I was interviewed and quoted in a story about the future of print and new magazine launches. Below are my quotes and click here to read the entire article.
Samir Husni says don’t let stories about the imminent death of print—especially magazines—fool you. There is more than enough opportunity to launch print magazines in the current media environment.
It’s no surprise why Husni— founder and director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi, who is known as “Mr. Magazine—would be talking up the virtues of a printed product. Lots of headlines these days suggest otherwise, especially after magazines like Newsweek stop being published in a print format or when Time Warner says it’s going to spin off all the Time Inc. magazines into a separate company after it posted a 6.6 percent revenue decline last year.
But where some see closure, Husni sees birth. On his website, Husni tracks the number and names of magazines that have launched every month. “January opens with a blast,” says his last post on launches as it notes that 66 new titles debuted on newstands in the first month of the year.
Then why would Time Warner want to get rid of its magazines?
“The head people at Time Inc., they aren’t magazine people,” Husni said. “They are more interested in money than the product.”
A former Time Inc. employee told The New York Times last week, “Greed came to the company in the ’90s. It was just a huge company: huge bonuses, huge salaries, stock shares for the big guy, not the little guy.”
Husni said when you don’t have a love for the product, why would you take care of it?
Mr. Magazine™ Press 