RE: How much advertising is there?

. . . and I'm involved with the European health librarians'

association whose journal (JEAHIL) is supported by
advertising 
and long-term distribution support from Ebsco.  However, not

everyone has as much of their employer's money to spend as a

librarian. It is said that the BMJ's decision to slip back
from 
full OA was because the advertising revenue on its own
didn't 
meet the funding appetite of its BMA parent.  Given what 
scientific researchers are paid int he UK it's hard to see 
advertising agencies licking their lips at new opportunities
in 
this area.

Tony

Tony McSean
+44  7946 291780

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-llists.yale.edu] On Behalf
Of Toby.GREENoecd.org
Sent: 21 September 2007 23:51
To: liblicense-llists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: How much advertising is there?

Just to support Joe's argument with a little bit of real
data. We 
have a niche (totally distinctive?) online magazine (which
also 
comes out in print) called OECD Observer
(www.oecdobserver.org). 
The online edition has always been freely available. It
earns 
$3000 annually thanks to Google's ads, which covers about
half 
the hosting and software licencing costs.

Toby Green
Head of Publishing
OECD Publishing

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-llists.yale.edu] On Behalf
Of Joseph J. Esposito
Sent: 20 September, 2007 11:50 PM
To: liblicense-llists.yale.edu
Subject: How much advertising is there?

The recent announcement by the New York Times concerning the

termination of its Times Select premium subscription service
has 
deservedly attracted a great deal of attention, on this list
and 
all over the blogosphere and "mainstream media." 
The Times may 
or may not be successful with its new strategy (my own view
is 
that it was the right decision, but the Times's future is by
no 
means assured), but of course not all media organizations
have 
the brand and cultural centrality of the Times; the Times
thus is 
no model for anyone.  What I wonder about is where all the 
advertising revenue is going to come from to support all
these 
media businesses, whether they are the Times, Elsevier's new

ad-supported oncology site, or any of the two dozen new
Silicon 
Valley social networking start-ups I stumbled upon in just
the 
past month (owners of pets, parents of young children, human

potential activists, financial planners, etc., etc.), not to

mention such academic publishing services as Scholarly
Exchange.

So we step into the laboratory and ask this question:  How
much 
must the world's economy have to grow in order to support
all 
these media businesses? A media business aggregates
audiences, 
which in turn are sold to advertisers.  The advertisers have

their own products and services to sell (and not all of them
are 
media products, thank god).  If they can't sell their
products, 
the advertising dries up and the media businesses scale back
or 
disappear.

Let's say a company budgets 10 percent of total revenue to 
advertising. Thus, with sales of $10 million, the company
spends 
$1 million on advertising.  For every dollar thus spent on 
advertising, the economy must grow by ten times that amount.
How 
many shirts, stents, time share condos, cars, and toilet
seat 
covers do we need?

The market isn't there for all this advertising.  The
world's 
resources are not there to create the forecast volume of
goods 
and services to satisfy the demand created by the
advertising. We 
will run out of fossil fuel trying, and then have virtually
no 
economy left to advertise anything.

The notion that the sale of advertising alone somehow can
support 
the full range of information businesses is crazy.  It may
work 
for the Times or South Park, and Elsevier has a shot with
its new 
portal, but the fate of most advertising-supported
businesses is 
oblivion.  Only the strong, the huge, and the totally
distinctive 
survive.  B-level players need not apply.

Joe Esposito