Just two weeks ago we wrote about French publisher Lagardére's plans to offload 10 of its magazine titles as it tries to build a digital future.
Now Finnish publisher Sanoma announced its own wide-ranging plans to close 32 of its 250 magazines and focus on 17 brands which "share the capability to transcend into digital media formats", along with a restructure of the whole business that will also affect its Finish newspaper and TV portfolio.
The move is driven by the firm's stuttering financial performance:
-- Losses: For the first nine months of 2013, Sanoma lost €294.3 million, compared to a profit of €158.6 in 2012.
-- Print ads: Down 20 percent.
-- Revenues: Total revenues down 7.1 percent to €1.7 billion.
CEO Harri-Pekka Kaukonen summed up the core challenge Sanoma faces:
New technologies are fundamentally changing the behavior of media consumers. Advertisers are following consumers. This implies a rapid increase in advertising in digital channels that enable targeting, measuring and performance-based pricing.
That's a concise description of the problem, but what's Sanoma's solution?......
Two magazine culls do not make a trend, but what both Sanoma and Lagardére are doing is the logical response to the collapse of print circulations and ad revenue.
Choosing which brands have a future, and where to invest to build new brands and services, is the central question on the minds of legacy consumer media organisations. There are many more brand culls and restructures to come.
http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/what-would-a-digitally-successful-sanoma-look-like
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