It's Tuesday: 5 Things About the World of Magazines and Media - Issue #27
Not much time left this year. Let's get it done before the budget runs out!
Last week began the rush to get everything wrapped up before the Christmas break. Doesn't it seem like everyone with the exception of health care workers and convenience store clerks get Christmas and New Years off? The email grows so quiet it feels like not a lot goes on during the run up to Christmas Eve and the drift to New Years Day.
Over here in magazine world, we're still a bit busy. Printers still print. And don't forget postal workers who sort the pallets and orders and deliver the magazines to subscribers' homes. Then there's the shippers who pick up those pallets, and the IT folk who make sure the servers are running and posting to the site and social and taking subscription orders, and the merchandisers who put up the magazines in the stores and the other clerks who ring them up for you when you buy them.
Meanwhile, print orders are due, and upper management still wants some explanations for how the year turned out and predictions for how the New Year will be. Got that deck prepped and ready?
So, yeah, there's still a lot going on this time of year, even if some of us (Hey, who's "us"?) aren't so busy.
So, are you going to make it? The final deadline for the year is approaching at light speed...
#1. The Twitter re-org starts right away...
New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal begins restructuring as two execs step down – TechCrunch — techcrunch.com Earlier this week, Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down from his role. He appointed CTO Parag Agrawal as new CEO, effective immediately. Agrawal, who joined Twitter as an engineer in 2011, already announced a major reorganization of the company today, per an internal email obtained by The Washington Post. Twitter confirmed the news […]
Twitter’s Grand Plan Is Beginning To Take Shape — www.forbes.com Twitter Blue, the company's first subscription service which offers an undo button, is an initial building block in an effort to broaden its revenue.
I’ve been on Twitter since 2009 and have found it a worthwhile tool for research. You can find articles from well established sources for just about anything and it's been an invaluable research tool and helped me find articles about publishing and writing. For the record, author Twitter is absolutely wonderful. I've discovered a plethora of new magazines on the service too.
What, exactly, this reorganization will mean for the platform is unknown: Change is scary, wonderful, terrible, exciting, terrifying. But I am willing to wait and see what the new team comes up with.
#2. Lansing, MI indie bookstores organized a "Book Crawl" and it was a crazy success
Shelf Awareness for Monday, December 6, 2021 | Shelf Awareness — www.shelf-awareness.com Welcome to the Web site for Shelf Awareness: Daily Enlightenment for the Book Trade, the free e-mail newsletter dedicated to helping the people in stores, ...
Downtown bookstores participate in first ever Lansing Book Crawl — www.youtube.com Six bookstores participated in Lansing's first ever book crawl. Store owners call the event a "crazy success."
I absolutely love this! Six different retailers to got together, promoted their category, showed their love for their community, and did it all in a way that strengthened their businesses and made them more valuable to their community.
Hopefully other stores in other communities have taken note and will give this a try next year.
#3. Does Chatham Asset Management have the upper hand in their bid for RR Donnelly?
RRD Board Agrees to Chatham Acquisition Offer; Will Terminate $2.1B Agreement with Atlas — www.piworld.com The RR Donnelley (RRD) board of directors unanimously determined the unsolicited proposal from Chatham Asset Management to acquire the printer for $10.25 per share in cash constitutes a “Superior Proposal” in comparison to the $8.52 per share in cash acquisition agreement RRD signed with Atlas Holdings on Nov. 3, 2021.
This is a fascinating development. The current bidder for RRD, Atlas Holdings, is the PE company that currently owns the spun off former RRD property, LSC Communications and several other industry related companies.
Chatham Assets, also a PE company, currently is the owner of ACC360, the largest magazine distributor in the US, A360 Media, the magazine publisher formerly known as American Media and several other companies related to the magazine distribution business.
Whoever winds up with the upper hand, it sounds like the band could be put back together at least as far as the company formerly known as RRD is concerned.
If all of this comes to pass, we could be looking at a completely vertical monopoly. That's always fun.
#4. Speaking of M&A, Media Voices asks, "Will the hype last?"
Billion dollar valuations and ambitious projections shaped M&A in 2021. But will the hype last? - Media Voices — voices.media For an industry frequently cited as struggling, the sale figures of some of this year’s headline media acquisitions have painted …
That is an excellent question!
The article runs down the list of major acquisitions that occurred this year. To me, the interesting aspect of this is who is doing all the buying and what, exactly, are they planning?
Is it BuzzFeed snapping up HuffPo and Complex? Future, PLC acquiring Dennis and Marie Claire? Or “vulture hedge fund” Alden Global Capital and the Tribune Company?
#5 Elle Magazine bans fur editorial from international editions
ELLE magazine bans fur in all its titles to support animal welfare | Reuters — www.reuters.com Fashion magazine ELLE is banning fur from the pages of all its international editions in a move to support animal welfare and reflect changing tastes, the publication said on Thursday.
Cultural trends and preferences come and go and they will influence what sort of editorial certain publications will promote. How the title will react to that pressure is what I find interesting. Like the abandonment of cigarette ads years ago, I wonder if the decision to not promote fur in their magazines is most likely a combination of a response to a decline in public interest, a decline in available advertisers, or a nice opportunity to do a bit of virtue signaling.
All of the above?
As a point of reference, fake fur is often made from acrylics. Acrylics are made from chemical polymers so the whole sustainable thing sounds like a little bit of greenwash to me.
Your moment of magazine zen is brought to you this week by...
Let's skip the agita this week just in case you're having company for the holidays. Sounds good?
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Do you have a question or comment? Please drop me a line. You can always reach me at joe.berger@newsstandpros.com
That’s it! That’s all we’ve got so get back at it and wrap things up. May the rest of your week be filled with canceled video calls and emails that start with: “I've got a virtual holiday party so let's pick this up later!”
That kind of sounds neat, no?