Business Media Blog

Business publishers are normally very cautious about talking themselves into a recession so it is interesting to hear the CEOs at the PPA conference acknowledging that things are getting tough. Tim Weller says we have to get our heads out of the sand -it's going to be tough he says. William Reeds Charles Reed is bleating that online recruitment is tough too, which is surprising given their strength in that sector. CMP complained that the building sector was tough and so is recruitment.



David Gilbertson says magazines aren't dead. Just resting perhaps. Magazines may not be dead, but they are not growth businesses and will not drive shareholder value growth says I.



So, in a an uncharacteristic agreement with Weller, there is still time to get the heads out of the sand - but not much. Every day of dithering means that advertisers are losing the habit of doing business with business media houses. Recruitment revenues are being stolen by the job boards and the recruitment and selection agencies.



So, a question for Charles Reed - if recuitment is falling in print, and you are struggling to make it work in online - what are you going to do?



It's too late to mind the shop and hope the customers will come back, we need a new innovative approach to business media. Without it, when Bernard Gray of TES says that the elephant in the room is the sale of RBI, we will soon be saying that the dinosaur on the plain is all the old behemoths of business media.