National Geographic travels far and speaks in many tongues

International Herald Tribune – March 20, 2006

Eric Pfanner

 

 

LONDON: For more than a century, National Geographic magazine has delivered the world to millions of living rooms and libraries across America. But U.S. readers are aging or defecting to the Internet, and now the magazine is looking at places that used to appear only in its articles and pictures as promising opportunities for growth.

 

Next month National Geographic plans to introduce a Slovenian edition, the 30th foreign-language version of the magazine. It is a country of only two million people squeezed between the Alps and the Mediterranean Sea, but Terry Adamson, executive vice president of the National Geographic Society, said it was a promising market for growth.

 

"One of our challenges in English is to continually find new, younger readers," he said. "The demographics are much more favorable for the foreign-language editions, particularly in Eastern Europe."

 

The average National Geographic subscriber in Eastern Europe is around 30, Adamson said, compared with around 50 for the average reader in the United States.

 

While advertising in the region remains sluggish, local publishers, who produce National Geographic under license from the society, have been eager to sign on, Adamson said. Like most of the other local-language editions, the Slovenian edition is published by a local partner, in this case Ljubljana-based Rokus Publishing.

 

For the nonprofit society, the expansion of its international publishing partnerships reflects a shift toward a more commercial-minded approach to the publishing of its august journal. In an effort to attract new readers, the magazine has also adjusted its content, adding articles on timely topics like the political situation in Iraq to more traditional fare like the plight of the polar bear.

 

Nonetheless, the magazine's U.S. circulation has slipped from more than eight million in the 1980s to little more than five million today. Growing readership of an English-language international edition, primarily in the British Isles, has compensated somewhat for the losses at home. But the biggest gains have been in the foreign-language editions, which mix content from the American edition with more locally relevant fare selected by editors at National Geographic's publishing partners.

 

Some of these editions have attracted significant readerships in only a few years of existence. A German edition, published under license by Gruner + Jahr since 1999, has a circulation of 240,000. A Bulgarian edition, begun only last autumn with a subsidiary of the Sanoma publishing house of Finland, already sells more than 50,000 copies.

 

Over all, local-language versions of National Geographic sell 2.1 million copies. Almost all are published under license, except the first, in Japan, which is produced under a joint venture between the society and Nikkei BP.

 

Speaking by telephone, Adamson declined to disclose financial details of the arrangements, other than to say that the licensing deals generated a "not insignificant amount" of revenue for the society.

 

In some cases, the local partners have taken the lead in developing the National Geographic brand in new areas. While spinoffs like National Geographic Kids and National Geographic Traveler were developed originally for the U.S. market and then taken to some overseas markets, the Spanish publisher Grupo RBA several years ago introduced National Geographic Historia. It focuses on classical history and archeology and sells 140,000 copies.

 

The success of National Geographic in expanding its translated editions has attracted imitators, even as U.S. publishers scale back in other ways. Business Week, for example, which recently decided to stop publishing an international English- language magazine, has moved to expand its foreign-language editions, which appear in China, Indonesia, Turkey, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere.

 

The success of National Geographic in expanding its international presence has also encouraged at least one of its partners, Gruner + Jahr, to expand one of its own titles, GEO, in a similar way. GEO, which includes geographical, anthropological and travel-related articles and pictures, already appears in Germany, France, Spain, Russia and several other markets. Last autumn it added editions for Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, Romania and Croatia, some in partnerships with local publishers.

 

Adamson acknowledged that expansion of GEO's presence in Eastern Europe could create tensions with National Geographic, but said there were no plans to change the licensing arrangement.

 

Alexander Adler, a spokesman for Gruner + Jahr, agreed, saying the company operated in a decentralized way and kept a clear separation between its different titles.

 

"GEO is at the top of the agenda for G + J, but we are very happy with National Geographic right now," said Alexander Adler, a spokesman for the publisher.

 

Like other Western magazines, National Geographic sees China as a potentially promising market, and Adamson said it hoped to add a local edition this year, pending government approval.

 

The society is also relying on its television channel, internationally a joint venture with NBC, News Corp. and British Sky Broadcasting, to expand its international presence. The channel went international in 1997 and now appears in 27 languages.

 

"The brand has been expanded around the world in a lot of markets in a very short time," Adamson said.