Blog: 10 year publishing deal between CCH and ICAEW unwinds

The latest developments in the accountancy publishing industry are rather intriguing.

In 2002 Wolters Kluwer through their information, software and services business CCH, bought ABG Professional Information, the professional publishing division of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW), including the monthly members magazine Accountancy.  At the time Wolters Kluwer announced the deal had a nominal value of €64m over ten years, but the numbers don’t actually matter, and in the other direction the ICAEW paid CCH to publish Accountancy (initially just to subscribers, but since 2006 free to all 130,000 ICAEW members).

This year the contract came up for renewal, and CCH lost the contract (which has now been given to contract publisher Progressive Customer Publishing).  However, CCH own Accountancy outright which has been the brand for the ICAEW member magazine for many years, and this month’s (November) issue included details of CCH’s proposals for the new arrangements from February 2012, as follows:

1. Instead of being free to all ICAEW members, Accountancy will be £79.20 per annum (£99 non-members); and
2. The previously free website alongside the magazine (previously www.accountancymagazine.com but now www.accountancylive.com) will move to a paywall model at a charge of £239.20 per annum (the only significant difference being the addition of some of CCH’s training products).

Other points of detail:

• In February, the ICAEW has announced a new official institute magazine (as yet unnamed) will be sent free to all members.
• AccountingWEB (which Sift has been publishing for 14 years) has an acknowledged lead online and is the only accountancy site with a genuine community.  Everyone knows we’ll keep on doing what we’ve been doing, based on a free registration model.
• Even though Incisive Media shuttered their weekly print title Accountancy Age this year, they’re still very much in the game with www.accountancyage.com, again using a free model.

In terms of online traffic, using Alexa’s UK traffic rankings for the sites in question, the figures are AccountingWEB (2,470), ICAEW (5,724), Accountancy Age (6,507) and AccountancyLive (158,201) – a lower figure being better than a higher figure.

What is CCH up to?  Yes, it is a long term player in the accountancy market.  But it is impossible to conclude that a £79.20 magazine is going to beat a free title, particularly when the latter has the ICAEW’s imprimatur.  It’s also impossible to conclude that a site with no community and little traffic when it’s free, is going to outcompete the free web competitors if it charges £239.20 a year; especially given their significantly higher levels of traffic and engagement.

Sensible people at CCH/Wolters Kluwer must also be able to pursue the same logic.  The only thing I can suggest is that it’s a ploy by CCH to encourage the ICAEW to buy back the Accountancy brand; in which I’d say to the ICAEW, call CCH’s bluff and continue with plans for the new ICAEW members mag.

I speculate that fewer than 10,000 of the current approx. 150,000 circulation will pay for the mag (in which case it’ll have no future), and they’ll do well to get 1,000 sign-ups for AccountancyLive.

Full disclosure: Kelvin Ladbrook the outgoing boss of ABG offered me a job in 1999.  After 4 large white wines on an empty stomach one afternoon in the Olympia Hilton I was sick in the toilets and haven’t seen him since!