Investor interest in publishers is rising because publishers have a commodity that many businesses covet. “They have the content. They have the storytellers,” Robin Warner told Frankfurt Book Fair.

Beyond the Book

Investment Banker Tells Publishers Buyer Interest Is Strong

“Publishers across our sector must think about their responsibility for our collective environment,” says Michiel Kolman.

Publishing Takes On Climate Change

For Frankfurt Book Fair in 2021, programming stretches over two weeks and will be presented in two ways: online and at the Messe fairgrounds.

A Tale of Two Frankfurt Book Fairs

Following fashion is essential to some and may seem silly to others, yet fashion brands are economic powerhouses and barometers of social change.

Fashion & IP: A Good Fit

Supply chain issues facing the book business this holiday season and beyond were years in the making.

Supply Chain Worries for Holiday Book Sales

Producing podcasts has never have been more lucrative. For top-shelf creators, producers, distributors and platforms, podcasting may be an end in itself – or it can serve as a bridge to film, television, and publishing.

Licensing Comes to Podcasting

55 publishing groups with combined reported revenue for 2020 of nearly $68 billion are included in this year’s ranking. Total 2020 revenue is down about 6% from 2019, though a significant portion of that decline is owing to currency fluctuations.

Ranks of Top Publishers in 2020 Announced

“You’re not only a book buyer, consumer, reader, or a consumer of other media. What we saw in our data was that those that were avid in books were avid across other media,” says Dr. Rachel Noorda,

Data Direction for Publishers

“The alleged conspiracy—in which the five largest American trade publishers are alleged to have banded together to give Amazon monopoly pricing power over e-books—fundamentally makes no sense.”

Amazon & Big 5 Tell Judge: No Conspiracy Here

In 2020, digital advertising spending worldwide amounted to US$378 billion -- with online platforms Google and Facebook together owning half the market or about $190 billion. For scale, the New York State budget in 2020 was $177 billion. Meanwhile, news organizations and other publishers have watched the rise of this duopoly with increasing distress. Last year, newspaper advertising spending worldwide was just $US31.4 billion. This figure has slumped markedly since 2007, when it was US$110 billion dollars or more than three times the current number. By 2023, global news ad revenue is forecast to drop to $25.9 billion – a further 18 percent fall since 2020. So what’s a news publisher to do? Many are turning to lawmakers and regulators for help. In Australia, Korea, the European Union and the U.S., governments are considering or taking steps to require technology platforms to license the rights to share or display news content from news publishers. Where such efforts are successful – beginning in the EU – collective licensing and payment systems may need to be built from the digital ground up. How should those licenses be administered? How might payments be managed? What should qualify as “news”? A panel of four distinguished authorities on news publishing, intellectual property law and technology addressed these questions last week for the annual RightsTech Summit.

Paying for the News

CCC and PW are marking today the Tenth Anniversary of our weekly conversation together.

A Decade of Podcasting

Over the past two decades, technology has transformed rights management from back-office clerical function to strategic opportunity across many sectors of publishing.

Best of VOC: Rights Management & ROI

After 20 years, Publishers Weekly writers and editors are recalling 9/11. “The PW staff did a remarkable job capturing early reactions to the historic event,” says editorial director Jim Milliot.

A 9/11 Tribute

While the music industry experienced financial carnage in the first decade of digital disruption, streaming has restored the business to growth by playing your favorite song.

Best of VOC: Why Golden Oldies Are Hot Investments

What happened to Gonzalez was a transient ischemic attack (TIA), also called, “a mini-stroke.”

“That Morning Was a Little Crazy”

A series of recordings from the Copyright Clearance Center.

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Beyond the Book

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