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Q: Building New Revenue Streams is the theme of the Indian Magazine Congress being held tomorrow, May 3. Any suggestions on what these streams can be? Or are the magazine players waking up too late?
A: As a macro axiom, I would like to say that it’s never too late in business to evolve and pivot to a pragmatic route that makes the business thrive.
In the case of print media in general and magazines in particular, the winds of change have been blowing for some time. But the lack of optimal investment in developing differentiated content in sync with the changing preferences of the audience and over-dependence on advertising have queered their pitch to remain competitive in the changing media landscape. The arrival of digital media has further compounded the problem of the business model of one-to-many non- interactive and non-real-time media formats of delivery.
Before one can even recommend possibly new routes of monetisation or new revenue streams, it is very critical to reframe the business challenge. The magazines (frequency-wise), in their classical format, are just a platform. The focus should be on delivery of content – both in terms of subject and audience cohort – across formats of delivery. After that, one can plan monetisation through multiple routes that are in sync with the reach and its richness, engagement of audience and an appropriate ROI on the investments. The challenge is how to inculcate insurgent behaviour in an incumbent format.