The publisher of Rolling Stone is a smart man.

This interview with Jann Wenner was published was back in July. My comments were made a couple months later. I felt the writing was a little clunky, and I thought I'd try to fix it later, but in the interests of clearing the deck, here is my reaction in all its clunkiness.


A while back, I bookmarked this interview, because as I started to read it, I was so surprised to find an industry insider and 'expert' who actually agreed with the way I've been thinking about digital, that I knew I would want to take the time to analyze and comment on what he's saying.

It's an interview in AdAge with Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone, entitled: "MAGAZINE'S' RUSH TO iPAD IS 'SHEER INSANITY AND INSECURITY AND FEAR.'"

Let me say, I think that everything he says about magazines goes double for book publishers, and triple for comic publishers.

Only part of the article is concerned with digital, so I'm going highlight those parts and comment on them.

Ad Age: Independents who might have once started a magazine are tempted now to do a website instead. But big magazine publishers have found the web to be so difficult. You can build this audience but it's flighty, the ad rates compared to print are abysmal and the competition a click away is essentially infinite. What should print magazines be doing online?

Mr. Wenner: The most important thing a magazine can do online is maintain its brand and be very strong in terms of delivering on that brand. And then link it to the magazine in such a way -- or at least this is going to be our strategy -- link it to the magazine in such a way that it does things in the same field with the same brand and the same point of view, but not things you can do in print.

O.K. The way I parse this is, Jann is saying that a website should be used to direct readers to the magazine instead of the magazine used to direct people to the website.


Mr. Wenner: Now I think that you can build both successfully -- make the whole experience more exciting for your print reader and vice versa -- and then it's easier to sell to advertisers, I think, packages as well as the raw sheer buying that they do for tonnage.


Now you'll notice that he's not saying ignore the digital, but use the digital to make the whole package stronger. Reinforce the brand name of the publication.

Mr. Wenner: But I think it's a mistake to think that you should put your magazine itself online. As you point out, there's not enough audience, the numbers are not there for ad sales, you're not going to get a lot of money on that.

The magazine business, or at least the leaders of the magazine business, have been struggling for a long time, they've invested millions upon millions of dollars because they've had their heads in the sand about this whole thing. And maybe they're figuring it out now. We never have gone that route. We've just been making money.

What he's saying here, I think, is that if the magazine is strong enough, that is if you tend to your own garden, make your product strong, people will come to you -- instead of you chasing them online. Spending everything you got on a will-o-wisp.

Mr. Wenner: The challenges are different to different kinds of magazines. News magazines, magazines that have high frequency and news, are going to be challenged, heavily challenged, not just by the internet but by the whole 24-hour news cycle which has just been getting enhanced. Cable has been really supercharged. So it really impacts magazines like Time and Newsweek and so forth as we can clearly see. And they're struggling to find what it is they can do in this age.

Magazines that depend on photography, and design, and long reads, and quality stuff, are going to do just fine despite the internet and cable news. Because in those areas there's a real advantage to getting a print product and having something you can hold and that of course is portable and has a luxurious feeling and is comfortable and immersive and you can spend time with it and it's organized for you.

All right. For you doubters, he's admitting that online has an advantage for short form and or news cycle type situations. But for longer form, and/or publications that are heavy on photography and design, the physical is still better. ("Long Reads" = Books: "Design"=Comics.)

This is his judgment, and it's my judgment too, but I know in talking to others that most don't agree. I'm just glad to find someone else with a proven track record who thinks this way.

Ad Age: What's your take on selling magazines on the iPad and other tablets?

Mr. Wenner: It's the same pretty much as I've said about the web. The tablet itself is a really fun device. Some people are going to enjoy it a lot and use it. Some people aren't. On this plane one person's traveling with a tablet, one's not. There's a certain trendiness to the thing. And it's a great thing. But is it a good magazine thing?

It's a good magazine reading device, absolutely. And where it becomes more convenient to read the magazine on that, that's got the advantage. But that's more convenient only if you're traveling, if you're away from home. Otherwise it's still easier to read the physical magazine, which is widely available on newsstands, at airports, and everywhere. You can still subscribe to get it and get it on time. You still get all the value of the magazine.

I don't think that gives you much advantage as a magazine reader to read it on the tablet -- in fact less so. It's a little more difficult.

Wow. I can barely believe he said it. The reading device is somewhat convenient he says; it's trendy; some people will use it and others won't. It isn't necessarily as superior reading experience. All this I agree with totally.

