Forbes president: Print magazine still the front door

Ellen Cools of Folio interviewed Mike Federle, the new president of Forbes Media.

Here is an excerpt:

Folio: What about the print product?
Federle: The print product remains the front door to our brand. Especially when you start looking at all the licensed products around the world — with the exception of France — it always starts with the print product. It’s what people identify Forbes with. To be on the cover of Forbes still is an iconic measure of success.
More people are reading the magazine than at any time in nearly our 100-year history. The incredible thing is that over the last seven years, the magazine has seen a 50 percent increase with readers age 18 to 34…The challenge remains that marketers are focused a lot more on digital options. So creating innovative print opportunities — which for us is really through our brand voice — and native approaches on print will continue to be a big focus for us.

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.