It has never really made much sense to me why those who lead the LGBT media feel it necessary to put all our news and media companies and needs into one entity. The old phrase, “Putting all your eggs in one basket,” takes on a serious meaning in these circumstances. With the news of PlanetOut’s continuing stock decline and their announcement that they may sell themselves, some very important questions arise.
PlanetOut is the company that brings the LGBT community almost all of its major, national news-media, web and print services. Their print holdings include The Advocate, Out Magazine, The Out Traveler and HIV-Plus Magazine. PlanetOut owns Alyson Books, a publishing company specializing in LGBT literature. They also bring us Gay.com, PlanetOut.com, Kleptomaniac.com and others. The company also owns SpecPub, Inc., which brings you such specialty publications as Men, Freshmen and [2].
In one paragraph, I have managed to list almost every major, national LGBT print and web media brand. Now, PlanetOut, Inc. is in trouble. Stock prices are falling, investors are pulling out and people are resigning or being let go.
Chris Crain, former editor of The Washington Blade and someone with experience of the “grand experiment” of media merger within the LGBT community, weighs in:
Even if PlanetOut is cut into smaller pieces, the real culprit won’t be gay merger mania. The dot.com industry changed in ways few foresaw, and competing sites offered many of the same services that Gay.com members had been paying for. Even today, specialty media companies are struggling to adapt to new media, especially if management is old-media schooled.
Social networking sites remain a hot commodity, but like so much of the internet market, figuring out how to turn great ideas into a reliable revenue stream has proven a very tricky business indeed.
It’s very unfortunate to hear this latest news from PlanetOut because the company seemed to be doing many of the things it needed to do to turn things around. This is one experiment I’m still hoping works out for all concerned.
As Chris pointed out, PlanetOut isn’t the only company to try this whole gay media merger thing. Window Media, which owns The Washington Blade, The Southern Voice and numerous other gay newspapers, also has its hat in the ring. In Charlotte, N.C., Pride Publishing and Typesetting merged its Q-Notes (to which I am employed – full disclosure) with the Raleigh, N.C.-based The Front Page in 2006.
If any one of these companies go under, the LGBT community loses a lot. Window Media owns almost every LGBT news publication for the major cities on the East Coast. If they go under, we lose news publications and magazines in New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and South Florida, as well as its national brand GENRE.
Pride Publishing and Typesetting owns the most widely read publication in the Carolinas (and it is based in Charlotte, the largest city between D.C. and Atlanta, and one that will need more LGBT coverage and community resources as it continues to grow with its larger peers to the north and south).
If PlanetOut goes under, as in, if their brands cease to be, the LGBT community loses its major national news and popular opinion source. A loss of The Advocate would be one of grand proportions.
We can hope for what Chris Crain hopes for, that PlanetOut’s various pieces get sold to various owners and they continue to be published.
In the meantime, I’d caution all gay media execs to take a close look at this media merger thing. I’d maybe even say hold off a while. We have too much at stake to lose any of our precious LGBT news publications. From The Advocate and The Washington Blade to The Southern Voice and Q-Notes, each of our publications need to survive and continue to serve our various communities nationally, regionally and locally.
And, a side note to readers and subscribers: Honor those companies who are willing to support your LGBT news-publication and community. Take your business and your money to those companies advertising in our magazines and papers, or place cheap classified advertising to directly support your publication. On your publications’ websites, click on advertising and visit web companies who are supporting the online version of your favorite paper. If you are a business owner, support us and our community by advertising. If you are a reader and haven’t yet subscribed to a regional or local LGBT newspaper, do so today.
Whether we are reader, subscriber, advertiser, editor, publisher, company executive or the occasional I’ll-pick-one-up-at-my-fav-cafe reader, we can all pull together to continue making our LGBT media a successful and vibrant one.
And an afterthought: Diversification. We need it. From web to print to non-media companies. Let’s not put all our eggs in one basket. Branch out ya’ll.
Further Reading…
Technorati Tags: PlanetOut, Advocate, Out, Gay.com, Washington Blade, Southern Voice, Window Media, Pride Publishing and Typesetting, Q-Notes, North Carolina, South Carolina, gay media
August 11th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
[...] in January, I complained about the gay media’s tendency to put all our eggs in one basket. Later, happily, PlanetOut saw fit to get rid of The Advocate, Out and their other magazines. [...]