DIGIDAY, November 17, 2014 - Young revved up Hearst’s online publishing speed by getting the brands to go from “months to moments,” his signature phrase that has quickly become a ubiquitous saying throughout Hearst Tower. Still, modern-day publishing means not just mastering speed but efficiency. With its mostly women-aimed portfolio, Hearst could improve that by simply repurposing its own content. Publishing today also requires distributing on the social Web, which means reacting quickly to the news and social conversations. All of this runs counter to the way consumer publications have traditionally operated. As any print publisher knows, translating those lumbering titles to Web speed without undermining the brand is tricky. “The pure-plays do not have that issue to deal with, so they can be bolder and take greater risks,” said Peter Kreisky, chairman at Kreisky Media Consultancy, an adviser to media companies. “That’s why everyone’s watching very carefully that there’s coordination between the stakeholders.”

DIGIDAY, Oct 2, 2014 - While NYT Now is struggling to find an audience, it’s clear that the reasons aren’t because it’s a bad app. App Store reviews of NYT Now are almost universally glowing, with users praising the app’s ability to keep them informed with shorter, more digestible news nuggets. Apple even called it one of its best new news apps. “I’m surprised,” said Peter Kreisky, chairman at Kreisky Media Consultancy. “I personally love the product, use it two to three times daily, and cite it in presentations and speeches as a great example of a digital-first product developed primarily for the online-first rather than print-first audience.” For the Times, both NYT Now and NYT Opinion had been core to a digital subscription strategy centered around attracting new readers with cheaper, unbundled products rather than one large omnibus package. The Times is also using its cheaper products to upsell subscribers on its bigger, more expensive ones. The problem is that there’s no indication that the Times apps are actually succeeding in attracting new readership, which means that it’s failing to do the exact thing it was meant to. Kreisky said he had yet to meet NYT Now users who only purchased the $8-a-month subscription.

Peter Kreisky: Reimagine your brand. Then Act Digital-First

NEW YORK MAGAZINE. August 25, 2014 -What should a magazine company be now? The most storied one in America has to come up with an answer fast. Peter Kreisky, who had formerly worked at McKinsey... “We found feelings of entitlement within the company that really blinded executives, possibly willfully, to the seriousness of new competition.”

In this new and very, very different environment for advertising, scale is not a critical factor anymore, Peter Kreisky, who has been advising media companies on strategy for more than 25 years, said in a phone interview. Nimbleness and focus are winning share from the giants, and this is ultimately what stopped this merger from going forward...theres a new reality that smaller, highly-focused new competitors really and truly understand the nature of new requirement of these new forms of advertising.

DIGIDAY, April 24, 2014. “It neither has the scale to be a market leader nor the focus to be a niche with a loyal audience,” publishing consultant Peter Kreisky said. “Whether or not it can be translated into a vibrant digital franchise is highly questionable.”

Some, however, saw promise and said that Time, with its strict church-state divide — editorial and ad sales — was hamstrung in the changing media world because rivals could do deals with advertisers and marketers that Time could not. “This is a critical move away from a 1980s-style management structure that was Time Inc.,” said Peter Krei­sky, who, in 2011, was a consultant and former aide to the short-lived CEO Jack Griffin.

Thought leaders in the global magazine industry have learned quite a few essential lessons over the past five turbulent and transformative years, and Peter Kreisky of US-based Kreisky Media Consultancy, shared them with the audience of the 39th FIPP World Magazine Congress today in Rome. “Success is digital first: not digital only, not plus digital, but digital first,” was the mantra of his presentation.

Media consultant Peter Kreisky shares some pointers to take from 10 magazine publishers which were said to be taking the lead within the industry.

“Time Inc.’s source of strategic leverage has historically been scale,” Kreisky said. “That only applies when you put a ringed fence around the industry. But that ringed fence has been breached by the new digital competitors. Leadership by the old measures is increasingly irrelevant.”