What is unclear now is what is going to happen to magazine distribution under T2020. At present the magazine companies are waiting to see how it comes out before they are going to make their decision.
Now we already have clients using our software that are delivering in the volumes that T2020 require. All started off with magazines, almost all have dropped magazines. It is too much work and bother for the return.
The problem I see for magazine companies is that few of these big distribution agents will be interested in handling magazines. The other issue is that even if these big distribution agents were interested, they are not going to handle many of the smaller titles that they do not see as selling. They will do what most newsagents do now and early return them so cutting them out of the distribution network.
The other problem is most newsagents after T2020 will become retail shops. Without newspapers it is not worth it for them to keep subagents.
For years the magazine companies have been piggybacking on newspapers but soon they will be confronted by a choice of either dropping sites or doing more direct distribution.
