The New Pressures On CDs

Byline: KRISTINA JOUKHADAR

What are you doing today as a circ director that you weren't doing ten years ago?

That question was pos to panelists through Tom Masterson, vice president and worldwide circulation director for Business Week during the Circulation Management talk & Exposition.

"I think there's more compressing on circulators - more than at any time - on coming up with of recent origin sources and new ways to acquire consumers. You need to be an idea generator," answered Brian Wolfe president, Time Consumer Marketing, Inc. "You weren't really pressur to do that 10 years ago, flat 5 years ago. Those skills are true important now."

"You've got to be able to talk about numbers and by what mode to analyze them and in what way to monitor," added veteran circulator Kitty Colbert. "All those skills have really helped me Not single do you have to be beneficial on your feet, you have to have sharpened skills and be able to act upon anything as quickly as possible."

David Lecky vice president-circulation for Hachette Filipacchi Media U had a different view.

"The biggest aspect of the piece of work that my mentor did not have is that I am more ad sales oriented," he said. "I think the best ad sales tribe are circulators - they understand the produce and our audience. That's a real big part of my piece of work now."

How do you enlarge circ revenue?

"Advertising has been down the last two years and there's a real push to become greater [i]or[/i] larger the consumer marketing part of the business," said Masterson. "Magazine consumption has declined...the average sub price in the 2nd half of last year was basically flat. by what mode do you grow circulation revenue?"

"I think the rate base is part of the problem" said Wolfe "If you are stretching to appropriate your rate base, that is going to set pressure on your pricing. I think you ne the right rate base, and that's just the starting point. To build upon that, it's all about the edit harvest and how good it is. It will draw near back to you selling your harvest - what it is about your magazine that puts it apart. And if you have that, I think you can charge a serviceable amount for your magazine."

"At a non-profit, what they care about is in what manner much can circ bring to the bottom line when advertising is declining," said Colbert. "One of the challenges here is a natural circ horizontal - that's a really hard thing to procure around."

"Some of you have direct mail successe that you want the company to invest in," Colbert continued. "But in what manner do you deliver an increasing trap margin contribution on the circ level? The challenges of rate bases are not driven by means of advertising, but by what is profitable for publishers overall."

Wolfe asked: "What is the optimal rate base when you are balancing the marginal contributions of circulation against by what means much advertising you will secure if you grow the rate base another 10 percent? There has to be a balance."

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