06 / CEO REPORT
OVER RECENT MONTHS PPA has
evolved a clear route to the future with a
focus on six core elements: three vertical
and three horizontal. The three
“verticals” are the “pillars” of consumer,
customer and business media which
make up the PPA membership, while the
three horizontals are the core elements
of member activity: print, online and
face-to-face media.
By recognising three “pillar” councils
PPA is redefining the roles and responsibilities
of the Board of your association
while at the same time defining more
clearly the roles and responsibilities
deputed to or assumed by the three
councils.
“Make magazines a brand” was the task
with which I was charged 19 years ago.
Others may judge whether the magazine
genre now has brand values it did not
have previously but I like to think that at
the very least the “magazine brand” is in
excellent shape.
Like its member companies, though, PPA
now has to make the change to “media”,
as the best descriptor we have found for
what our member companies do. Hence
“The Periodical Publishers Association”
will be no more and “PPA Media UK” is
planned to rise in its stead.
The APA, representing the fast growing
customer media sector, has clear
direction;
IN SOME WAYS, looking forward when you know you will not be part of
that future, is hard. Especially when 19 years of your life have been so
closely entwined with the organisation over which you have been
privileged to have stewardship. In other ways it is much easier: as with
an independent consultant, you believe you can see clearly what needs
to be done, unencumbered by having to do it.
Business Media UK has taken on an
ambitious agenda to embrace the whole of
that £20b sector, way outside our magazine
publishing heritage; and PPA Consumer
Media has yet to redefine its role beyond
the promotion and protection of magazines.
But it will...in time.`
So, apart from departing at the pivotal
moment of change, what is the “PPA
heritage”
I believe is being handed on in good order?
Let me mention just six:
Foremost is a robust and well-endowed
association with a committed and active
membership of some 500 companies and
dedicated executive staff, with whom it has
been a pleasure to be associated.
Most financially significant for our
membership is zero-rate VAT, that hugely
valuable subsidy our print products enjoy
which remains under attack. Despite many
major assaults we still have our zero rates.
The Profile Pricing deal PPA negotiated
with Royal Mail’s Presstream service in
1994 remains something we must fight to
defend. UK magazine postal rates were, by
PPA research, the highest we could find
anywhere in the world at the time and that
one deal reduced rates for many publishers
by 30+ percent at a stroke.
Retention of the retail supply chain based on
publisher-driven exclusive wholesaler territories
is worth by any definition a king’s ransom in the
continuing richness, diversity and freedom of the
Press. It has been a fight in which PPA has been
engaged at differing levels since the erstwhile
Monopolies and Mergers Commission inquiry of
1992 and continues with the seemingly endless
OFT investigations. End it will…but apparently
and happily not on my watch!
A golden brick heritage product is the suite of
diplomas and certificates developed by PPA
Training. When we look around the world we
can claim with confidence to be leaders in developing
measurably enhanced value in human
resource terms for our industry’s future.
And in marketing we are now up there with the
best in the world in arguing the advertising
strengths of magazines to advertisers and in
working with retailers to promote the category to
consumers. Our Magazine Week launched in
September will undoubtedly be copied around
the world. What
better environment in which to hold the
“magazine Olympics”, the FIPP World Congress,
in 2009?
So I believe PPA is in great heart to become PPA
Media UK for the years ahead. Good luck….and
thank you for having me over the last 19 years….
Ian Locks | PPA chief executive
PPA Annual Review 2007-08
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