How Some Publishers Are Beating the New Digital Lulls TV Can Rest

September 11, 2017 | Vol. 70 No. 34 Read more at: minonline.com How Some Publishers are Beating the New Digital Lulls Data suggest that digital engagement is leveling off for most, but not all. For magazine media generally, the Magazine Media 360º Brand Audience Report for July shows continued contraction in desktop traffic (-14.4% versus the same period last year) that is now being joined by flattening or contraction in mobile web activity (-2.2%). It’s still hard to tell how real the mobile stasis is, since the aggregator of this data—the MPA—reported last month that January 2017 changes to the comScore methodology around desktop and mobile had changed.

Continued on page 5 TV Can Rest Easy (For Now), Facebook Watch is No Threat The new Watch platform is more of the same—a cluttered digital video ecosystem. Like every digital goliath before it—AOL, Yahoo, Google—Facebook is sure that it deserves a greater share of the mas- sive media budgets that still fund our TV screens. After all, there is all that time spent staring at social media scrolls. There is all that video Facebook users have been munching on for the past two years since the social giant started pushing streaming content in its algorithms. It’s all video, right? At the very least, you can hear Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg argue in high level meetings, we should be bigger than YouTube, no? And so we get the latest iteration of Facebook play for TV dollars, Facebook Watch. This more formal repository of longer form finally became widely available late last week and replaces the standard Video tab in the mobile app. Attempting to mimic YouTube more than a TV grid or even an OTT box, Watch blessedly simplifies the usual Facebook experience into two main tabs—Discover (find new episodic content) and Watchlist (peruse followed providers and saved episodes).

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Hearst Plans On Turning Video Series Into New Brands 'Wiki What?' and 'Untangled' were released with no association to a print counterpart. Hearst Magazines Digital Media's new series 'Wiki What?' premiered its first episode last week exclusively on the Facebook Watch platform. Hosted by comedian Josh Gondelman, a writer on HBO’s "Last Week To- night with John Oliver," the weekly, five-episode show features an array of celebrity guests and, similar to the company's other recent video premiere 'Untangled,' was released without any ad partners or association with another title.

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In This Issue Digital Native Quartz Turns July's Magazine Media 360º Publisher Confidence Continues 3 to Print 5 Brand Audience Report Winners 6 on a Path of Predictability

Editorial VP, Content: Tony Silber Hearst Plans On Turning Video Series Into New ([email protected]) 203/899-8424 (Continued from page 1) Group Editor: Caysey Welton Brands ([email protected]) These new series indicate a 203/899-8431 Digital Media Editor: Steve Smith new focus for the company's larg- ([email protected]) er video strategy—building out an 302/691-5331 Editorial Assistant: Jameson Doris HDM Originals video team. This ([email protected]) team will be exclusively focused Contributing Editor: Emma Silva, on developing and producing ([email protected]) Contributing Editor, Analytics: original series for the company's Stacy Hill ([email protected]) partners (Facebook, Snapchat, Business Twitter, Amazon, and others). Publisher: Roberta Caploe ([email protected]) Michael Mraz, Hearst Magazines Digital Media executive director of audience and strate- Director of Event Operations & gic partnerships, tells min that he loves "the guaranteed distribution that our partners provide Logistics: Kate Schaeffer ([email protected]) and we especially love that Facebook is helping finance original series such as ‘Wiki What?’ Senior Marketing Manager: and ‘Untangled.’" Danielle Sikes ([email protected]) The struggle to determine which platform is the best to release video content has long Marketing Coordinator: Zoe Silverman ([email protected]) been a question plaguing magazine media. However, by releasing these episodic series on Senior Account Executive: Facebook Watch, Hearst is hoping to turn them into brands of their own. Tania Babiuk ([email protected]) "We see ‘Wiki What?’ and ‘Untangled’ as series that become brands onto themselves," Production Production Manager: Mraz says. "Other series for other platforms, however, have originated alongside the incred- Sophie Chan-Wood ible edit teams at our brands here at Hearst, such as Cosmopolitan and Delish. We’ll be pro- ([email protected]) ducing those series together with the video teams at those brands." Graphic Designer: Yelena Shamis ([email protected]) In addition to 'Wiki What?,' Hearst Magazines Digital Media’s other show created for Face-

