The Revenues From Publishing Houses’ Printing Business Keep Falling, But the Internet Will Save the Situation

Last night at the IV International Media Forum KYIV MEDIA WEEK round table "The market glossy press in Ukraine" brought together the leading representatives of publishing business in Ukraine. The core subject to discuss was the main challenges faced by the industry nowadays and finding solutions to improve the current situation. 

The event was opened by Alexey Pogorelov, general director of Ukrainian Association of Press Publishers (UPPA), who said that the glossy press is the most stable segment of the press advertising. "The market is not really falling. It is being transformed on the basis of changing technologies and changes in consumer habits," - admitted the expert. According to Pogorelov today women's gloss magazines make the largest segment in the print media in Ukraine. Comparing the shares, the expert showed that in 2013 the share of the segment was  30.8% of the total advertising market in publishing, and in 2014 the forecasted by UAPP share would grow to 32.8%. But of course in terms of money the advertising market would fall significantly: the reduction of press advertising capacity will be around 21% (according to All-Ukrainian Advertising Coalition, from 2.497 billion UAH in 2013 to 1.982 billion UAH in 2014).

The only segment of the Ukrainian advertising market, which shows growth is the Internet. But this fact, according to Pogorelov, is a development and transformation he meant before, because most of the media web resources owned by publishing houses and they generate large revenues from online activities.

This trend is also verified by Alina Tertyshnikova, Director of Internet Marketing UMH Publishing house. According to her company’s research, the volume of the web resources core audience on the sites of publishing holdings is larger than, for example, similar one belong to channels. There are many reasons for that. The main one is loyalty to press brand as a source of content, not the content on its own. "The number of pages viewed by users on the site of press web resources is more than the viewed ones on TV channels web sources. At the sites of publishing holdings users search for a coherent picture of events and interpretation", - she said.

Nataliya Boyko, director of marketing UMH publishing, in turn, spoke about the examples of cross-media advertising sales inventory in the business segment of the UMH (for e.g. on the pages of websites and magazines Forbes, Reporter, Money). According to her, intersection of the audience of business magazines and business websites is really small (measuring in the range of 4-8% at their sources). This innovative and creative approach to different platforms and factual audiences (online and offline) lets the publishers increase their advertising and sponsorship revenues significantly.

The roundtable participants discussed many more questions. In particular, Irina Mishchenko, media buying agency Starcom Ukraine, told about "non-TV" buying market situation in details. Irina Ranenko, the representative of the PR-agency PLEON Talan, focused attention on the fact that customers first of all are interested, so the printed gloss is still on the safe-side. "A publication in print will be appreciated more than 10 publications online for a long time" - she believes. The participants also talked about rebranding of the "classic gloss" and step-by-step integration of social media both to pages of publications and web portals. The publishers noted the reduction within the limits of 15-18% of copies printed because of  the situation in the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. However, the most lively discussion was about the channels of distribution for printed editions. For now they faced unfavorable conditions for co-operation with the national distributor of publishers (Ukrpochta) and independent subscription agencies.

In general, the experts agreed on that the publishing industry is now on the verge of great changes, and all the market players "have to work as one to offer clients some interesting, innovative solutions in synergy". 

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