Things Placed In Front of The Magazine Rack: Part 1 of ....
There is an excellent interview with New Single Copy partner John Harrington in Media Life today and I strongly urge you to go and read it. In the interview, Harrington cites the economy as a key factor in the continuing decline in newsstand sales that everyone and their uncle likes to write about. He also points out that aggressive subscription marketing, digital initiatives and a weak wholesaling environment contribute to the softness in sales.
In other words, as all of us who work in it know, it's not just one thing.
Will the newsstand make a comeback as the economy improves? Harrington muses that it's possible. But only if publishers and wholesalers and retailers make a combined effort to remind readers about the "excitement and value of magazines. Especially at retail."
During a side trip through a desktop folder this morning, I realized that I have collected a fair amount of evidence that suggests another reason for the decline in single copy sales. It isn't too many titles in one category, heavily discounted subs, the shift to digital, or the digital side putting some sort of voodoo on the print side over at corporate.
It's too much sh*t getting put in front of the magazine racks.
Item 1:
Yes, tongue is firmly planted in the cheek as I write these lines. This topic does get covered regularly in this blog and seeing as how I have named this writing effort after a famously unsinkable ocean liner that ran into something and then sank, well....
"Things Placed In Front of The Magazine Rack" will now be a regular feature with regular updates. So pull out your cell phones, smart phones, iPads and Android tablets, snap away, and submit your best evidence of "Things Placed In Front of the Magazine Rack" to newsstandpromos at gmail.com.
If I get enough entries, I'll name a lucky winner at the end of the year. Now how can you resist that?