Business Media Blog

An annonymous comment posted to this blog claims that cuts at Incisive Media are deeper than first thought. Many more than 50 jobs are going he/she claims, with deep cuts in editorial.

If cuts are to be made, cut deep and cut early would be my advice. It is also plain that the downturn is getting worse and getting worse quickly. Incisive are very exposed to the financial sector so they are bound to be hurting. Even businessses with large events will start to feel the pain soon. As this review of Paid Contents recent conference points out, not only are marketing budgets likely to be cut, but attendees will be under increasing pressure not to travel.

The article makes some important points that leaders in B2B will have to address, what the author calls, the elephants in the room. I agree. Here is my summary of them and some of my own.

The Elephants

If we have been propping up the profits of failing magazines with events and awards during the good times, what will happen to the business when events and awards get squeezed in a recession?

If the future is digital, how can we build businesses that have enough scale to replace revenues lost in the magazine decline?

If we can't build digital businesses of scale, how are we going to afford the levels of overhead we have in our businesses?

If online advertising is not sizeable enough what makes us think we can build our businesses with subs revenue? Isn't this hope over experience?

Why do we keep applying the old revenue models to the new digital paradigm? What is the new model?

If you want to keep an eye on whats being discussed, Rex Hammock is blogging the conference here.