Access Intelligence, LLC President & book Watch, 'Untangled,' premiered last Wednesday. According to a release, 'Untangled' is "a Chief Executive Officer: Don Pazour weekly, five-episode hypnotizing and witty science show that celebrates the powerful sense SVP, Media Group: Diane Schwartz of satisfaction that comes from watching a world filled with chaos transformed into symmetry Chief Operating Officer: Heather Farley and organization." Subscriptions/Client Services: The fact that Hearst is only dipping its toe in Facebook Watch clearly indicates that com- 888-707-5814 List Sales: MeritDirect, 914-368-1090 panies are looking to any and all platforms to find the best engagement platforms, even if it ([email protected]) means not getting views directly on monetized owned and operated sites. Advertising: 203-899-8498 The company does have more series for Facebook Watch lined up, again with no associa- Reprints: Wright’s Media, 877-652-5295 ([email protected]) tion to other, more established brands. "We unfortunately can’t share what they are just yet," Editorial Offices: 1761 Main says Mraz. "Suffice it to say that the goal with each of our Facebook Watch series is to engage Avenue, Norwalk CT, 06851; 40 Wall Street, 50th floor, New York, and entertain distinct and unique communities on the platform." NY 10005; Faxes: 203-854-6735, He adds that these series certainly aren't a way to drive more to Hearst's sites, and 212-621-4879; www.minonline.com although there are no ad partners, Hearst is using Facebook Watch to simply "share in the Access Intelligence LLC, 9211 Corporate Blvd, 4th Floor, Rockville, MD revenue the platform generates along the way." 20850; Ph: 301-354-2000 Published 2017 © by Access Intelligence LLC.

Distributed via email and online. For email and postal address changes, The Atlantic Unveils Premium Membership allow 2 weeks notice. Send to: Client Services or call 888-707-5814. For The Masthead doesn't recycle old content. advertising info contact 301/ 354- 1629. Contents may not be reproduced in any form without written permission. The Atlantic has introduced The Masthead, a premium membership that delivers exclusive Subscription Rate: $1,199.97 stories, insights, and analysis from dedicated editors and journalists. It's a distinctly new editorial offering—not simply more of, or different access to, existing work. "Our goal is to build a closer relationship with you, one in which you help inform our coverage," says The Atlantic's Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg in an announcement to readers.

2 Magazine Media’s Most Trusted Source Since 1947 9/11/2017 minonline.com STEAL THIS IDEA Quartz Hits Print The digital native looks to a legacy format to carve out new revenue. Atlantic Media’s Quartz brand published its first book this week, “The Objects that Power the Global Economy.” The $35 oversized tome is part coffee table showpiece, part journalism, part infographic about 10 objects that are changing how we live the global economy. It is also part advertising—or native advertising to be exact. The book has a sponsor, Qualcomm, which has a branded- content section on its own contribution to modern tech. When we asked Quartz if in any way the sponsorship was underwriting the cost to consumers, they simply compared the model to that of magazines and said the sponsorship helped make the book possible. Publisher Jay Lauf told Financial Times in regard to the book, “We’re going against the trend, in the sense that we unapologetically believe that there is a healthy and better advertising model to pursue.” For magazine publishers, the concept of extending branded content to any and all other media is enticing to be sure. It leads to some curious questions, however, when it is applied to a medium like books that generally are not sponsored. The natural questions are: to what extent is a sponsored book a custom publishing effort, and to what extent is it as editorially independent as a typical book project? Quartz tells us that, in fact, the book was conceived in advance and separate from any Qualcomm involvement, and that apart from the branded content included in the book, the sponsor had no editorial input— which is great. But the point is that the model compelled us to ask the question.

