Further to my post yesterday about the status of magazines in the UK, Nick Chan, CEO of Pacific Magazines, spoke at the VANA Conference on Friday in Melbourne. He diverted from his prepared speech and explained why Pacific and other magazine publishers think that magazines have a healthy future while acknowledging the challenges of generational change, technology based disruption and the current economic circumstances.

Nick Chan’s comments about the future of magazines are not dissimilar to those of the UK publishers in the interview from the UK to which I referred yesterday. They are also similar to comments by representatives of ACP Magazines. It was good to hear his comments yesterday.

I agree that magazines will have a future – in part because I want them to and in part because I genuinely believe this. The challenge is how hard we (newsagents) have to fight, as retailers, to maintain sales for them to have a viable future in our businesses. This is as much about our resources as it is about external factors such as other sources of interest satisfaction for consumers.

It would be easier for newsagents to protect their market share of top-selling titles if non top-selling titles did not drain our resources. 80% of newsagent magazine revenue consumes only 20% of our resources – labour, cash, real-estate. Put another way, 20% of our magazine revenue is derived from titles which consume 80% of our resources.  I and many newsagents want range.  The problem is that I cannot control the terms around this range.

While the titles from Pacific Magazines and ACP Magazines are efficient and valuable, the very magazine supply model through which they are supplied also pushes thousands of other products which take our attention from these top titles.

This is our challenge. This is where the future of magazines in the newsagency context is questionable.

There is talk of a code of practice negotiated between magazine distributors, some magazine publishers and the ANF. Besides the ANF not representing newsagents, no code of practice will address what needs to be addressed. The magazine supply model needs to be replaced and this needs to be driven by newsagents – those who control the most valuable asset to magazine publishers, the retail network where their mastheads are displayed, promoted and sold.

Pacific and ACP are often asked for more margin by newsagents. While I would welcome that, I’d like to see if they can use their commercail muscle to help newsagents achieve a new magazine supply model which serves newsagents and top tier publishers.

We allocate a pocket to Outdoor magazine and the quantity we receive fits snugly into this space.  The latest issue is bagged with another magazine meaning that we need two pockets.  The title does not justify two pockets so this month we either have to store the extra stock or early return.  We chose the latter and will still have enough to match our previous best for this title.   Magazine publishers and distributors need to consider real-estate when they allocate product to newsagencies.  Doubling and tripling the size of a product can present extraordinary challenges to newsagents, challenges which can make the title under perform and the supplier to then blame the newsagent.