Licensing in reverse

Mention ‘magazine licensing’ to publishers in the UK and you are likely to get one of three responses...

1. It’s a useful way of re-purposing material that otherwise would not go beyond its first airing in the UK; you can make a few bob in the process and, although probably not enough to retire on, it’s a handy addition to the bottom line.
2. It’s useful for building brands... provided you are lucky / astute enough to possess one or more titles with truly international clout and kudos; titles like FHM, F1 Racing, Vogue and so on.
3. er, I know the concept but I’ve never thought much about it.

Bigger publishers should know their stuff already and may even have created their own in-house licensing divisions; smaller outfits are likely be aware of the potential, even though they may not have the knowledge / time / funds to do much about it.

But there is another aspect to all of this... one that, in Great Britain, is still rarely mentioned. That is the potential for licensing IN.

It’s a strange fact that, if you ask most publishers in this country if they have ever considered the idea of licensing-in and publishing a magazine that derives material from another country, most will reply not so much ‘no’ as ‘why?’ After all, they will say, isn’t it obvious that GB magazines achieve a standard that is pretty much unrivalled in the rest of the world? So, why on earth should we want to publish somebody else’s work?

The arrogance is understandable, and, in fact, I used to believe it myself. We are an island nation and magazines produced in the rest of Europe do tend to pass us by. But, one of the aspects of running a magazine licensing business is that I get to see a wide range of titles published overseas... often created by the very companies with which I am doing business on behalf of UK publishers.

As a result, I bring interesting news to Anglophile publishers everywhere... there are plenty of magazines published around Europe and the rest of the world that are every bit as good as ours. Now, there’s a surprise...

Well, so what...?

If you think the idea of buying-in material might work for you, then read on, because the savings can be impressive.

Like most things in business, licensing is an opportunity that has to work for both seller and buyer alike. Licensors receive revenue that they may not have been expecting, often for little effort and outlay, while licensees have (in theory) access to content that may be a great deal cheaper than if they had set out to create it themselves from scratch. If a well-established brand is involved, that can bring further benefits to both the parties involved.

Finding a suitable title

The first question is where to go looking for a title that is suitable to your potential needs. Your editors will probably have a good idea of where, around the world, interest in the sector is greatest and therefore where magazines of a suitable kind are likely to exist. After that you can do one of three things... (1) search through Google; (2) check out resources like the FIPP International Licensing Directory (see www.fipp.com); or (3) contact a specialist licensing company and see if they can help.

When you have found some likely contenders, explore first whether the title you are considering is likely to fit well within the UK market. Some sectors develop at different speeds around the world and, sometimes, in subtly different ways. For instance, what works in Italy may not be exactly right for the UK (as I well know from my experience with cross-stitching) and difference in language can, at first sight, hide these variations. There may also be stylistic differences that can jar with a UK audience. So, homework is needed before any negotiations can begin. Have some articles translated and discuss the result with your editors because, at the end of the day, these are the people who will have to work with the material you bring them.

Good editors will always have passionate views about content, and any that has been commissioned outside of their control will rarely be accepted at face value. The big questions here are, firstly, can text be pulled into shape without significant work or re-writing and, secondly, are the necessary visuals present, up to scratch and available? If the answer to these questions is ‘yes’ then it’s time to decide where you want to sit on the licensing spectrum.

Magazine licensing means many things to many people. At one end of the ‘partnering continuum’, there is the opportunity for purchasing content and using it on a regular basis in your existing UK title (occasional, one-off purchases are better termed syndication). Further along, you may decide that the match between titles is sufficiently close for you to be able to use the bulk of a licensed title as the mainstay of yours – although don’t automatically assume that all the material will be available to you as part of the license fee; you will have to check. And, finally, you may decide to license a title in its entirety. In that case, you will have access to all the available material and be able to use the brand, perhaps along with such additional resources as advertising contacts / links and research data.

What about the workers?

This may be a tougher decision than you think. For licensing-in to work it has to be considered hand-in-hand with staffing levels, because that is where you are likely to make many of your cost savings. It’s often said that overheads walk in on two feet, and the publishing industry is no exception.

Where your plan is simply to regularly buy-in a few suitable pages from an overseas title, then your gain is fairly straightforward. You will be expecting to purchase suitable material at considerably less cost than you would pay in the UK... which should therefore have a positive impact on your contributions budget.

But, if you step a little further down the road and decide you can purchase the mainstay of your magazine in this fashion, then the staffing factor comes into play. You may want to seriously consider whether you actually need a full-time editor, designer, in-house writer, picture researcher and so on. Of course, each situation will present itself differently and suggest its own tailor-made solution, but now the savings may become very interesting indeed. At a time when the powers-that-be at WH Smith seem to have forgotten why the majority of their customers walk in through the door and shelf space is no longer a given, even for the biggest names in the business, any way of saving money without compromising quality has to be worth considering.

There are, around the world, several companies that have turned licensing-in into something of an art form. They long ago recognised that, with a range of licensed titles, you can start developing cross-title teams and combine them with part-time employment and far greater use of freelancers. But you must be hard with yourself. Those of us in licensing have all seen the situation where a license has been struck, but weak management controls have allowed a full size team to continue publishing its own magazine. The end result is that, far from saving money, the publisher ends up paying twice for everything!

A few downsides

Not everything in the garden will be rosy, and there are downsides. Here are a few to think about:

* You will inevitably lose some control over the material appearing in your magazine, so you must be sure you are happy with both what the licensor is likely to provide – and with the stability and reliability of the company itself. You will need ‘get out’ clauses in the agreement that will allow you to smartly withdraw if needed.
* You won’t normally be able to license-out material that has already been licensed-in, and that may close a door to incremental income in the future.
* If you sign-up for the brand name as well as the available content, while there may be many benefits in terms of backup and combined resources, the chances are you will not now own the asset value of your title. For that very reason, many licensees prefer to use the available material, but not the title itself.

In summary...

Recognise the fact that there are magazines around the world that are every bit as good as ours. If you can see a way of partnering with an overseas publisher who you trust and whose magazine demonstrates the necessary level of expertise and fit with your own, then do your homework on the savings that can be made... both in terms of content generation and the necessary level of staffing. You may be surprised at what it does to the bottom line.

But, be careful how you go about negotiating with overseas publishers. Most will expect to be in charge of creating the agreement and that may mean negotiating via a foreign language, which is an additional expense when it comes to lawyers. However, you can enlist the help of specialist licensing companies at an early stage and, in some cases, they will be able to overcome this particular hurdle. They may too be able to point you towards suitable publishers and titles and use their existing contacts to walk through doors that have already been opened. Finally, I hope this article inspires some UK publishers to explore these thoughts and ideas.