What will become of Accountancy magazine?
Posted by Christie Malry on October 5, 2011 at 9:38 am
When I got my accountancy training contract, one of the very first things we did was go on a residential training course to teach us the essentials of accountancy's basics. Things like double-entry book-keeping and the like. And on the first day of that course, the tutor sat us down and earnestly told us that as soon as we got home, we were to subscribe to Accountancy magazine, because it often contained helpful information for passing our exams, as well as essential information for members. Although he did concede that it was a magazine that was generally "so dull, they have to mark the pages - in red and blue - that you should read".
Readers, I did subscribe. And in fact I kept up my subscription until the day the ICAEW struck a deal with the magazine's owners CCH to send it to all ICAEW members for free. But now that's all set to change. Because the contract between ICAEW and CCH is set to expire, and ICAEW hasn't renewed it (instead they jumped into bed with a company called PCP, that also runs the New Statesman), ICAEW will be developing its own magazine, leaving CCH and Accountancy magazine in the lurch.
And in the lurch they are. Because whereas once upon a time they could count upon a good proportion of chartered accountants to subscribe, they're going to struggle to sell annual subscriptions for nearly £80 in a depressed economic climate and with ICAEW sending them their own magazine for nowt. They've started the fightback with a competition to win a 2 night spa holiday which should help them build up a list of members to market to. And they'll try to make Accountancy magazine better. As AccountingWeb notes, they're going to expand the number of channels that you can access the magazine through and bolster the content through drawing upon CCH's other content.
It's a tough ask though. Accountancy Age, which used to run a weekly print edition, is now online only and it does that very well. Social media is transforming the landscape, with the main institutes all running forums and blogs, and AccountingWeb providing an extensive bulletin board service. Hey, there's even this blog. By contrast, up till now, Accountancy magazine's website has been shockingly bad. With only a few months to go, time is most definitely running out if they're to find a way to survive.
[...] "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];} It looks like Accountancy magazine has started the process of preparing itself for the inevitable oblivion that must surely follow once its subscriber base has been obliterated by the cancellation of the [...]
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