International Business Media: Life after Forbes

24.6 to 24.7 per cent of people in the top 4 per cent of earners.

While this is hardly enough to set the Champagne corks popping, any sign
of an upward trend is welcome in a market that has suffered badly since
2000. Publishers are more upbeat than they have been for a long
while.

But if Europe's elite is indeed returning to the business press, why has
Forbes closed its global edition?

Since July, European subscribers have had to make do with the US
version.

When their subscriptions run out, they will be offered the American
Forbes at a premium over their former read, to cover the costs of
shipping the publication over the Atlantic.

Reasons cited for the global edition's demise range from it coming late
to a crowded market to its right-wing editorial line being unpalatable
for some European audiences. One of the most sensational claims,
however, was that the magazine tried to manipulate survey results by
marketing heavily around the times that Ipsos' European Business
Readership Survey interviews were carried out.

One observer thinks: "The worst-kept secret in media is that Forbes was
swamping potential respondents with Forbes-related paraphernalia so the
title would always show up high on recall figures."

Bob Crozier, Forbes' managing director for Europe, the Middle East and
Africa, is naturally having none of it. "We market our magazine like
everyone else," he says. "Our strategy now is to licence local-language
versions of the magazine, and we couldn't have a pan-regional
English-language version because the minute you sign up a licence in a
key market such as the UK or Germany, you knock out a major source of
its revenue."

Whether or not Forbes managed to manipulate the data, has the reputation
of surveys such as EBRS been irreversibly tainted? And what is the true
state of Europe's international business press?

Many in the industry have a simple answer for the first question: move
EBRS to a rolling survey basis and it becomes impossible to influence
results by marketing heavily around polling times. It looks almost
certain that this is the way the survey will go.

Even Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, the senior vice-president at the
International Herald Tribune, which is rumoured to have used similar
survey-skewing marketing tactics to Forbes, says: "I'm not against EBRS
being on a rolling basis."

However, a debate on the value of surveys in general seems to have
opened up. "EMS involves calling people at home. But how many serious
decision-makers will be at home when you call and how many will want to
respond to a survey?" Angus Urquhart, USA Today's ad sales director for
Europe, the Middle East and Africa, asks.

Jason Hayford, Starcom's international investment manager, concurs:
"There's lies, damn lies and statistics. But it is a currency. It adds a
quantitative dimension to what we do."

EBRS aside, some think research generally should go further.
Dunbar-Johnson says: "It's more a question of going beyond average issue
readership and asking deeper questions."

So far, though, the figures seem to back up a mood of conservative
optimism among publishers. Alan Dunachie, The Economist's director of
operations, says: "Things are looking quite good. The IT business is
growing. Financial deals are being done. The travel business is better
than after September 11."

Fortune's publishing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa,
Andy Bush, adds: "What's been impressive has been activity in August,
traditionally a slow month."

But a return to the late 90s heyday of the international business press
seems unlikely in light of what many see as a fundamental shift in the
market.

In response to the changing mood, the Wall Street Journal Europe is next
week launching a compact edition that highlights web content. Karen
Mullis, Dow Jones International's European managing director, sales and
marketing, says it has attracted "a record number of ad bookings".

"What we have found our readers want is the immediacy and deep research
potential of the internet, plus the portability and convenience of a
compact," Penelope Abernathy, the senior vice-president of international
and development at the WSJ, says.

BusinessWeek's international publisher, Paul Maraviglia, says: "The
challenge is to be platform-agnostic, offer people stuff on a PDA,
online and through print. We now reach more people through our website
than through our magazine. In a sense, the Forbes thing is symptomatic
of a need for change."

A BRIEF HISTORY OF FORBES

September 1917: The financial journalist BC Forbes launches the first
issue of his eponymously titled magazine, which is "devoted to doers and
doings" of the business world. "History has demonstrated that the most
notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they
triumphed. There were lessons for all in the retelling of those trials,
tribulations and successes," he said.

1998: An international edition, Forbes Global, launches with a
circulation of 50,000.

2002: Forbes Global's ad pages grow by 10 per cent.

2003: Forbes China is launched, adding to editions in Korea and Japan.
Forbes Arabia, Russia, Israel and Poland follow.

2003: Forbes Global celebrates its fifth anniversary. Circulation has
grown to 137,500.

2004: EBRS survey reveals Forbes' European audience has grown by 5,300
readers.

July 2005: Forbes Global closes and transfers staff to a new edition,
Forbes Asia. Steve Forbes, the company president and chief executive,
said: "The time for broad international editions of North American
magazines in English has passed."