THAT'S THE WAY YOU DO IT !.......BUSINESSWEEK REINVENTED

Every time some corporate soothsayer spells doom for magazines, there will be few crusaders who will decide to hold the bull by the horns and do something remarkable to turn the tables. President Paul Bascobert and Editor Josh Tyrangiel of Bloomberg Businessweek are two such gentlemen, who are out on a mission to redefine the rules of business journalism. Seeing is believing they say, pick up the latest copy of Bloomberg Businessweek and you'll understand what I mean. There's something special going on in there......... inside the editorial camp.

According to Josh, a man who understands web like back of his hand ( earlier stint was with TIME.COM), "web is only good for grazing and where magazines have got it wrong in the recent past is in their approach of doing tiny short webby stories and headlines. They have completely forgotten the fact that when a reader decides to open the magazine, he actually wants to shut out the rest of the world ".

The truth is, every time a reader picks up a business magazine he is looking for more than a grazing exprience, he is looking for some guidance, some handholding. Come Monday, start of a gruelling week, he is looking for news and analysis that he can use. And once inside the conference room, he wants to base his views on credible, hardcore facts and industry opinions. In a nutshell he wants to stay ahead and make informed decisions.

Rich content seems so hard to come by these days. Look at the state of business magazines in India, since both readership and circulation figures have taken a nose dive, correspondingly the pictures have got bigger, the font size of the text matter magnified many fold and the stories have become shorter and shorter inside the magazine. Now that's an extremely dangerous thing the editors and publishers are busy doing these days.

Let's hope Bloomberg Businessweek brings in a whiff of fresh air, which is so badly needed.Looking at the first Issue, Josh and team seem to have made a great start.

VIVA MAGAZINES !!

COVERED WELL !!

Reader behaviour has under gone a massive change in the last decade or so . The prime reason for this shift is technology and of late economic challenges all over the world. Publishers of Magazines are really up against it in most of the markets. They are finding it tough to arrest the dwindling readership figures year on year. Well, this doesn't mean that it's Armageddon for the printed word just yet.

Even in this chaos there's a sliver lining , some fabulous magazines are quietly championing the cause of print and are engaging the readers like never before. They are thrusting forward full steam and are busy defying the odds.......and winning. They continue to enjoy the patronage of readers around the world. The Economist to my mind is one such revered title which has braved the downturn. People who are familiar with the title are aware of it's credibility and the top notch editorial standards. This great magazine claims "it's not a chronicle of economics, rather it strives to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress" .

The spark for this post came from one of the latest covers of The Economist. I just couldn't resist myself from talking about it. Every Issue of The Economist has a very interesting cover..... the copy, the picture, everything is so different about the magazine. Well, I think what distinguishes The Economist and the rest of the pack, is the belief that everything that you do within and outside of the magazine is important. Though the most pivotal thing is what lies between the covers, the rich credible content .....BUT EQUALLY PARAMOUNT IS THE WAY YOU PRESENT IT, PACKAGE IT.........YOU GOT TO COVER IT WELL! Whatever you do, do it with a panache !!

IS THIS IT ??......I HOPE NOT

Nay! this isn't what you are thinking..... this post isn't about the 2001 debut album by the American Alternative Rock band The strokes . This is about the tough times in the Lifecyle of traditional media, especially print. This is about that big question, media experts all over the world have been talking about, for a while now. Can we survive this massive assault by this juggernaut called digital media ?? Are we ready to reinvent and adapt to the fast changing media landscape? Or are we fighting a lost cause?

Some time ago I had written how magazines in the throes of declining readership are finding it difficult to hold onto to their revenues. Despite that, I don't agree with lot of people, my esteemed friends in the advertising agencies included, who think magazines are on the brink of extinction. Trust me, don't carve your final verdict on that stone .......don't sound the death knell for print mediums future just yet. So what if Time Warner has decided to put TIME INC magazine portfolio up for sale, including the cult brand TIME and FORTUNE. I am sure, come the judgement day, in the boardrooms of print media behemoths around the world, some visionaries would definitely stand up and fight. And amidst the ruins we will still be able to hold, to see, to touch ........... to turn the pages of this fabulous thing called MAGAZINE.

HAPPY READING!!