Except, I don't even think it's that much of an advantage on travel. This is a point of disagreement with most people I've talked to, but really: I think people overestimate how much they actually read on trips. I read a lot, but usually on a four day trip, I can get one book read. I mean, I don't go on vacation to read, mostly. I could see reading twice that much, maybe. On a week trip you might need, oh, two books. On a month you might need three or four -- but will probably have opportunities to find books in that much time. Anyway, I mostly don't buy that a reader is All That Much More Convenient...

Mr. Wenner: From the publisher's point of view I would think they're crazy to encourage it. They're going to get less money for it from advertisers. Right now it costs a fortune to convert your magazine, to program it, to get all the things you have to do on there. And they're not selling. You know, 5,000 copies there, 3,000 copies here, it's not worth it. You haven't put a dent in your R&D costs.

So I think that they're prematurely rushing and showing little confidence and faith in what they've really got, their real asset, which is the magazine itself, which is still a great commodity. It's a small additive; it's not the new business.

DUDE! Like, I totally agree with this. I think the book and comic publishers are rushing into a format that may not work at all, or may only partly work, and are showing signs of panic. That if they just maintained the quality of their product, they'd be fine for years to come.

Ad Age: Well, you think for now, or you think forever?

Mr. Wenner: Oh I think down the road. Who knows how far down the road -- years though and possibly decades.

Ad Age: Not months.

Mr. Wenner: Not months. Decades, probably. People's habits will shift, they'll make improvements in the delivery system, the screen will change, it will get lighter, whatever, and new people growing up will find that as a habit. But you're talking about a generation at least, maybe two generations, before the shift is decisive.

Look at the music industry as an example. I think it's split about 50-50 between CDs and digital delivery. There is a place where there are extraordinary advantages in the distribution delivery system. Otherwise the products are indistinguishable; there's no difference in the physical products as there is here.

And yet it's still a generational shift going on. And we're far away from that. We have a much different and more unique product than just the CD.

Surprisingly, this is where I might disagree with Jann a bit. Not because I don't think in the ordinary course of events that it might take generations, but because I believe most other publishers will push the issue. It will come down to places to sell, and where the focus is, and if they remove too many benefits from the physical in pursuit of the digital, the customer will have to follow.

I do like the way he points out that even in the music industry; which is much more of a digital kind of format, CD's are still 50% of sales. From what I've read, sales physical books have not actually dropped all that significantly, though they have certainly stopped growing.

But again, I have to disagree with him a bit on the effect of even small drops. I don't think the bookstore distribution system can take much more abuse, frankly. The publishers seemed determined to throw out the old model, even it is currently working better than the digital model.

What I'm saying is -- and I think Jann is saying, that if the publishers would continue to publish, that it would be a long time before digital took over. I just don't think they publishers are going to show that kind of commitment.

As I found with sports cards, the self-destruction of an industry doesn't mean you have to follow them. You just have to find other things to sell and ways to sell them. I kind of expect to be in business long enough to hear publishers "regret" the moves they making now.

Mr. Wenner: ...While paper, printing and all that are expensive, we still get a nice profit margin, far larger than anything I can contemplate that's in the foreseeable future by using the iPad as a substitute. As long as people want the magazine product we'll deliver it. I think that's going to be for a long time to come.

People cherish it. There's something to hold onto. It's everything that I said or we said in that ad campaign for magazines.

Sort of what I've been saying about books and comics. "People cherish it. There's something to hold onto." People like possessing the physical object. And again, he reiterates that the physical product makes more money than the digital; you know, except for Apple.

He talks about how insecure publishers are giving into Apple prematurely; basically throwing away the basics of publishing for very thin results online.

Jann then goes into all the things that the music industry did wrong, and he should know. But he ends those observations by saying something I've been saying all along:

Mr. Wenner: But the lesson for magazine publishing business is not to rush like the music business should have done, because it's a different product. Music is really easily reducible to digital. There's a different beat to it.

Be attuned. Get ready to make the moves. Be adept at moving quickly to the changes. But to rush to throw away your magazine business and move it on the iPad is just sheer insanity and insecurity and fear.


Right on! (Hey, it's the Rolling Stone, man.) I'd like to repeat what he just said:

"...it's a different product....to rush to throw away your magazine business is sheer insanity and insecurity and fear."

I think that is exactly right. Unfortunately, he seems to be the only publisher out there who knows it.