Hearst Staff Unionizes
Posted on Friday, July 31, 2020 at 3:49 AM
In the news: Staffers throughout the Hearst organization have voted,
by a landslide, to unionize.
This week, Hearst staffers voted
to unionize. Kerry Flynn of CNN Business reports that the motion won
handily in a 241-83 vote. Flynn writes: “Hearst Magazines’ union drive
was a massive effort, encompassing 28 digital and print brands,
including Cosmopolitan, Delish and Esquire, and it has about 500
members. It's one of the largest unions in the media industry.”
The
move comes at a critical time for Hearst, just one week after magazine
division president Troy Young resigned after the New York Times
reported on his alleged bullying and sexual harassment of colleagues.
Read more here.
Also
Notable
Programmatic Revenues on the Rise
The
Covid-19 pandemic is creating turmoil across the publishing industry,
but the news isn’t all bleak. Max Willens of Digiday.com reports that
programmatic revenues have increased for some publishers. For instance,
he writes, “through the first 23 days of July, Salon’s programmatic
revenues are up 25% year over year over the same period,” according to
Salon’s chief revenue officer. But publishers should remain cautious
because “the recent good times may not last forever: some of the
spending is coming in from sources such as NBC Universal ... and
sell-side sources worry that lawmakers’ failure to approve a new
economic relief package to replace the one that expired this week could
undo a lot of the progress the economy has made.” Read the full article here.
O
Print Magazine’s Uncertain Future
This week, there were
reports that Hearst would shutter O magazine’s print edition at the end
of the year. But Jonathan Berr of Forbes.com is now reporting that this
isn’t entirely the case: “According to the title’s publisher Hearst
Magazines, O's 'print expression' will continue although the
company is 'evaluating what that will look like beyond the December 2020
issue.'” Some are speculating that the print edition will go quarterly,
but nothing concrete has been announced. The move comes with reports
that although the print magazine had as many as two million readers, the
O website attracts upwards of 8 million readers per month -- a number
that has climbed steeply this year. Read more here.
Print
Declining at Hearst
O magazine isn’t the only title at Hearst
whose print identity is changing. Kathryn Hopkins of WWD.com discusses
how other Hearst magazines -- including Harper’s Bazaar, Good
Housekeeping, and Women’s Health are printing fewer
issues -- given significant ad declines during the Covid-19 era. Read
more here.
Magazine
Newsletter Strategies
“‘The inbox is the new doorstep,’” says New
Yorker newsletter editor Jessie Li in a recent Foliomag.com piece.
Some magazines are trying to capitalize on this concept, says Greg Dool
of Folio:. “Offering publishers direct relationships with their
readers, on their own terms, email newsletters remain as vital as ever
in the platform age,” he says. “Publishers are increasingly viewing
email as more than just an engine for driving traffic to their sites.”
Some are doing headline-and-summary newsletters, while others are
experimenting with narrative formats. Read more here.
Global
Decline in 2020 Ad Revenues
The advertising picture is pretty
bleak for the rest of the year. This week, Mike Vorhaus of Forbes.com
reported on the worldwide slide in advertising since the Covid-19
pandemic hit earlier this year. Citing numbers from a recent Zenith
report, he says that “total global advertising expenditures will decline
just over 9% for all of 2020. In the U.S. they see the 2020 decline as
being down 7%.” However, those losses will be offset somewhat in 2021 by
the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics, he says. Read the full article here.
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