Business - Q&A Peter.S.Phippen BBC Worldwides' MD

Peter S Phippen was appointed BBC Worldwide’s Managing Director, Magazines, in July 2001. As Managing Director of the Magazines division, the third largest consumer magazine publisher in the UK, Phippen is responsible for all BBC Worldwide’s magazine titles in the UK and for the global expansion of the business.

He is also a Director of Dovetail Ltd (subscription fulfillment), Chairman of Frontline (distribution), Chairman of Bristol Magazines Ltd, Chairman of BBC Haymarket Exhibitions, and co-Chairman of Worldwide Media – a joint venture in India. In addition, Phippen is Chair of the PPA and a Director of FIPP.

Previously, Phippen was President and CEO of BBC Worldwide Americas, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of BBC Worldwide, a position he took up in August 1998. Prior to that he was Managing Director, UK Region, BBC Worldwide, from June 1997. His responsibilities included all commercial activities in the UK, including magazines, book, video, audio and licensing, as well as for BBC Worldwide’s television joint venture with Flextech.

Despite the exposure across mediums, by his own admission, Phippen is the ‘mag guy’. In this interview with Noor Fathima Warsia, Phippen speaks on the medium that is seen ‘endangered’ by many on count of its circulation, and on the opportunities that he sees for magazines to connect with the consumers and grow in markets like India. Excerpts:



Q. There is quite a lot that you seem to be engaged in between exhibition, distribution and the other JVs. You wear various industry hats as well. How do you divide your time between all these responsibilities?


A.
It probably sounds more complicated than it is in reality. Essentially, I look after magazine publishing for the BBC globally, and my focus is on the UK magazine business. We then have a number of associating companies that are concerned with helping that business to be successful, such as our distribution JV, subscription JV and exhibition JV. And then, increasingly, we are trying to grow our business internationally. We have a JV here in India; few months ago we formed a JV in Australia with the ACP, and will soon have one in South Africa and a few other countries. So, to answer your question, it really is quite simple. I am focussed on magazine publishing in the BBC Worldwide’s overall media mix.


Q. How does the exhibition JV really help the magazine business?


A.
We launched a number of exhibitions, years ago, to accompany our magazine brands. I am the Chairman of the 50:50 JV for exhibitions, and we have some big ones. All of our approach now is about how to envelop a consumer in the supply of entertainment and information under trusted brands in whatever format. So, if you are a keen cook, and really keen on all of it, we are trying to ensure that we are supplying all the services in it that would help you in your passion for cooking. That includes the magazine, websites, on-ground – the focus in creating and addressing that similar-passion community on the whole.


Q. In an earlier role, as head of the Flextech TV JV, you’ve had television experience as well...


A.
Very much so. When I was in the States, I launched two channels there, and I was specifically responsible for TV. But all of my working life, even when I was in the magazine business, and because I was on the board of BBC Worldwide and because the BBC is more famous as a TV broadcaster than a magazine publisher, I’ve had constant exposure to the dynamics of television.


Q. How has the experience of working on these different genres been?


A.
It’s increasingly important to have some appreciation of what different media are all about, because they are coming closer together. Also, from the perspective of our consumers, they don’t think about different media and the extent to which they compete with each other. If you are keen on motors, you don’t think ‘what are all the magazines that I can get on motors’. The motoring enthusiasm is going to be about knowing more through any form. At one point in the day you are watching television, and at another point, you are listening to radio and at another, you are reading a magazine – the focus is on you and not on the industry. From a media owner point of view, you want to try and grab as much of a person’s attention as possible, and to develop as close a relationship and learn more about that person as possible and supply to as many entertainment and information needs as possible. In order to be able to that, you need to have people within your company who understand how different media work, and you have to merge that with the requirement to create consistency in terms of the personality of a particular brand. That’s quite a difficult thing to do, and BBC Worldwide is doing that quite effectively.


Q. So, magazines are more fun...


A.
I’m the magazine guy! Though I know a little about other media, I love magazines.


Q. What drives this passion for magazines?


A.
It’s a matter of luck to some extent. I got into magazine publishing very young, when I was in University, and it suited me well. If I tried to pin-point what it is in particular about magazines, one of the things would be that magazines came very close to individuals and their passions or real enthusiasms in a way that few other media achieved. And I’m a bit of a dilettante – I like to get into lots of different enthusiasms, and through the world of magazines, I get the opportunity to meet people who are really experts on different subjects. In our portfolio of magazines in the UK, we’ve got UK’s best selling gardening magazine, best selling food magazine, best selling motoring magazine, best selling wildlife, science, classical music magazines and on and on. It’s like being at Disney World, where you go from one ride to the next and it never gets boring. One evening I’m at an event with classical music enthusiasts, and the next with gardening enthusiasts. I don’t know as much about the subject as any of the people there, but I can enjoy their enthusiasm, and that’s something you get in the world of magazines and not in the world of television. Television is very broad and wide and shallow. People dip into a programme and more than half of them are watching a particular programme because it came after the one that was coming before, and they haven’t switched channels!


