Ascend Media is shedding its titles dependent on pharma ad
revenue.
The publisher will close Physician's Money Digest, Family
Practice Recertification and Internal Medicine World Report, and is considering
selling off the remainder of its Princeton,
NJ healthcare division, which
includes Pharmacy Times, Surgical Rounds, Resident & Staff Physician,
Cardiology Review and The American Journal of Managed Care. Most employees on
the three titles closing will be let go, and it is unclear whether Will
Passano, who heads the healthcare division, will remain with the company.
The Overland, KS-based firm will also divest its dental
group, comprised of Compendium of Continuing Education in Dentistry,
Contemporary Esthetics, Contemporary Oral Hygiene and Contemporary Dental
Assisting.
The publisher is holding onto its 14 LA-based Allied
Healthcare titles, which are less exposed to the fallout from declining
spending in the pharmaceutical sector. The division, including niche titles
like Hearing Review, Medical Imaging and Plastic Surgery Products, only
receives around 10% of its ad revenue from pharmas, the remainder coming from
device manufacturers and services, said Ascend president and CEO Cameron
Bishop. Ascend will also hold on to its event media division in Kansas, which works with healthcare trade associations to
develop print and online products for their events, as well as its New
Jersey-based medical education unit and Practice Builders, in Orange County, CA.
The moves, first reported in Folio, reflect the ugliness of
the market for medical journals, particularly primary care titles hit by a
dearth of new launches and a longer-term trend away from advertising to primary
care docs by pharmas. “There just isn't the focus on communicating messages in
the primary care sector,” said Bishop, noting that ad pages for many leading
journals are off 20% or more. “If the dominant books are off that much, it's a
safe bet that second-tier titles are as well, if not more so.”
Going forward, he said, the company will look online for
growth. “We're seeing great traction on e-newsletters and webcasts, along with
some of the traditional things associated with Web sites,” said Bishop.
Founded in 2002, Ascend acquired the titles, together with
Practice Builders, through its 2004 purchase of Medical World Communications,
which tripled its size and gave it an estimated $150 million in revenues. Even
before downsizing its medical and dental divisions, the firm had been slimming
down, having offloaded its professional services stable of 17 mags onto BNP
Media in August and sold Expo magazine to Red 7 Media in October.