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Publishing in the knowledge economy PART2 PART1 Issues for competitiveness 87
Publishing in the knowledge economy Issues for competitiveness CHAPTER 15 The challenge of sustainable growth 15.1 Introduction The publishing industry has traditionally been divided along the lines of publication or product types. For example, newspaper publishers have had very little in common with fiction book publishers. Hence, the division into numerous trade associations. Although this served the relevant sectors very well in the past, the very creation of UK Publishing Media, an alliance of the PA, PPA, NPA and Newspaper Society, indicates that the industry perceives the need for reassessing these divisions. Indeed, one of the first debates that was held with the steering committee for this project, centred around whether we were looking at the activity of publishing as traditionally defined or at the business of publishing companies, which may include activities not currently in the mainstream of publishing. One of the first areas for analysis was the infrastructure of the industry and its ability to continue to support present activities and how well placed it is to grow. Large and strong companies leading an industry should help more companies to start and flourish, bringing more innovation to the industry as a whole. Furthermore, the fragmentation of the industry has been assessed in regard to the UK’s ability Figure 15.1 Indication of migration of revenue to new business model Revenue Source Pira International New Substitute Old Time to be active in the global publishing/media market and for companies to protect against threats from new entrants into the market. As has been described in the scenarios, the publishing industry is in a transition towards a rich, competitive knowledge economy through which it needs to leverage its existing strengths to build even stronger businesses. This provides publishers with the challenge of migrating the businesses from one of declining sales per title, via a substitution of revenue by ways of revenue generated by adaptations of existing product, to an era of growth based on truly new products and services. This is illustrated in Figure 15.1. As one publishing executive said: “Publishers are good at responding to demand, but not good at creating it.” 15.2 Take the wrapper off The products of the publishing industry have until recently been closely identified with the way they are packaged, rather than as content that appears in different wrappers. For example, newspapers predominantly see the printed broadsheet or tabloid as the vehicle for their news; magazine publishers see their brand intrinsically coupled to the glossy paper carrying their content. Some products – for example learned journals and directories – have moved much further in the direction of being ‘unwrapped’ than others. Both publishers and users are beginning to evolve towards new concepts of what they can do with content using new technologies, but opportunities are not always grasped. Although it is essential to protect the printed products and brands that currently provide the lion’s share of the revenue (in most but not all cases), publishers do need to reassess their assets in terms of how to maximise the potential of their content and use it outside of its traditional wrappers. Publishers who generate large proportions of their revenues from advertising also need to reassess the value of the advertising content and also the information gathered from the use of the advertisement. The business of the 88
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