Roughly 400 media industry executives gathered at the Magazine Innovation Summit in New York on Tuesday. If you weren’t following along on Twitter, here are some key soundbites from the sessions.
“In the last year the people in this room have developed a lot of scar tissue.”
– Magazine Publishers of America chairman John Griffin
“We could sell the movie rights to the McKinsey study."
– Condé Nast group president David Carey, referring to this
“We’re beyond a recession; we’re in a repression.”
– PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Michael Kelley
“There was a little change at our company this morning.”
– BusinessWeek executive editor John Byrne, on the sale of the magazine to Bloomberg LP
“Do you think it’s totally insane to have people pay for content?”
– Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute and former editor of Time magazine
“I’m your worst fear. I read them online. I love the content. And I don’t pay for it.”
– Netflix founder Reed Hastings on magazines
“We’ve had a lot of great conversations, there’s not much more I can say.”
– Time Inc. executive vice president John Squires, on the company’s “Hulu for Magazines” concept
“We’re not just in the journalism business – we’re in the pleasure business.”
– Maria Rodale, CEO, Rodale Inc.
"There’s a growing recognition that free is not the answer.”
– New Yorker writer Ken Auletta
“I read magazine content online, I don’t feel need to subscribe to them.”
– Walter Isaacson
"They flip faster."
– Procter & Gamble group president Melanie Healey’s 14-year-old daughter, explaining why she likes magazines better than the Internet
“Netflix will spend $600 million on postage next year.”
– BusinessWeek’s Byrne
“Maghound (Time Inc.’s year-old Netflix-like service) is a great concept, in need of a lot of support.”
– Squires
“They’ll be in stores by Christmas.”
– Hastings on the availability of Wi-Fi-enabled TVs
“Unlike the TV space, where programs last 4-5 years, our brands last decades.”
– Condé Nast’s Carey, on why magazine publishers need to tread carefully when toeing the ethical line
"I used to get Ad Age on a Monday. I would’ve paid $2,000 to get it on a Friday."
– Carey, on the industry’s failure to capture the "uber-user"
"Last month we employed more writers last month than the Associated Press."
– Demand Media Studios (what?) executive vice president Steven Kydd
“Short answer, no. But …”
– Ken Auletta’s response to the question “Are the Google guys evil?” from the New York Times’ David Carr
“Google gets $21 billion in annual ad revenue. The magazine industry is just under $23 billion.”
– Auletta
“I think Vanity Fair will be here forever.”
– Skip Zimbalist, former CFO of Times Mirror and current CEO, Active Interest Media
“Rupert Murdoch hasn’t granted me an interview since 1995.”
– Auletta, when asked about his relationship with Murdoch, whom he once profiled and called a "pirate"
“I guess the question is, ‘Is this industry any better prepared (for shift to Web) than it was 28 years ago?’”
– Scott Donaton, former publisher of Entertainment Weekly and editor of Ad Age, after watching this clip
“We’ve failed at it mostly.”
– Hastings on Netflix’s experience with social media
“When Apple’s [tablet] device is announced, there will be a mass ascension and everyone will go to media heaven.”
– Josh Quittner, editor-at-large, Time magazine
For more on the summit, read our wrap-up here, and follow live insights on Twitter here (@stableford) or here (#magsummit).
