More and more magazines are extending their brands to the Internet, offering new or re-purposed content online.
Country Living magazine just took the leap, opening a new site called "Country
Living On Demand," which offers video segments on the same subjects it covers in its magazine. "Country Living on Demand" will compete with a variety of other Web rivals, including E.W. Scripps' HGTV,
a cable channel that offers some of its content on the Web. Magazine publishers are hoping online video ad revenue will help offset flagging revenues from print ads.
Country Living, for
example, has seen its print revenues decline 9 percent through July. Spending on print and television still far outweighs online video revenues. This year, online video is projected to hit $385
million, and is expected to increase to about $1.5 billion in 2009. Other magazine and newspaper publishers are just beginning to generate online video revenues, including
Forbes, Time Inc.'s
Sports Illustrated, The Washington Post, Gannett Co.'s
News Journal of Wilmington, DE, and Dow Jones'
The Wall Street Journal. These print journals are also beginning to hire
producers and directors to craft better video offerings. Media buyers, of course, see the diversification as crucial to publisher's futures. "Media outlets that ignore video are going to suffer in the
long run," says Andrew Swinand, a president at Publicis Groupe SA media-buyer Starcom Worldwide.
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