lee crane

In the April 12, 2006 issue of the Wall Street Journal writer Brian Steinberg interviewed Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner to get his take on print media in the digital age. And it would seem a likely choice until you read the interview. In it Wenner sounds a little more like an eight-track tape salesman speaking about the everlasting quality of quadrophonic stereo than he does a savvy media visionary.

Is there a future for magazines in the digital world the WSJ asks? Sure, Jann thinks so,

“The trick is to figure out what the Web does better, and let it do that, and then see what the role of the magazine is and what the magazine does better,” he continues. “There is a lot that the magazine does better, particularly for certain kinds of advertisers who are interested in visual display. Cars are sold that way. Fashion is sold that way. Soft drinks are sold that way.”

Since he mentioned it, what does the automotive magazine advertising landscape look like in 2006? According to an eMarketer report featured on Brandweek.com, 70 percent of car buyers now consult the web at some point during the process. eMarketer projects that by 2007 15 percent of all online advertising will be automotive advertising. “Automotive advertisers are gearing up for an online advertising surge, but it’s going to come at the expense of other media,” the report says.

The Publishers’ Information Bureau agrees. When comparing 2006 Jan-Feb magazine advertising totals to 2005 the single largest decliner was automotive advertising. Car ads are down 14 percent over Jan-Feb 2005. And it makes sense: at Primedia, the owner of Motor Trend, Automobile, and 30 other automobile titles (in addition to the ASG), newsstand sales were down 14.7 percent in the second half of 2005. And the automobile category was down 15 percent total. He may be mildly on track with fashion, but what about soft drinks? The PIB says that food and food product magazine ads are down 11 percent for the same period.

Ignoring the fact that he doesn’t seem to have any real grasp of where advertising is headed, what is Wenner’s view on the current rush for publishers to take their magazines online? He tells the WSJ that,

“We are kind of seeing a fad kind of reaction right now. It will all balance out, and those magazines that figure out how to make their Web product good and how to make it relate back to what’s on that magazine page will be very successful. It’s not that difficult a trick…”

A “fad kind of reaction”? According to a story in Businessweek, Standard & Poors expects online advertising to increase 20% in 2006 to the point where it will surpass magazine advertising in total dollars. Calling this kind of massive shift a fad is extremely short-sighted. I do, however, agree that the magazines who figure out how to make thier web product good will survive. If they don’t, they probably won’t have a magazine left to worry about. Just look at Jann: thanks to US Weekly his total newsstand numbers are up, however, Rolling Stone and 8 of the other top 10 men’s magazines were off a total of 15 percent at the newstand in the last half of 2005.

What print experts like Jann Wenner fail to understand is that while the content magazine editors provide won’t change much, the delivery most certainly will as people move away from the printed page and onto digital readers of all shapes and sizes (cellphones, iPods, laptops, and even, yes, digital paper).

When the WSJ asked Wenner what he thought Rolling Stone would look like in 2020 he said he didn’t know. But for 2010, he thinks it will be pretty much the same:

“A magazine is a great experience,” he says. “It’s a convenient way to read things. It’s portable. It’s a price value for all the stuff you get in that as opposed to the cost of going on the web.”

And if you agree with Jann on this last point, then someone probably printed this out for you to read on paper (missing all the links), in the comfort of own livingroom, while listening to The Bee Gees on your quadrophic 8-track stereo.