It has been a year since the acquisition of New Skool media was completed. CEO Erwin van Luit looks back with satisfaction on the acquisition by the Belgian family business Roularta. The old New Skool Media has suddenly become part of a large, international publisher with brands in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
Now that the takeover has been completed, all attention is turning to the digitization of the brands, which Van Luit believes is high time. He says that in the podcast of Bladendokter, in conversation with Carolien Vader. By this, Van Luit mainly means earning money from digital subscriptions. But also with the digitization of the brands themselves. He expects editors to create content for all channels. And online directors have now been appointed at Roularta Netherlands who also support the editors in this.
Roularta introduces an app for reading digital magazines
Finding new revenue models is receiving a lot of attention. Van Luit says that New Skool has already gained quite a bit of experience in the field of events and e-learning. One of the new ambitions is to introduce an app on the Dutch market in the short term, where content from various Roularta brands is made available to digital subscribers. “In Belgium, Roularta was already developing the ‘My Magazine app’, on which subscribers can read several titles. We are now making this app suitable for the Dutch market,” says Erwin van Luit.
Scale up and share content
Now that the former New Skool Media is part of an international publisher, there are opportunities to introduce Dutch titles abroad and vice versa. But according to Erwin van Luit, there are no concrete plans for that at the moment. “We are, however, busy exchanging content between the Dutch and the editorial offices in Belgium and Germany. And systems are also being integrated behind the scenes.” According to Van Luit, an efficiency improvement can be achieved here.
Declining circulations and rising costs
Erwin van Luit believes that digital reading has a future. In addition to being CEO of Roularta Netherlands, he has recently been appointed chairman of the Magazine Media Associatie, the industry association of magazine publishers in the Netherlands. Van Luit says in the podcast that the industry is under considerable pressure with decreasing circulations on the one hand and rising prices for paper and distribution on the other. Matters that the trade association wants to tackle by, among other things, exchanging knowledge between the affiliated members.
Despite rising prices, Roularta made a profit last year. Erwin van Luit is therefore happy to share advice with fellow publishers. “Make sure digitization is taken seriously and committed to new revenue models.”