Changes at Haymarket Publishing are happening so fast that it is difficult to keep up.
Michael Heseltine, the great chief himself, is relinquishing overall control from January 2010 and today it was announced that another long serving Haymarket executive is leaving.
Martin Durham, chairman and managing director of Haymarket Business Media, has seen his planned departure brought forward to coincide with other changes of top personnel in the near year.
It was only September 2008 that Durham took over from Nick Stimpson and enthused that changes were enabling HP to streamline its business and 'increase operating efficiencies across a wider portfolio of products' he also said, 'I am confident in the growth opportunities this new operating model will provide us.'
I read all of the top blogs who also follow Haymarket but none of them have asked the question as yet 'is Haymarket Publishing too big to fail?'
Quite frankly, especially after Lehman Brothers toppled like a proverbial pack of cards, no large company is immune from the ravages of this financial recession - Haymarket is extremely vulnerable in my opinion.
The big problem for magazines is the unique conspiracy of so many downward pressures. This recession has ravished publishing and, coupled with the Internet explosion and changes in advertisers' focus, a perfect storm has added to publishers' woes.
Advertiser should be keeping a close eye on readership numbers, across both magazine and internet brands, and be pushing hard to negotiate or re-negotiate their contracts.
I personally would not be looking at twelve or even six months - three months is the longest I would agree to and look at the numbers again at that point.
Hort Week, the flagship horticulture publication out of Haymarket is still publishing its 2008 website stats on its advertising page even though I have sent them an email to advise that these numbers are out of date.
"Horticulture Week
Horticulture Week is the leading trade title for the horticulture industry. It has an ABC-audited circulation of 9,579 (1 July 2007 to 30 June 2008)."
I exclusively revealed subscribers have dropped by nearly 1,000 paying customers so, in my opinion, advertisers should be entitled to a reduction in the prices that they pay.
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