The closure of the Bulletin once again starts the discussion of what relevance magazines have in the marketplace as against online models. Or indeed, can they or should they even exist?

Advertising $ have to co-exist with subscription and newsstand sales dollars for it all to work.

It has been reported that James Tuckerman, the publisher and founder of Australian Anthill has offered a challenge that for one dollar, if given 51% of the Bulletin, he can make a profit in the first year. He then quotes varying numbers in terms of advertising revenue to prove his point, finally coming up with a turnover figure of $18million+ a year based on 10 pages of adverting an issue.

Nice if you can get it.

David Richards from 4Square Media then commented on this by saying the Bully had lost its way “through editorial interference and mediocre stories”. He then goes o to quote what it was like back in the 80s (when he wrote for the Bully apparently). I was in the Pilbara at the time when the closest thing to the Bully would be big iron ore worker who’d continually steal your beer at the bar and then challenge you.

As a new time publisher, I have a foot in both camps. This is especially true as I have to play both sales manager and managing editor. The two roles, although this will sadden some of the more radical journos out there, have to co-exist as without one (advertising) there isn’t the other (editorial). And vice versa.

But you don't have to “kiss backside” as Mr Richards so eloquently puts it to get advertising revenue. Nor do you have to compromise on your editorial to keep vendors or readers happy. On the premise that honesty is the best policy, tell it as it is and be true to both sides.

One thing that seems to get lost in the dust, is where the profit of a magazine is and this is crucial to the whole argument. Well I would maintain that unless you are a Women’s Weekly or New Idea, newsstand readership revenue is only a very small percentage with advertising by far making up the bulk with subscriptions a valuable albeit distant second. But those subscriptions and newsstand sales – at least for this little black duck – are icing on the cake, and where the online model fails. Without a paper version, especially for the aforementioned WW and NI, but would also include say Wheels, Modern Motor, Sports Illustrated and so on. If they scrapped their actual books, do you think people would PAY to view these pages online.

Of course not!

So a balance between the two is what is needed, and from my experiences at least, the book is the primary objective and the online presence is the “community” that binds it all together. If a full page ad in the Bulletin is $14,000 as suggested, what are the chances of getting anywhere near that for a web site presence on the Bully site for a single week?

Based on all of that, James Tuckerman is right; with an audience (sales) of 240,000 a month (so we are told), that is serious revenue that anyone would love to have their hands on who is in publishing.
Let me run this past you. Based on the fact that the reader base was OK, but the advertising revenue was not, why has no-one pointed the finger at the advert reps? What is their excuse? And I know talking to my peers I am not alone in this thinking.

There are always reasons why sales people cannot sell. Just this weekend, while looking at houses in our immediate area, there was probably a 50-50 split of sales reps saying “business has never been this bad” as against “business has never been so good”. I’ll wager that those same comments, over same the weekend, in the same percentage, were also being made by car salespeople, boat salespeople and yes, advertising reps.

Comments anyone?