ChasNote

Waiting for the crew at Farley’s to brew up a cup of tea this afternoon, I flipped through the print edition of AdWeek for the first time in about a decade, and two stories caught my attention, both reminders that size still matters in publishing.

First, Starcom USA Unveils New Print Accountability Tool: The agency “has been doing bigger deal in print but with fewer magazines” in order to get a better read on the performance of campaigns, creative messages and publications. If other agencies are doing the same, it means the financial pain across the print-publishing landscape will be felt more acutely at niche magazines.

Second, Will a Free WSJ.com Pay Off for Murdoch?:

“‘Because of the their model,’ said Jeff Lanctot, svp, global media at Avenue A/Razorfish, ‘they are a smaller property.’ That by nature, can sell only so many ads. Consider that Yahoo Finance generated 470 million page views in October, versus 11 million for WSJ.com, per comScore. ‘They could instantly become a more attractive property’ if the site goes free, Lanctot added.”

Niche publications are great for advertisers in terms of targeting and audience composition, but without scale to go along with quality small publishers may not get a seat at the table.