To be free or not... that is the question for mags

It's quite a dilemma for publishers because there are really no hard and fast rules which dictate which route one should take. One man's free distribution magazine meat can quite easily turn out to be another man's publishing poison.

Born free

But, there is no doubt that we're going to see a lot more marginally profitable magazine titles either being killed off or turned into freebies in an effort to increase readership and become more attractive to media buyers. Certainly, there is an argument for giving titles away for free - in many cases, it is hugely profitable.

For example, just coming back to Caxton for a moment, there is no question that it is one of the most profitable print media publishers in the country - by a mile. And this success lies largely with its community free-sheet newspapers. It has pretty well cornered the market and anyone who has ever had newspapers such as the Sandton Chronicle land on their driveways will have noticed that not only are these Caxton titles are hefty enough to crack the brick paving, but that they are absolutely brimful of advertising and particularly advertising inserts.

And not only do the majority of residents mind having their newspapers made up mostly of inserts that fall all over the place, a lot of them actually pay more attention to reading the inserts than the few editorial pages. And of course this is true because far too many big retail brands have been advertising far too long this way for it to be otherwise.

Frankly, when it comes effective advertising, some of these seemingly bland and "uncreative" inserts should be the one's picking up the ad awards.

They are pulling in ad revenue like bees to a honeypot.

They contribute so much to the Caxton bottom line that the company recently embarked on another "freesheet" entire - this time giveaway community magazines - one interesting project being a joint venture with Ramsay Son & Parker with community magazine titles in the Western Cape.

Add to all this the success and profitability of TV shows such as Top Billing that is now virtually wall-to-wall paid advertorial and soapies with their increasing volume of product placements.

Consumer acceptance

What this is all suggesting is that the consumer seems quite happy to get certain media free and as they're getting them for nothing, they're not too concerned about them being overly loaded with advertising.

Trouble is the key word here is "certain." There is no doubt that some magazines and newspapers quite clearly profit enormously from kicking their cover prices into touch and going the free distribution route. When the recipe is right, advertising starts coming in hand over fist.

But, there are also magazines that would simply die a very quick and painful death if they went the freebie route.

Cover prices are great for paying the production bill and potentially leaving ad revenue as cream. But, generally speaking, the higher the cover price, the more this restricts sales. It always turns out to be a very difficult balance.

Pandering to advertisers

Going the freebie route means having to radically increase circulation and readership in order to make the advertising package attractive enough. It also requires having to have a dedicated, consistent and highly definable target market readership. A package media buyers can almost reach out and physically touch.

Magazine and perhaps even newspaper publishers are facing the same dilemma the cellphone industry found itself in a decade or so ago.

When Vodacom and MTN started up, consumers had to pay full prices for phones until, very quickly, bright sparks in both companies realised that if handsets were either given away or "sold" at hugely reduced prices, network usage would increase dramatically as ownership became instantly affordable in spite of usage becoming relatively more expensive.

This strategy very definitely played a huge role in the success of the cellphone industry in this country. It's a strategy that can be applied to many industries. For example, one wonders how many subscriptions MultiChoice would have sold by now if it had given its decoders away for free?

Quo vadis, Citizen?

But, getting back to the print industry, it is going to be quite fascinating to see just what Caxton's publishing strategy is going to be. Certainly it will involve a lot more free distribution titles. But, one has to wonder just where The Citizen fits into all this because it's sticking out like a wart on an otherwise peachy complexion that Caxton seems to have nurtured for itself.

If Caxton has seen fit to dump Style, one wonders how long it will be before The Citizen either gets kicked into touch for not delivering anything remotely close to the kind of profits Caxton expects from its titles, or will it too become a freesheet?

Now there's a thought.