You might have read BassFan's Dock Talk item about Time Warner Inc. putting a bunch of its magazines up for sale. The titles up for grabs include some of the biggest in the outdoors: Field & Stream, Outdoor Life and Saltwater Sportsman.
We all know that Field & Stream and Outdoor Life are the two most hallowed publication names in outdoors. And apparently those magazines make money, but just not enough in Time Warner's – or Wall Street's – world. (I could go off on how Wall Street's obsession with quarterly profits is just plain dumb and actually ruins U.S. businesses, but I won't subject you to that here.)
Here's an oft-reported quote from a memo by Time Inc. CEO Anne Moore to her staff: The "smaller niche brands" being put up for sale "no longer fit with our strategy for Time Inc.'s future."
So is that the reason they're for sale – the whole "not profitable enough" thing? Maybe. Time Warner isn't exactly making investors happy either, so maybe the company wants some cash, possibly to put toward other businesses.
But Moore also said the company intends to focus on its largest and most profitable print brands, and grow them in print and online. "I am confident that the biggest brands in print, with our expertise and support, will develop into the biggest brands online."
In other words, they want to usher their top titles into the digital age.
So is that the reason? That "new media" – meaning media on the Internet/Web – represent a much greater, more powerful and, if they do it right, more fun opportunity than print? We at BassFan certainly think so, which you'd of course expect me to say.
But if focusing on "new media" was the case, would you really want to jettison powerful titles like Field & Stream and Outdoor Life? Couldn't you make those work on the Web? (Personally I don't think so, but most people in this business would disagree with me.)
What I'm trying to get at here is the bigger picture. In other words, is Time Warner selling these magazines because a) it has to, b) the magazine business is dying, or c) for some other reason?
Are Magazines Dying?
I already addressed the first of those, so let's look at b: Is the magazine business dying – specifically on the outdoors side?
I'd say no. It's not "dying," which I take to mean all outdoor magazines eventually going out of business. But subscriptions are declining pretty much across the board, and Time Warner isn't the only company trying to unload their outdoor magazines. Many are for sale right now.
And some will die (remember Sports Afield?). That's an inevitable consequence in a "mature" industry, especially when that industry is being largely replaced by another one.
What I mean is, even though magazines were the "first wave" of outdoors-specific media (in the form of Field & Stream and Outdoor Life), and were a big part of the second wave (B.A.S.S., In-Fisherman, etc.), they probably won't play a big part in the third wave. The majority of magazines are ideally unsuited to what will be the biggest media platform of all, the Web – or whatever it ends up being called.
Still, the outdoor magazine business won't die, at least not in our lifetimes. But look for it to become less and less important – until, perhaps, a "new media" company figures out a different, maybe better way to do a magazine. (Yeah, we tried it last year with BassFan MAG, but in some ways we were a little too far ahead of the curve. Will we do another MAG? More than one? Who knows.)
Any Other Reason?
Are there other reasons Time Warner and others are selling their outdoor magazines? Maybe. Here are a couple of guesses:
> Mergers and consolidations, as the magazine industry went through 5 or 10 years ago, are always followed by sell-offs.
> It's probably a little herd-type behavior – i.e., "magazines are out, the Web is hot again." In Time Warner's case, it might want to be a little cautious there: It's notorious for buying AOL at the height of the dot-com bubble, now known as one of the worst business deals of all-time.
> These magazines are being sold by huge, urban-based companies that don't value the outdoors.
Hopefully the publications will be bought by companies which do value the outdoors, and will see some value in the titles for that alone.
More, Not Less
Whether these speculations about magazines are right or wrong, the bottom line is this: Expect more and more outdoor media, not less, thanks to the Web.
That means more options for outdoor enthusiasts like you and me, and for manufacturers of outdoor products. Look for a few of these options coming from BassFan in the semi-near future. They won't be magazines, but hey – never say never.
