Marketing Weakly

Like the demise of Blockbuster, the surprise with the news that Marketing is likely to go monthly is more in the fact that it hadn’t closed years ago.

That a weekly controlled circulation title has survived this far into the decade deserves some sort of award, but at least we will now all be spared dozens of poly wrapped magazines clogging up the post room because they are addressed to people who left the company years previously.

Haymarket have not yet confirmed that Marketing will change frequency, but if by the end of 2013 either it or Centaur’s Marketing Week are still publishing every week, I’ll eat my sporran. The bigger question really is whether they will still be publishing at all.

Dangerous Structure

I hadn’t thought that there was much print product left for Centaur to close, but they have unbolted The Engineer magazine – next week’s issue will be the last.

As this email to the staff demonstrates, corporate bollocks is a finely developed skill in Poland Street, honed from years of practise of closing magazines. For connoisseurs of the genre, there are some particularly decent examples here, engaged with the brand, exciting times ahead, focused and that old favourite much better experience, but for connoisseurs of cynicism, the last line of the memo is truly world-class. Don’t worry about the magazine shutting down – just make sure you flog those ads!

As discussed, the final issue of The Engineer magazine will close .. on … 12^th July and after that point we will be solely focused on growing our events and online products. The majority of our readers now either use both print and online, or online only. …. We’re doing this in the knowledge that we can give all those in the industry who are engaged with our brand a much better experience via the very successful online parts of The Engineer. …

There are exciting times ahead and we are looking forward to the Engineer Awards in March …

 

We are however inviting advertisers to use the final edition to advertise, knowing that this final issue will get a lot of extra attention!

Closure by Design

Just when we all thought Centaur had forgotten how to shut something down, they surprise us by axing two high profile magazines in one day. So farewell, then Design Week and New Media Age (irony alert!) and adios to various monthlies which they are trying to sell. Again we see that print weeklies, formerly sustained by recruitment classifieds, are left shredded by the interweb. Any one want to bet on Marketing Week surviving the year?

Add that to UBM offloading a stack of titles and EMAP losing profits (and did you notice Simon Middleboe has now popped up at Centaur?) and life in B2B has suddenly become interesting to connoisseurs of closure once again.

Vacant plots

Centaur have announced the closure of Public Sector Building magazine. It blames the government’s public sector cuts, rather than the fact it was an advertising-unsupported, controlled circulation, money pit.

Data Error

It seems like weeks since we’ve had a closure announcement from Centaur, but just when you’ve nearly forgotten about them up pops this in Media Week (sic)

Centaur Media, the embattled trade publisher, is set to close its standalone IT and marketing magazine, Data Strategy, after six years.

You know you’ve got problems when you attract an adjective like ’embattled’.

Down, down and further down

It’s been an interesting few days for B2B results, so let’s summarise the good news:

UBM’s print division: revenues down 23.1% to £165.8m and operating profit down 62.8% to £8.9m

Informa: operating profit down 11% to £145.7m in 2009 on revenue down 4% to £1.2bn

Centaur: revenue fell 24%, a loss before tax of £1.7m in the last six months of 2009

RBI: operating profit fell to £89m in 2009 from the £126m the previous year, a 35% drop in consistent currencies. Revenue was down to £891m last year from £987m in 2008, a fall of 18% in consistent currencies.

DMGT: revenues from the group’s B2B operations in the quarter were £186 million, 20% lower than for the corresponding period in 2008. Revenue from DMGT’s Euromoney business fell by 16% to £71 million.

Not ‘if’, ‘when’

As Private Frazer repeatedly says, you hiv nae hit the bottom until you’ve stopped gaein doun.

Bear that in mind when you read how the wee monkeys at Centaur are spinning their latest trading statement. Revenues down 15% in November and December is a ‘positive trend’ – in that the rate of descent has slowed.

This actually means that Centaur’s hole is 15% deeper than it was in 2008 when they reported that “we have experienced some further deterioration in trading during November and December.” And that came on the back of  falls from the beginning of 2008. Two years of decline.

“While levels of forward visibility remain limited the Board is confident that the fundamental strengths of the Group provide a solid foundation for growth” say Centaur. Translation – “we’re still not sure what’s going to happen, but we can’t fall much further.”

On the Critical list

The departure of Centaur’s chairman and the company’s rejection of a bid from Critical Information Group may well be entirely unrelated, but it’s clear that the company probably won’t see out much of 2010 with its current ownership arrangements.

CIG apparently describes itself as “a company formed to acquire and consolidate media companies and businesses”.

I wonder how many more jobs will be ‘consolidated’ out of Centaur if and when CIG move in?

Gimme shelter

With strong rumours swirling around of a high profile closure in the ‘homes and lifestyle’ category, I thought it might be useful to pick the bones of last week’s ABC figures and see how the major titles are faring.

Centaur is “under review”

There’s a new euphemism for us all to come to grips with, “under review”. It means – or certainly means for Centaur – “closing”, as in the recent statement that Public Private Finance, Precision Marketing and Brand Strategy were “under review”. The hat trick has been completed with the announcement that Brand Strategy will join its brothers in that great shredder in the sky.