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www.fipp.com Q4 2008 | Magazine World | 23
Viewpoint
peter phippen
W rldy goods
Addressing delegates at the Association of Indian Magazines (AIM) annual
conference on 22 September in Mumbai, Peter Phippen, managing director of
BBC Worldwide, spoke of the “really special and incredibly powerful medium”
that is magazines. Here is an abridged version of his speech…

Around the world in the underlying growth rates in both the economy magazines that they can be most successful.
mature media markets and the media economy are of course much And then there is the fight for people’s
magazine publishers are higher than in the West, there are inflationary time. What is the place of magazines in these
asking: “What’s the role of pressures which threaten to overwhelm that sweeping media trends of global brands
magazines in a world of growth, and the cost of paper, has rocketed seeking local relevance; convergence; and
media convergence?”, “Has print got a future?”, here like everywhere else. pressure on ad dollars? It’s well known that
“What will happen to ad revenues at the end of At the same time, ad funds have shifted in in the early days of TV there were those
this recession?” mature markets from traditional media to who assumed that the days of radio were
It won’t surprise you that my answers to digital – and, in particular, to ‘search’. And print over. Nonsense of course. It does something
these questions – both in the West and in India media owners are taking a smaller share of different. For everyone who describes radio
– are resoundingly supportive of magazines. a smaller pie; to what extent is this relevant as television without pictures, there’s another
But I don’t see the future of media as an here in India, where newspapers remain who would describe television as radio
either/or debate. buoyant, and the TV industry, magazines, as without imagination.
These are not easy times to be a magazine well as digital, are all growing? It is obvious So, on the long term future of ‘print’, and of
publisher. Anywhere. that the Indian market will not move through magazines specifically, the question to ask is
Firstly, much of the Western world is in these media developments sequentially. to what extent magazines offer a unique and
economic recession or close to it. And the From the start, the relationship between the complementary offering.
cost of raw materials has risen rapidly. India various media needs to be understood. It is I think this is easy to answer. The experience
is certainly not immune to this. Whilst the by understanding fully what is special about offered by reading is a unique one. There is

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