As reported over on the Journalism.co.uk main site, leading industry figures shared their hopes for the magazine market at the FIPP World Magazine Congress 2009 this morning.

But they were hopes in the context of an economic downturn. William Kerr, chairman of board for the Meredith Group joked that ‘being 12 per cent down is the new up’. 

Each of the panel looking at ‘riding the storm’ shared their fears for the magazine industry:

• Carolyn McCall, chief executive, Guardian Media Group: is worried that the industry would ‘not make structural change quickly enough’.

• William Kerr said that his main fear was that the ‘best and brightest [candidates] had migrated to other areas’ for employment. 

• Aroon Purie, editor-in-chief and chairman of the India Today Group said he was worried about the ‘magazinification’ of newspapers in terms of content and design: it is a ‘threat to magazines, as newspapers go in that direction,’ he said. 

• John Smith, chief executive of BBC Worldwide, said his main concern was the dominance of Google as an online sign-post. it was a ‘dangerous’ situation he said, to have all the power in one company. Google’s 63.7 per cent grasp on search traffic made it necessary for other companies to enter the territory, he said.  

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The Guardian News & Media (GNM) editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, has made his ten per cent pay cut public, following public comments by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) about Guardian executive bonus payments at a time when cuts are being made at regional newspapers within the Guardian Media Group (GMG).

Earlier this week the NUJ published a full page advert in the Guardian which said there were “devastating staff cuts to service the ongoing expansion of the Guardian – which is losing many millions but still paying executive bonuses.”

An article published today on MediaGuardian.co.uk reports that Rusbridger is not part of the GMG bonus scheme and had last year informed the Scott Trust, owners of GNM’s parent company GMG, of his plans to take a pay cut.

The article states that Carolyn McCall, chief executive of GMG, had told the company’s remuneration committee in January that she would not take a bonus for the 2008-9 year.

“”Ordinarily such information would only be made public when GMG’s annual report is published in the summer. However, as the group’s two most senior executives, and in light of recent comments by the NUJ, they felt it was appropriate to inform the [union] chapels,” a GMG spokesman said.”

As part of the pay freeze announcement in February GMG said that it would not pay financial performance bonuses for the financial year 2008-2009, ‘which form the larger part of overall bonuses,’ it continues.

“But its remuneration committee – which consists of independent directors and the chair of the Scott Trust – decided that bonuses based on the achievement of personal objectives could be paid.”

GMG has suspended its bonus scheme for this financial year, the article reports.

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Two questions being repeatedly raised at today’s Society of Editors (SoE) conference:

• stop talking about the nationals, how can regional media get in on the digital act?
• what to do about the BBC – or the ‘boa constrictor’ as Mail Online’s editorial director Martin Clarke called the corporation.

Guardian Media Group chief executive Carolyn McCall told delegates that there is a model for the local press, focusing on hyperlocal.

“There will be models that emerge: investing in SEO, local press have to do that. There’s an opportunity for local press to go very local and build revenue around this. There are models, but it will have to be off a very different cost base,” said McCall.

She went on to describe Channel M – the television offshoot of the Manchester Evening News – as ‘a good model’ for local media that could be replicated in the future.

The business risks associated with online and sustainable digital business models, she added, need to be shared regionally and locally.

Regional media will have to take ‘a real hit’ on their bottom line when it comes to online to if they are to maintain standards of quality journalism, she added.

Malcolm Pheby, editor of the Nottingham Evening Post, took up the regional press’ baton in explaining how the NEP had successfully integrated its newsroom with staff now trained to treat all news stories as rolling news to be broken on the web.

But the pervading theme of the day has been the opposition from regional newspapers to the BBC’s proposed local video plans.

Pete Clifton, head of multimedia for the Beeb, did his best to defend criticisms of the plans, saying that the proposals are subject to assessments by the BBC Trust and suggesting that the BBC could forge stronger relationships with other news providers.

Still it was comments from McCall and Clarke, whose affiliate Northcliffe added its voice to the debate today, that received impromptu applause.

According to both, the BBC’s plans present unfair competition to the local press

Cue videojournalism evangelist and consultant Michael Rosenblum, who promised to teach the audience how to beat the BBC at its own game. Key to this he said is embracing technology, in particular video, wholeheartedly and not incrementally.

In response to a question from a Rotherham newspaper publisher, which currently has no video on its website, Rosenblum said there was a demand for the content and the potential for partnerships with regional broadcasters like ITV local.

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Here’s the last 30 updates using the Twitter hashtag #soe08 – you will need to refresh the page to watch it update. Alternatively, you can simply follow the RSS feed or, if you prefer just our own fair Tweets from the very able Laura Oliver, subscribe to Twitter.com/journalism_live

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