economist wasn’t able to comment immediately on deadline.
“Publishers, including The New York Times, have recently been testing digital subscriptions in attempts to cull new revenue streams. Right now, The Economist charges $110 for its digital subscription, which includes access to all online, mobile and iPad content. An annual print-plus-digital subscription goes for $127.”
Read more here.
The most influential business news organizations
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Reuters ranks No. 3, The Wall Street Journal No. 4 and Bloomberg News No. 5 in a ranking of news organizations who have had their reporting cited the most in Google News and Google Blog searches in the past month, according to data compiled by New York Times blogger and statistics-dicer extraordinaire Nate Silver.
Jeff Bercovici, commenting on the data, writes, “Scrolling through it, one thing that jumped out at me was how far along Bloomberg is towards its stated goal of being the world’s most influential news organization. Bloomberg comes in at No. 5, with 4.5 percent of all citations. While that puts it behind head to head competitors like Reuters (7.7 percent) and The Wall Street Journal (6.8 percent), consider that Bloomberg News has been around for 21 years. All the other organizations in the top five were founded in the 1800s.
“Compared with the others, Bloomberg is cited relatively infrequently in Google News, getting a disproportionate share of its mentions on blogs. Is there some reason other news organizations are reluctant to credit Bloomberg’s reporting?
“Forbes, in case you’re wondering, is No. 54, immediately behind CNBC, but well ahead of The Economist (No. 86), Businessweek (No. 121) and Fortune (No. 133).”
Read more here. The full list is here. Other business news media on the list include TechCrunch (No. 47), All Things D (No. 133), Apple Insider (No. 147), Mac Rumors (No. 149), VentureBeat (No. 167), and Investor’s Business Daily (No. 181)
The best, and worst, biz magazine covers for 2010
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If you’re a business magazine, you might want to consider doing more personal finance covers, according to Audit Bureau of Circulation data.
The best-performing business magazine covers in 2010 were investment guides and reviews, while the worst covers dealt with professional sports and entertainers, according to a posting on min online.
For Bloomberg Businessweek, the best-selling cover was its Dec. 20 “Year in Review,” while the worst was its July 12 issue on BP’s oil spill.
At Forbes and Fortune, however, the best-selling covers were its 2011 investor’s guides. For Forbes, the worst-selling cover was its Sept. 13 issue, which featured its annual NFL team values. At Fortune, the worst-selling cover was its Oct. 18 issue of the 50 most powerful women, featuring Oprah on the cover.
For The Economist, its best-selling cover was the June 12 issue titled “What’s Wrong with America’s Right,” while its worst-selling cover of the year was its April 10 issue on Britain’s Parliament elections.
See all of the best and worst covers here. A subscription is required.
Economist circulation continues to rise
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Ben Dowell of The Guardian in London reports that The Economist‘s subscription numbers continue to climb, hitting a record in the United Kingdom.
Dowell writes, “The Economist’s global circulation now total 1,473,939, a year-on-year growth of 3.7%.
“The bulk of the copies are sold in North America, where circulation is now 833, 667, year-on-year growth of 2.5%.
“The Economist’s publisher, Yvonne Ossman, attributed the title’s deliberate move to ‘broaden its audience’ to a 59th consecutive six-monthly increase in circulation, with continental Europe sales up 0.9% year on year and 0.3% on the period to 240,743.
“‘We have sought, through our communications, to challenge non-readers’ misperceptions of the publication as dry and mostly about finance by highlighting the breadth and individuality of Economist editorial,’ Ossman said.”
Read more here.
Why the FT and the Economist have been successful in America
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Jonathan Berr writes for 24/7WallSt.com about how two British business publications — the Financial Times and the Economist — have won over American readers.
Berr writes, “It’s smart, funny writing that flies in the face of the ‘just the facts ma’am’ style that American journalists have been taught for generations that it’s their duty to type. To this day, many blogs from U.S. media outlets are as dull as dishwater for that reason. Reporters from the U.K.-based publicaions never got that memo, and in the Internet age, it’s a good thing too because it means that their articles are not the same old stuff that you read everywhere else.
