Where have the print pubs gone? They´re here, in Mexico … in abundance!

One of my first posts about magazines and technology´s impact thereon was titled, Where have all the print pubs gone?

Well, I´m pleased to report that here in Mexico City, the megalopolis where I lived and worked as a journalist from the mid ’80s to ’90s, magazines are simply everywhere. A walk this morning along Reforma checking Mexico´s quintessential corner newstands, the periodicals racks inside Sanborns, piled one on top of each other in our hotel room – the magazine industry is alive and thriving.

And, it´s not only magazines – I counted well over a dozen daily print newspapers still for sale on downtown street corners, by hawkers and at newstands wherever one turns. Back in the ´80s and early ´90s – when 85 percent of all economic activity, including private and public, was driven by the overpowering economic engine of Mexico´s massive and expansive government apparatus at the federal, state and local level — journalism, too, was dependent on the spending of government, from advertising to subsidies to particular publications and even individual journalists.

But, with Mexico´s economic reforms and the financial crisis of the mid ´90s causing government cutbacks at every level, journalism went through a spell of financial instability – gone were the guaranteed ads from government ministries, the off-the-balance-sheet subisdies of periodicals with limited readership that kept alive this or that newspaper or magazine so that politicians or government ministries and agencies would be guaranteed a friendly hearing for policy decisions and political maneuvering.

Despite or because of the cutbacks in government spending and subsidies, many of the old guard publications seem to have survived and adapted to the new open-market realities of the Mexican media environment, joined now by a broad, new range of business and political magazines and newspapers. The daily newspapers have expanded their sections and give broad coverage to everything from lifestyle to politics, from national and international business and finance, to sports and entertainment – and book reviews and book supplements continue as a matter of course, not jettisoned as they have been by the bottom-line bean counters at too many newspapers north of the border.

Magazines focused on contemporary style, fashion, design and art are in abundance, and virtually every kind of business activity has its magazines – catering to readers interested in entrepreneurship or corporate management, executive lifestyle or the needs of small- to mid-sized business, import-export and international trade to sector-driven business, whether in energy or communications and transportation. And, these are all open-circulation, newstand magazines dependent in part for surrival on subscriptions, though obviously the advertising revenue is what keeps them alive.

So, why when all the talk north of the border and in Europe is about print-to-digital migration are magazines and newspapers thriving in Mexico? I´d chalk it up to a combination of factors: an inverted demographic pyramid – a large percentage of Mexico´s population is still below the age of 20 – traslating into a huge consumer demographic coming online. This youth demographic is highly literate, but part of an emerging socioeconomic strata that is working class in its origins but seeking to migrate into middle-class, professional lifestyles. And, despite advances in broadband access and telecommunciations, overall Internet penetration is significantly lower than in the U.S. and Europe, even than in Brazil, for example – meaning advertisers´ best opportunity for reaching this new, emerging consuming class of younger Mexicans remains through print media.

These are my first impressions after being back in the country for the first time in two years. I´ll run this by and get input from some old journalist friends we´ll be meeting for beers on Friday night — among them, former Bloomberg Mexico correspondent Eduardo Garcia’, now editor of Sentido Comun, and The Houston Chronicle´s Dudley Althaus, “El Rey” of the foreign correspondents here. Hopefully, they´ll explain it all for me, with the help of a few Coronas at the boisterous Bar Nuevo Leon.

I´ll also reflect on what this all means in terms of public relations practice in Mexico – traditionally a VERY distinct proposition from PR work in the US of A — and try to post on that on my return to Miami.

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