Media consumption has risen in all areas. Interestingly, this increase comes at the same time that the number of hours worked annually by Americans is rising, leaving people less discretionary time.

Because they generally dislike forgoing the things they enjoy, consumers appear to be adapting their behavior to the proliferation of media. The trend is to do more with less. People have learned to multitask, and this ability will have a profound impact on how the media industry operates in the years to come.7

At ESP, we are working with our clients to better integrate the Web, product, e-newsletters and print channels to help them maximize their effectiveness in the changing media environment.

With the ESP integrated database, we have an advantage over older legacy systems. We have worked with publishers to sell combination subscriptions to print and electronic versions, and used our industry-leading knowledge of XML Web services to integrate the subscription database into the Web site experience, with features that include real-time registration and data field interrogation.

Publishers are increasingly using digital editions of their print products. Unlike print, digital technology offers advertisers interactivity, enables them to track response and provides them opportunities to run rich media ads or TV spots in a magazine format.

For readers, digital magazines allow searching and archiving. The technology, which was originally PDF-oriented, is migrating to browser-based systems, which eliminate the need for reader software.

For publishers, every subscriber who opts for digital over print helps cut paper, printing and postage costs. In particular, the digital format helps magazines, such as Fairchild Publications’ Women’s Wear Daily, to get issues into the hands of international subscribers quickly and inexpensively.

In the digital realm, we see our fulfillment provider role as assisting publishers to create revenue from the subscription database through multiple channels. Publishers have historically viewed fulfillment as a commodity, but we are watching that thought process change as we demonstrate our ability to increase revenues for our clients.

We had many success stories in 2004, and look forward to many more in 2005, including our newest clients: PLAY magazine, Fire Apparatus, and MAKE.