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9/11/2017 Magazine Media’s Most Trusted Source Since 1947 3 minonline.com STEVE SMITH’S DIGITAL REVIEWS TV Can Rest Easy (For Now), Facebook Watch is No Threat The new Watch platform is more of the same—a cluttered digital video ecosystem. The important good news here is that Facebook finally understands just how bad. Rather than the relentless scroll of dis- parate garbage, it offers a short scroll of curated carousels (five top line features shows, as many Spotlighted shows, new shows, trending ones, most talked about, etc.). The attempt here is to split the difference between YouTube/app interfaces and social scrolls. And the entire section has that discordant vibe—not sure if it wants you to lean back and watch a long episode, or lean in to peruse a string of attached comments and hunt for new clips or drop into the same old FB garbage interface. The app has other structural issues. Its PIP viewing is a microscopic thumbnail that undermines its purpose. Once you get beyond the top line Watch interface, the show and episode pages devolve quickly. As for the content itself, Facebook is cutting deals with both traditional media TV and magazine companies, as well as digital natives. Most of the fictional content we tried—“Loosely Exactly Nicole,” “Strangers” is cloying, poorly acted, Millen- nial pandering aspiring to be “Girls.” Documentary content like “Humans of New York” and Mike Rowe’s “Returning the Favor” are more interesting but familiar cable fare. We found shows from Seventeen, Wired, People and The Atlantic. Alas, none of this is of the longer form that we are told will attract TV advertisers. It is really just more of same—short digital shows of the sort these and other brands have been trying to peddle into YouTube, Facebook, OTT for years. Worse for media, the source branding is even worse in Watch than it is in the standard feed. It's hard to tell who is provid- ing many of these so-called “shows” because the source brand usually is invisible in the listings. As usual, Facebook's media partners will find it challenging to build brand identity or loyalty here. The monetization is still relatively invisible here. We didn't encounter any ad insertions in our viewing. But that isn’t even the biggest issue. Watch gets no closer to a TV experience than YouTube, and it doesn’t even exploit digital and mobile strengths. The mix of long- and short-form content just makes this another OTT app that requires digging to watch TV. Worse, it really does not solve for discovery and recidivism, the two bugbears of digital video. There is no lean-back experience here. Both the discovery and delivery methods are fragmented. One thing all of these digital TV wannabes seem to miss about TV is how it built itself as an immersive, self-reinforcing environment. Fully a third of TV ad inventory promotes and Facebook Watch reminds people of other TV shows. Networks have programming arcs that allow for lean-back User Experience B- non-interactive viewing. In its attempt to find some middle ground between YouTube’s diverse, messy, but addictive Overall Design B- junkyard of video and television’s uniquely engaging realm, Facebook Watch stakes a ground Social Integration B+ that is more likely to succeed from the sheer weight behind it than any compelling experience. It almost certainly will attract the same sort of direct marketing ads that constitute the majority Mobile Utility A- of Facebook's inventory. As a branding vehicle that attracts the big TV media budgets, Watch Monetization - will have to offer advertisers the kind of measurement, accountability and trust they get from TV. That will be a much harder task than building yet another uninspired digital video interface, Final Grade B- which Facebook Watch most certainly is.

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4 Magazine Media’s Most Trusted Source Since 1947 9/11/2017 minonline.com 29876 min Job Board House Ads_Strip.indd 1 4/4/17 10:55 AM THIS WEEK’S FEATURE How Some Publishers are Beating the New Digital Lulls (Continued from page 1)

