American Media Wants a Partner with Money

Considering the current debt load due for American Media Inc.,  it's not surprising that CEO David Pecker at today's Magazine Publisher's of America breakfast said he'd be glad for a partner like Elevation Partners, who got a reported 40 percent of Forbes for a reported $250-$300 million. Keith Kelly wrote in the NY Post that Source Interlink and AMI have been in discussions.

Pecker was answering a question from MPA chief Nina Link about whether he'd like to have strategic partners. Pecker said not a magazine company who's also in the celerity space; the seven biggies are very proprietary and protective of their brands and material, and it's not clear what synergies could be achieved, he said. But a financial partner -- show me the money! -- or a company that has expertise AMI might not, such as a TV production concern, could be a great partner, he said. He earlier had mentioned a TV company AMI was talking with about producing a series of events for, I believe, Muscle Fitness, around the country, taking a single show they've done and making it into a traveling series.

Why Publishers Use PDFs

Jeff Jarvis, writes that the new iPod (which has same functionality as the iPhone -- save the phone part) should have been released first in the US as it was in the US, because then people would have seen the device for the wonder it is -- a portable reader and manipulator of media more functional than other such devices. I see his point.

He also asks why traditional publishers have used PDFs so often for their pages. Here's my read on it: It's because: 1. It's easily published from an existing print page -- same layout, easy export to the software, comes with the same defined edges and look. 2. it's perhaps the easiest distributed format to protect, using digital rights management. they can be forced to not allow certain types of copying or marking or resending. Publishers want control and in many cases haven't bought into the whole idea of net-plus from sharing media. 3. It's been around a long time, and therefore has a comfort level for them. It doesn't requiring new learning or investment. 4. They print easily on 8 1/2 x 11" sheets.

Now, as anyone who's ever struggled with a protected PDF can tell you: they're difficult and often choke email, and aren't very graceful on a lot of screens, and are a lot less attractive than a good page made with good links and Web safe colors. They're not really made for viewing on a screen or manipulating or putting in a widget, etc, etc. A lot of publishers have taken DRM off their PDFs to avoid causing their legitimate subscribers grief.