第３回The Economist読む隊
今週の"Face Value"はAnn Moore。読み始めて初の女性。「Times」をはじめとするアメリカを代表する雑誌の数々を出版するTimes Incのトップ。分野は違えど出版業界のことなので、私はかなり肩入れして読みました。
http://www.economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13325379
感想
アメリカも日本と同じく雑誌不況のようですが、日本とは違って攻めの攻勢をかけているもよう。まだ「どこで金を取るか？」という試行錯誤の段階のようですが、日本よりは数段先に目線をやっている印象を受けました。
読んでいる最中に出た話題＋補足。>id:pho, id:shiumachi
- 「Mine」は雑誌名か？→イタリックになっているので（スキームではなく）書名っぽい。webで確認してみたところ、複数の選択肢から好きな雑誌を5冊選んで、自分用の雑誌「Mine」を作れるという意味のようだ。*1
- 「Time Inc University」は社外の人も受けれるのかな。→文章から判断すると、社内だけっぽい。
- 「Maghound」:an online subscription serviceってあるけど、紙の雑誌の購読をオンラインで受け付けるだけのサービスなのかしら。→文章だけではよくわからず。webで確認してみたところ、やはり紙の雑誌の購読サービスみたい。定額料金で毎月好きな雑誌を選択購読でき、また途中でタイトルを変更もできる・・・というのが斬新。定期購読というよりも、定額購読という表現が的確。*2*3
- Moore氏の経歴＋人物評を読んで「要するに超エリートで、仕事もバリバリこなすパワフルなおばさんでしょ」ｗ
- "freemium" = free + premiumの造語
- "glossy magazines":「裕福な雑誌」と訳していたけど、これは「ツヤツヤした表紙の雑誌」という意味でしょう。グロスというのはテカテカ、ツヤツヤした加工のことです。日本の雑誌もよく表紙はツヤツヤした紙を使ってるよね。
概略
以下、英語で概略。理解すればするほど、あれもこれも含めたくなって、手短にまとめるのが難しい。
Par. 1. Who she is. Ann Moore is the chief exective of Time Inc. The company which is the largest American magazine company is going to start charging their online readers as well as launching a new concept Mine. Mine allows you to create personalized magazine, and is provided both online and offline with free of charge. If it's became popular, the company may start charing for it.Par. 2. What she is known for. She faces the difficult task as a company boss, to keep magazines relevant despite the advertisement shrink and household budgetsgo down and a number of the free content online grows. She drafted a new two-year plan whish is focusing two things: internal reorganisation and innovation.
Par. 3. Her career. "Internal reorganisation" of her new two-year plan. The company was restructured by Ms Moore into three units: news, entertainmant, and lifestyle, after laying off around 600 people. It should maintain editorial quality of each magazine and brings better efficienty to the whole company. In addition to that, she launched "Time Inc University", a series of seminars as a training program. The lecturer of the seminar is the company's executives including Ms.Moore herself.
Par. 4. Her career 2. "Innovation" of her new two-year plan. She is building new brands for the magazines, and is seeking the way to use internet technology for the firm's benefit. They announced a scheme called "Meghound". It's an online subscription service (of printed magazine?) that gives readers the chance to switch titles whenever they like.
Par. 5. Her career 3. The beginning of her career. She graduated from Harvard Business School in 1978, and received 13 job offers. She opted for the job with the lowest payment, as she had grown up with reading Time. Financial analyst was her first role in the company, and Sports Illustrated was the first magazine she worked as a publisher. In 1991, she moved to People and contributed to make it one of the most profitable magazines in the world.
Par. 6. Her reputation. Richard Parsons spotted Ms. Moore at People. In 2002, he became chief executive of Time Warner and selected her as chief executive of Time Inc. He described her as "bright, charming, energetic, fun and gutsy" with admitting she is now having hard time with a recession and the rise of the internet.
Par. 7. Recent business of her company. Ms. Moore is seeking the way to support her belief that providing articles to readers free online is not sustainable and a switch to paid access will be inevitable. Time Inc announced that it was considering the introduction of "freemium"*4 scheme that make some
People and Times articles available free, but charging for premium content. However the New York Times tried this approach before and abandoned it. Par. 8. Her current activity. She is also take into consideration about e-reader. She proclaimed that it might make sense for Time Inc to work with devices such as Amazon's Kindle if readers agree to sign up for enough material, and started to talk with e-reader makers about cooperation. She, as a boss of magazine publisher, doesn't afraid to embrace technology at all.