“‘The magazine consistently tackles complex subjects in a way that’s easy for readers to understand and with a humor that has become part of its trademark style,’ according to a statement from The Economist.
“Few media outside the U.S. consider themselves ‘objective’ in the way the American media defines the term. Readers in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East all assume that the news they are reading is biased in one way or another. Though that sort of attitude may horrify some conservatives in the U.S., it actually is what the people want as the FT and The Economist show.”
Biz journalism apps engaging readers
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Sean Callahan of BtoB Magazine writes about the success of media that have been at the forefront of rolling out applications for smart phones and tablets.
Callahan writes, “Since its debut, the Journal’s app has had about 1.1 million downloads, said Mark Fishkin, VP-digital sales for The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. The app updates with new content every 15 minutes, and about half of the app’s regular paid users visit it daily, he said.
“Pearson’s Financial Times rolled out its app last May, and it already has had 480,000 downloads. ‘We’re seeing [the app] drive our new digital subscribers,’ said Stephen Pinches, group product manager-emerging technologies for FT. ‘Over 10% of FT.com’s new digital subscribers are coming directly from the iPad.’
“Additionally, advertising on the iPad generates 20 times more click-throughs for FT than similar ads on the Web. ‘That’s huge,’ said Jon Slade, global digital and strategic advertising sales director for FT, who said the elevated click-throughs came not from the novelty of the iPad but from the nature of how people interact with the device. While Web users search for a specific piece of information, print readers are more engaged with the entire product, including ads.
“The Economist launched an app late last year, and while it includes video and audio attributes, it is essentially the weekly magazine transferred to the iPad. Oscar Grut, managing director of digital editions for The Economist, said the goal was to not muddy the magazine reading experience with constant news updates from the Web. ‘What our readers tell us is that they like that there’s a beginning and an end; there’s a ‘finishability’ to the experience,’ he said.”
Read more here.
Bloomberg Businessweek hires two staffers
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Bloomberg Businessweek announced Tuesday that Ashlee Vance, former New York Times enterprise technology writer, and Brendan Greeley, former technology and policy correspondent at The Economist, have joined the magazine as staff writers.
“Ashlee and Brendan are incredibly talented reporters with deep knowledge of their industries,” said editor Josh Tyrangiel in a statement. “I’m thrilled to have them join our editorial team.”
Prior to joining Bloomberg Businessweek, Vance was a reporter for the New York Times covering enterprise technology.
Vance joined The New York Times in 2008 after working for five years as editor of The Register, a British technology Web site. Vance is also the author of Geek Silicon Valley and has written freelance stories on technology for The Economist.
Greeley joins Bloomberg Businessweek from The Economist, where he’s spent the past three years as technology and policy correspondent. Greeley also launched, edited, and contributed to the publication’s Babbage blog. Before joining The Economist, Greeley was “blogger in chief” for the Web version of “Open Source,” the Public Radio International program.
Write for the Economist
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OK, so it’s only 30 characters, but the Economist is holding a contest for the best photo caption for its next issue.
Here are the details:
“READERS often assume that The Economist has a dedicated department of skilled wordsmiths who hone its humorous picture captions. Actually, we just make them up on the spot, usually in the Thursday-morning hubbub as the newspaper goes to press.
“Our journalists receive no special training in caption-writing, which suggests that anyone with suitably disrespectful instincts can do it. This week we intend to put this theory to the test by asking you, our readers, to write a caption for this picture. It will illustrate an article in our International section about the growth of road-safety vigilantism (or public-spirited individuals trying to prevent drivers from speeding, depending on your point of view).
“We have chosen a suitably silly picture, but it’s up to you to provide the words. Please suggest a caption in the comments thread below. It should be short and snappy, and no more than about 40 30 (including spaces) characters long (the width of a single column of text on a standard Economist page). We will choose the best caption and use it in this week’s print edition—so you’ve got about 48 hours. The only reward is that the winner can then truthfully claim to have written (at least a few words) for The Economist. Over to you.”
Go here to post your caption.
