BtoB Media Business - February 2011 - (Page 6)

COVER STORY The return of optimism BY SEAN CALLAHAN or most of the past three years, the storylines in b-to-b media have been almost relentlessly bad. But these days, even the negative headlines are attached to stories that convey genuine reasons for optimism. ¶ Take, for example, the case of Summit Business Media. In January, the publisher of National Underwriter Property & Casualty, joined the parade of media companies entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Summit’s reason for the financial restructuring, as it had been for Cygnus Business Media, Penton Media and other b-to-b media companies, was an untenable debt load. F But despite the bankruptcy filing, there are plenty of positives for Summit. With the approval of its restructuring plan, the company would reduce its outstanding debt by $135 million, or more than half. Andrew Goodenough, Summit president-CEO, said the Chapter 11 filing was the last step in a two-year reorganization of the company. “We moved fast and early on restructuring the operations in what we call ‘Project Phoenix,’ ” Goodenough said. “There were four waves to it, and we went from about 525 employees to about 350. Now, we’ve built it back to almost 400.” Summit plans to invest $1.8 million in digital initiatives and is hiring for Web development, analytics and enterprise IT positions. It is also adding editorial staffers and custom content specialists. Goodenough said Summit—which is not affiliated with Summit Media Group, publisher of Packaging World— has strong underlying fundamentals. The company has margins of about 20% and anticipates revenue growth of 3% to 5% this year. “We saw stability [in quarter-to-quarter comparisons in 2010] and even some moderate growth,” Goodenough said. Summit is not alone in seeing signs of improvement. The industry appears to have stabilized in print, while events and digital operations are delivering strong growth. Ad pages stabilizing B-to-b advertising pages increased 0.6% in October 2010 compared with the year-earlier period, according to Business Information Network data released by American Business Media. For the January-to-October 2010 period, ad pages declined 3.5% compared with the year-earlier period. Those figures may not seem like much, but they beat the 30% across-the-board declines that battered the industry in 2009. The performance of consumer business magazines reveals an even brighter picture for print, according to Publishers Information Bureau data. Last year, Forbes was the only consumer business publication tracked by PIB that posted a decline in ad pages, with a drop-off of 4.8%. All other business publications reporting to PIB posted gains: Technology Review (34.2%), Fast Company (26.5%), Wired (24.0%), Inc. (16.5%), Barron’s (14.3%), Entrepreneur (10.0%), Harvard Business Review (8.9%), Bloomberg Businessweek (3.5%) and Fortune (1.0%). Additionally, key trade show metrics grew for the first time in almost three years, according to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research. Conference and trade show attendance increased 6.6% in the third quarter of 2010 compared with the year-earlier period. Both net square feet of exhibit space sold and number of exhibiting companies showed 5.2% growth over the same period. And, of course, online advertising is booming. U.S. Internet advertising revenue reached $6.4 billion in the third quarter, the highest level ever and 16% higher than the $5.5 billion spent in the same period a year earlier, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The growth of Internet advertising poses a nasty conundrum for traditional b-to-b media companies, which have to manage the decline of print revenue as they grow— often all too slowly—their digital revenue. The major issue for traditional publishers is figuring out how to get the same value for their online audiences that they have typically received for their print audiences. 6 | Media Business | February 2011 | mediabusinessonline.com http://www.mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - February 2011

Btob Media Business - February 2011
Contents
Upfront
State of B-to-B Media
Social, Mobile Drive New Lead-Gen Techniques
Sales & Marketing
Audience Development
People
Benchmarks
Endnote

BtoB Media Business - February 2011