It was the day after April Fool’s Day, last year. InfoWorld published its last print edition. Sturm and drang ensued at Patrick McGovern’s International Data Group. This was an 180,000-circulation publication. IDG couldn’t possibly replace its profit and revenue, by operating it solely online.
But this McGovern has been at it in Massachusetts, since 1964. That’s eight years before Massachusetts became the only state in the union to vote for the “other” McGovern, for president. And the IDG founder and chairman is still at it, 36 years after the Nixon rout and in his 71st year on the planet.
This McGovern can figure out a thing or two, by now. InfoWorld had been butting up against the company’s flagship ComputerWorld (founded 1967) in print, for years. Going solely online wasn’t that big a risk, with pages of ads falling for both.
In the first three months of living solely on the Web, InfoWorld revenues dropped 40%, McGovern told the B-to-B World Conference in New York Tuesday. But InfoWorld’s audience didn’t disappear. It kept coming – to the Web. Its editors found ways to satisfy their interests – and take their contributions – since they had to make the most of the mandate (or freedom) to be just online.
Little more than a year later, revenue at InfoWorld.com is 10% greater than in the last days of the print publication. But here’s the key number from IDG’s move to considering itself a “Web-centric” publisher: Profit. This was 3 percent of each dollar of revenue then. Now, it’s 37%, McGovern said.
Just like United Business Media (aka, for a while, CMP), IDG has moved as fast as it can away from print and toward the screen and in-person interaction. Here’s an index of IDG’s new ‘Web-centric’ numbers, from who was once the pioneer of tech publishing in print and is now trying to pioneer the future. “The best is yet to come,’’ he says.
IDG, By The Numbers
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- 2002 Revenue: 77% print, 11% online, 12% events.
- 2007 Revenue: 42% print, 43% online, 13% events.
- Publications: 300. Outside the U.S.: 287.
- Web sites: 450. Outside the U.S.: 428.
- International business: 70% of revenue, 80% of profit
- Online investments: 150 companies. Results: 50 companies sold, 30 public offerings of stock.
- Proceeds from sales plus current value of remaining companies: $1.8 billion. Multiple of investment: Eight times.