We’ll get a clearer sense early next year whether, and to app monthly, he reports. Promotion was handled principally what degree, mobile may be growing. In terms of organic smart- through O&O properties, as well as email blasts, but the app phone growth, we are already at the point of saturation—81% does get discovered in the app stores themselves. The plan of cell phone owners as of December 2017 (comScore). into 2018 is to target millennials who apparently have a big Magazine media still has creative mojo in a world of me-too taste for DIY. social distribution and usage growth. Someone has to provide There was no talk of digital traffic slowdown at W in the initial spark, even in this age of regurgitated media. July (+25.2% desktop, +92.6% mobile, +72.2% video), which One brand that’s beating the mobile lull is Bonnier’s Fly- excelled the old fashioned way—sheer creative force. Its ing (+73% mobile). Shawn Bean, editorial director, Active popular Emmy-time package of TV content included a video Interest Network, tells us that the July growth was led by a celebrity rendering of Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” lyrics. But it great story written by Editor Stephen Pope that debunked the was W’s full-on campaign to make cover star Charlize Theron new Amelia Earhart theory that “she did not crash into the the next James Bond that really had (ahem) legs. It included ocean but was taken prisoner by the Japanese.” a mock movie poster, an endorsement from Chris Hemsworth, By some accounts, north of 80% of our mobile screen time and media pickups pretty much everywhere. is being spent in apps rather than the web, but most maga- One of the more interesting developments in magazine me- zines gave up any dream of pulling mobile eyeballs into their dia in the past year has been the transfer this spring of the own media branded app long ago—for good reason. Accord- Us Weekly digital property from Wenner Media to American ing to comScore’s latest mobile usage metrics, more than half Media Inc. While the July YoY metrics (-25.8% desktop, -26% of users’ time is spent in only five apps. In fact, 49% of over- mobile, -44.4% video) suggest a drop-off of digital activity, AMI all mobile time is spent in one app. Chief Content Officer Dylan Howard says the brand has seen And yet, some branded media apps with very specific pur- a 25% spike in page views between May and August and a poses continue to thrive. Trusted Media Brands’ VP, Group sharp drop in bounce rate of 45%. Session time has increased Publisher of House & Garden Group, Russ Ellis, tells min that by about 20 seconds as well. Howard says that Us exclusives its Family Handyman DIY Tip Genius app enjoyed 660,000 like photos of Leonardo DicCaprio and Kate Winslet, the latest downloads, with over 100,000 of those upgraded to the Kim Kardashian pregnancy and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie $4.99 premium version. About 10% of the base revisits the divorce coverage are driving brand visibility against a sea of socially distributed aggregators. “AMI has constructed and created an internal recirculation platform that allows our suite of brands to move readers from site to site, growing page views across the entire network,” he says. “We also established an ‘influ- encer network’ to help seed our content to nearly three-times as many social followers as Us previously had access to.” The brand is also moving aggres- sively into omni-platform video with inaugural series for Facebook Watch and an “Us Weekly Famous Feuds” program for REELZ.

Steve Smith covers digital trends and innova- tions as min's digital media editor. Send him tips or feedback: [email protected]

9/11/2017 Magazine Media’s Most Trusted Source Since 1947 5 minonline.com MIN’S MAGAZINE MEDIA CONFIDENCE INDEX August Marks Another Month of Tepid Confindence in Ad Business

The trend line is only becoming more clear. Most Confident With a strong indication that confidence lies in digital, with several executives not- ing that they are "100% confident" in their digital businesses, overall confidence in the industry remains lukewarm at best. One CEO summed it up nicely saying, "my confidence level hasn’t really been changing month-over-month. The B2B ad market is solid in our space. Not hot... but good PRINT overall." DIGITAL For most execs, anxiety can be traced to the increased demands from advertisers as companies are only seeing good news on the digital side, if they're seeing it at all. "I worry about how we continue to meet or exceed [advertiser's] benchmarks, and whether our advertisers are overlooking long-term success," another CEO says. Least Confident One exec noted that his company is see- How will you get there, print or digital? ing some softness related to uncertainty around government funding. Another factor could just be that we're Month-Over-Month in the summer months: "I feel like we're getting a rash of client campaign changes, 10 moves and cancellations. Folks go on va- 9 cation and don't have creative ready when they get back," says a third CEO. 8 7 6.8 6.5 6.6 6.6 6 PARTICIPATING 5 COMPANIES/BRANDS Rodale ▪ Bloomberg ▪ Bonnier ▪ TEN ▪ 4 Trusted Media Brands Inc. ▪ Breaking Media ▪ 3 Confidence Score Active Interest Media ▪ New Bay Media ▪ 2 Garden & Gun ▪ Advertising Specialty Institute ▪ Industry Dive ▪ SheKnows ▪ Praetorian Digital ▪ 1 Watt Global Media ▪ Hour Media Light Reading ▪ Government Executive Media May June July Aug. SOUND BITE NEXT WEEK READ MORE “How can we, as publishers, provide information, advice and interesting stories that cater to all of our users at different stages min Asks: How's Your Print Magazine Graydon Carter to Step Down After 25 of their life? That’s the biggest opportunity for media.” Danny Debold, Sr. Product Manager, Ad Tech Doing This Year? Years at Vanity Fair Trust Media Brands

6 Magazine Media’s Most Trusted Source Since 1947 9/11/2017 minonline.com