Donald D Kummerfeld, President & CEO, FIPP

The quality of magazines in India is the same as international titles. I think the Indian editors, the designs, the production people, the content – all are as good as any other country. The quality of Indian magazines is excellent; I have no doubt that India can have magazines of every kind. The ability of Indian journalists and the design teams is unquestionable. There is nothing to worry about.

Donald D Kummerfeld was appointed President of the International Federation of the Periodical Press in May 2001 and President & CEO in June 2004. Prior to this position, he was Chairman of Kummerfeld Associates Inc, a consulting and investment-banking firm in New York, which he founded in 1985. Kummerfeld has extensive publishing experience. From 1987 to 1999 he had served as President and CEO of the Magazine Publishers of America, the US trade association for consumer magazines.

In addition to his MPA tenure, Kummerfeld’s publishing experience includes President of News America Publishing Inc, a diversified communications company, whose publications included the New York Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Boston Herald, the San Antonio Express News, New York Magazine and the Village Voice, and he was founding partner of the Government Research Corporation, publisher of the Washington-based news weekly National Journal.

Kummerfeld’s public service began in 1961 when he became a staff officer in the Executive Office of the President in Washington DC under President Kennedy and Johnson. During the fiscal crisis of New York City in 1976-78, he served as Budget Director and First Deputy Mayor of the City.

Kummerfeld is Chairman of the Foundation for Support of the United Nations. He is also a Director of the Sequa Corporation, an NYSE-listed aerospace conglomerate, the International House, the Institute for Public Administration and the New School University.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Master’s degree in government from Harvard University. He is also a Certified Association Executive and a former Director of the New York Society of Association Executives. His favourite magazines include: The Economist, The New Yorker, Newsweek and National Geographic.

In conversation with exchange4media’s Puneet Bedi Bahri, Kummerfeld shares his views on the magazine industry per se, the effects of the global slowdown, and the Indian magazine industry.

Q. Please throw light on some of the strategic initiatives that you wish to focus on in the Indian market. Anything specific that you could refer to?

People ask me that every time I come to India or go to China or any other country – ‘what kind of magazines would do well in our market’? And I say – you know your market far better than I do. People who live here know the market far better than I do. I think there is always going to be some new title, whether it is an international title or a local title depends on the situation. What I have noticed is that more attention has been given to English language titles as compared to local language titles. Till now, advertisers have been looking at English titles, but this may be beginning to change and maybe there would be more advertising reach towards the regional space.

Q. This may sound somewhat clichéd, but how does the Indian print industry compare with the global print industry today?

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The quality of magazines in India is the same as international titles. I think the Indian editors, the designs, the production people, the content – all are as good as any other country. The quality of Indian magazines is excellent; I have no doubt that India can have magazines of every kind. The ability of Indian journalists and the design teams is unquestionable. There is nothing to worry about.

Q. A lot of B2B and B2C magazines are being launched in India, creating a kind of clutter in every category. Do you think there is space for more publications in India?

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There is always space for a ‘good’ magazine. What we have in the magazine industry worldwide – and not just in India – is a clutter of me-too magazines. There is somebody who develops content that appears for a particular segment of the audience, and there are many others who copy it, which is true in every market. Economically, a magazine’s production cost is low, unlike newspapers, where you have huge printing press and big delivery systems. Thus, anybody can start a magazine, but not everybody can make it successful. Throughout the world, generally speaking, four out of five magazines fail in the first two years of their launch. This is because they are just me-too magazines with nothing unique in their content or they are poorly financed and have no reserves to withstand even a temporary downturn in advertising, or just poor management.

Thus, the magazine business all over the world is in a constant churn with new tiles coming in and going out of business and being replaced by others. However, the larger companies, which conduct a lot of research before launching a magazine and are adequately financed, avoid these pitfalls. So, what you have are well-established companies adding new titles slowly to their portfolio, and then there are a bunch of new start-ups that come and go. That’s the way this magazine industry is, and hence, it always has too may titles by definition.

Q. Do you think narrowcasting is taking off in the Indian print industry?

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It is growing everywhere faster than the broad general interest magazines, and this has been continuing for many years now. The net growth in the magazine sector has been from the niche magazines sector, serving a very small circulation of dedicated audience who are passionate about the sector. This is not a new thing and has been going on for years, even before the digital revolution. I think there is no doubt that magazines that focus on passionately-held or strong business-related functions would do better. They will prosper in terms of advertising as the advertisers know that it is reaching the right target audience. I see that continuing and it is probably the healthiest part of our industry.

Q. How do you think is the economic slowdown affecting the print industry both internationally as well as in India?

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The print industry depends heavily on advertising, and this is an advertising recession, so yes, the print industry has definitely been affected. However, people have not stopped buying magazines due to this recession. In fact, they are buying more in some categories. If a magazine has 60 per cent or more of its revenues coming from advertising, that it is a bad time. On the other hand, if only 20-30 per cent of its revenues come from advertising, then the effect is much lesser. In general, upscale magazines in India, like in most other countries, are generally heavily dependent on advertising. They are, therefore, vulnerable. This recession may also eliminate some – not the category leaders, but the magazines that cannot exist without a continuous high level of advertising. In 2007, we had seen 20 per cent growth in advertising, last year it came down to 15 per cent, this year it will probably be in single digit.

Q. You have been visiting India quite often… there is a lot happening in the Indian print industry. What kind of growth do you see in India?

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India will not grow quite as fast this year because of the economic slowdown, yet it will continue to grow. As the middle class in India continues to grow, there are more and more people, who are a heritage for media, particularly magazines. Magazines are the most expensive media and, therefore, are the last of the traditional media to develop as compared to television and newspaper. Now things are complicated as there is continued growth of the online media, and as online grows there is a new audience. However, I feel that here in India we generally have a healthy situation, because both online and print will continue to grow even during this recessionary period.

There has been a decline in the growth rate of advertising in particular, but consumers of print, television and digital media are growing in India despite the economic crunch. This will help this industry grow for years to come.

Q. Ad spends in most traditional print B2B magazines continue to suffer as advertisers have shifted spending from traditional print magazines to websites, exhibitions and alternative media such as search engines. What is your take on this?

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That is correct and true. You cannot generalise all B2B magazines as some will continue to be print-centric for years to come because their audiences do not demand instant digital communication. On the other hand, the more technologically-oriented B2B magazines would shift from print to digital, in fact, a significant number of B2B publications have eliminated their print editions in the last year or two. Though this is definitely a trend, it will not affect everybody. According to me, all B2B magazines would go digital. While some of them would continue to print, and particularly the smaller specialised ones would continue to have a print component of their editions, they, too, would have a digital edition in addition to that.

Similar is the case with consumer magazines and lifestyle magazines. I don’t see them giving up print for many, many years to come. On the other hand, news magazines are going down because news is now so easily, readily available electronically. However, you cannot generalise about either B2B or B2C magazines that they are all going one way. Yes, there definitely is a trend of some kinds of magazines going digital entirely, but most magazines will continue to have both print and digital components, which will complement each other.