WildBlueSkies - Trends and strategies in Digital Media

Leading European publishers are coming to terms with what teenage boys and men have known for years -the Web beats magazines in grabbing their eyeballs.
Magazine publishers such as London-based media group Emap, Germany’s Axel Springer and France’s Lagardere have seen a split growing in their magazine assets - those for women are surging while men’s magazines drop. London-based Emap said that while underlying revenue in its consumer magazines division fell 6 percent in the first-half, this masked a strong performance by its women’s weekly titles such as Grazia, Heat and Closer which grew 6 percent. Emap blamed a 14 percent slump in its portfolio of monthly magazines on weakness in men’s titles. Emap in fact has invested in India based Next-Gen publishing with a focus towards the online media.
Publishers like Lagardere are hoping to buck the trend by shifting their investment plans towards investing in places like China and Russia where magazine growth rates can be 30 percent, simultaneously looking at Internet options.
Over time, as the web garners more sections of the population (women, children, etc.), we will not surprisingly see a shift towards interactive media.
[Via]

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