Killer PMB
This was not a good PMB study for magazines. Few showed gains. Many showed big losses. TV listings magazines are quickly becoming magazine relics. But what about the Time's, Canadian Gardening's and Canadian Business's of the world (down 7%, 10% and 10% respectively)?
PMB numbers always bounce, usually without any apparent reason. Even with a big sample of 25,000 and the dampening effect of using a two-year rolling average, individual titles always gain and lose around inexplicably. But this year sucked for nearly every magazine. Can you spell WWW? Or maybe it was just a blip. A blip that will last two years as the "good book" goes away in 2008, the "bad book" stays, and the mystery book arrives.
How's about those new to the study. Last year, before PMB was released, I mocked the entry of a number of low-profile titles questioning the criteria PMB uses to allow new members. You can read it here. One reader alerted me to the fact the Ricardo was apparently a worthy magazine. To quote from his/her comment:
But all of the English magazines I mentioned coughed up a hairball. And now with PMB 2007 - their first complete study, we see the complete damage:
Maybe it's time to cap this thing already. The old version before "recent reading" was showing fatigue as the number of magazines increased and the readership of each declined. Could we have hit the wall on recent reading now too? The new report produced results on 65 English magazines plus 10 daily newspapers. That's up from 55 and 7 just three yeas ago. Or do we really need new blood to suck every year?
PMB numbers always bounce, usually without any apparent reason. Even with a big sample of 25,000 and the dampening effect of using a two-year rolling average, individual titles always gain and lose around inexplicably. But this year sucked for nearly every magazine. Can you spell WWW? Or maybe it was just a blip. A blip that will last two years as the "good book" goes away in 2008, the "bad book" stays, and the mystery book arrives.
How's about those new to the study. Last year, before PMB was released, I mocked the entry of a number of low-profile titles questioning the criteria PMB uses to allow new members. You can read it here. One reader alerted me to the fact the Ricardo was apparently a worthy magazine. To quote from his/her comment:
Be careful dissing magazines like Ricardo- this one has earned its stripes in Quebec over three years of publishing. And now that it is poised to launch an English edition, I would love to see Ricardo give the fat cat "Food and Drink" a run for the money.Well to this readers credit, Ricardo did pretty well with 457,000 readers in its first complete (2-year data) study. But there is no information on its readers per copy because there is no information available on its circulation. I figure all those French fans must be confusing it with Ricardo's TV show. He's like the Oprah of Quebec with a TV show and his name and face on the cover of every issue. Must be a French thing and I clearly don't understand the French mindset because I was wrong about Adorable (17.7 readers per copy) and Summum (10.9 rpc) too. Jobboom was curiously absent (although it still has a PMB logo on its CARD listing) after produced a respectable 477,000 readers (4.9 rpc) in the 2006 1-year report.
But all of the English magazines I mentioned coughed up a hairball. And now with PMB 2007 - their first complete study, we see the complete damage:
- City Parent: 1.2 readers per copy
- Forever Young: 0.8
- Vervegirl: 1.7
- What's Cooking: 2.5 (although that does add up to 3.5 million readers)
- What's Up Kids: 1.8
Maybe it's time to cap this thing already. The old version before "recent reading" was showing fatigue as the number of magazines increased and the readership of each declined. Could we have hit the wall on recent reading now too? The new report produced results on 65 English magazines plus 10 daily newspapers. That's up from 55 and 7 just three yeas ago. Or do we really need new blood to suck every year?
posted by Reptile at 1:15 PM
6 Comments:
I'm new in the industry. Just wondering what is a respectable rpc for a consumer publication.
Thanks
The more the merrier.
It really depends on the type of publication but I wouldn't want fewer than 4 and preferably 8 or more. Mind you, by the time you get to 15, it starts to sound silly.
Recent reading, while better than through the book, has created unrealistic RPC's.
What's even crazier, pubs still pitch them as real numbers. Give me a break, we all know they are inflated as a result of the methodology. So why do we as an industry try to fool ourselves.
Not to mention I'd love to see the condition of a book that's gone through 12 readers. The thing would have to be printed on card stock just to survive.
And don't even get me started on the "Went to the movies in the past 30 days" leisure /entertainment question. According to those results I went to the moveis 4 times last month. Heck, free time aside, who's got the money to go to movies 4 times - tickets, popcorn, maybe a 2L pop for the little lady x 4 trips, that's like 200 bones.
Don't get me wrong, PMB has some great features & info. I'm just using this study as discussion point based on the subject of the post.
End of the day, our business has some issues that need to be flagged if we're going to be respectable.
Senior Media Guy
Reptile,
You seem like a logical person...a person of reason...so don't you think that there are some reasons.
Check their ABC statements carefully.
There's a lot of "sponsored subs", "sponsored singles", "grace copies", and "controlled circulation" these days. Good old Individual Subs that have been purchased through good old direct mail are in decline. Perhaps that is a clue worth examining.
SR Media Guy, I totally agree with you! Using PMB as a be-all and end-all in media planning is just plain stupid. But what are the options really for most planners? Unless you work in a shop which buys loads of research, you are likely forced to make many choices based on PMB, never mind the client who dictates that you do.
Planning Supervisor
Reptile: Good point about the ABC statements, I wasn't thinking about bulk copies driving up RPC's. To the same point, the value of those 'other' circ streams need to be evaluated on a per pub basis - too bad nobody has time for that in our down sized industry. (well except for the big shops - there's what 3 of them now with ME sharing office space with Mindshare now)
Planning Supervisor: PMB's a great tool to give you a broad view, but as you mentioned it's not the end all to be all.
In regards to what 'else' are you to use if you're not a big shop? My reco would be common sense. I know it seems like a simple answer and I'm not being condisending. Often in our industry common sense is over looked.
If you're selling a canoe, Cottage Life is probably a good place to start.
If you have a product with a unique selling point, come up with a cool media idea to promote it. Then regardless of where your running (in a reasonably targeted pub / or other medium) it's going to get noticed.
That's what makes a media plan stand out & get noticed, not how many RPC's Readers Digest has vs. Macleans.
Senior Media Guy
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