Q. The community building approach sounds good for a specialist or niche magazine, but doesn’t it become difficult for the general interest titles?


A.
There is a different way of describing this, and that is about personalities, states of minds and the moments in your life. If you are the editor of ‘Cosmopolitan’ magazine, for three or four years in a young women’s life you can be very important. That has nothing to do with the genre, but it is an emotional need. I don’t know if this is as true of ‘Cosmopolitan’ in India, but in the UK, for decades now, young women go through their ‘Cosmo moment’. It is a part of growing up. They want to buy a magazine that is speaking to them personally. That is a different way of getting under someone’s skin than focussing on a genre, and there are various other such examples.


Q. You have four children yourself – when you see the youngsters’ media habits today, do you see the traditional media take a backseat? If they have seen ‘Top Gear’ on the website, there is no need to read the print version...


A.
Not to any great extent, and definitely not to the extent that most people think. I can speak most knowledgeably on the UK, where the reading of children’s magazines has never been stronger. The reading of young women’s magazines is also strong. So, the question is, if there is a short period in the teenage years, when the youngsters move away from printed magazine to the digital versions. And even on that, there isn’t much evidence to support that they do. Teenagers are continuing to read magazines, but not so much of teen-dedicated magazines. Teenage boys, and I can speak for my teenage son, are reading the Lads magazines that I am afraid their mothers wouldn’t want them to be reading. In their life, this is a particularly busy time and they are doing lots of things. They are multitasking – texting, chatting, playing games, reading, and doing all of that at the same time when they are supposed to be doing their homework.


Q. What was one of the first reactions from the BBC when the global trends of decline in circulation were being spoken of?


A.
We have been lucky that we have not experienced that. This is said of the US market, but in the UK, the market is growing. Right at this moment of recession, we are declining, but in that, we are the same as everyone else. We have to experience any shocks yet. We see it as a mature business in the UK at present, with only a low single digit growth. Markets like India have the opportunity to grow much strongly.


Q. It is four years of the JV in India now. Has the progress been as per expectations?


A.
It has been good. I am glad that we entered the market when we did. In the interim period, we learnt a lot – about JVs in India, working with a local partner, learnt about the market. We are well set now for a faster pace of growth than we have achieved so far – both in our existing brands and a magazine like ‘Top Gear’, which is now two years old, as well as launching new magazines.


Q. The multimedia approach that we see internationally for ‘Top Gear’ isn’t as aggressive in India. Do you think the Indian media dynamics is not supporting the multi-platform approach?


A.
It is slightly more complicated in India because we have multiple activities going on here. In India, as BBC Worldwide, we are a very small player, unlike in other markets. We will be taking precisely that multiple media approach wherever we can. For ‘Top Gear’, we are already in discussions on how to get that approach. We are looking at getting the UK version of the ‘Top Gear’ programme on a stronger television platform. Continuing to be doing best behind the magazines and getting our live event here shortly, all of these things would feed off each other. Once they roll, the speed accelerates. ‘Lonely Planet’ is known as a brand here. We would be investing in the website, and at some point, we believe we would launch the website in India. With our existing Indian brands as well, we think there is much more to be done than what we have done. We believe that there are opportunities to publish in local languages. We would publish ‘Femina’ in Hindi and in English. ‘Filmfare’ is the most powerful media brand associated with Bollywood. Both have live events that they are associated with. Both are strong brands that are really powerful, and we would like to take them international.


Q. What are some of the other initiatives that we can see from WWM in time to come?


A.
We have already mentioned language publishing. If ‘Femina’ in Hindi takes off, which I am sure it would, then we would look at bringing out the title in Tamil as well. The youth in India today are much more comfortable with their language, and we believe these steps would pay off. I have been told that ‘Filmfare’ has been archived well, and we can think on lines of doings exhibitions for the Indian cinema – in short, stop thinking about formats and start thinking about the consumer. We are thinking of events even for our titles like ‘Grazia’ and ‘Hello’. Filmfare.com has been launched; there are plans to take the awards international. And you would see much of this action in the next six months.


Q. With so many news magazines coming up, and multiple titles coming in the same genres, do you see the market cluttered somewhere?


A.
No, it is absolutely fantastic. When I saw other people coming in India, such as Conde Nast, and more launches from Living Media, that is when I knew that we had definitely made the right decision a few years ago. We need this – we need the marketplace to be competitive; for people to come and invest; to figure out those areas in which we are going to work together to promote the media. A body such as the Association of Indian Magazines (AIM) is really important. All of the big magazine markets in the world have strong industry associations with many members and participants. At the moment, magazines are taking a very small slice of the whole media cake. Our first challenge is to get more money in the magazines, and then we would worry about competing with each other, in order to get money in our own brands. As long as we really work well together through the AIM to help promote the medium, we can all enjoy spectacular growth.