Reed has decided to close EPN France at the end of this year, despite the merger of Electronique and Electronique International from the beginning of 2010. This leaves just one major French publication. The EPN France website will also close at the end of 2009. The news was also announced at the same time Reed said they would distribute EDN Europe only as a digital title from January 2010.

I’m amazed that Reed feel they can’t make money with one of just two French titles. Although the German electronics market is somewhat larger than the French market, the vast disparity between the number of publications in each market makes no sense.

At Napier we saw a similar collapse in the French IT print media, but this resulted in a number of new online publications. The electronics market has yet to see many online titles driven by “real” editorial content (rather than simply taking press release content). It will be interesting to see if online electronics sites are launched to create new vehicles to reach French engineers: I’d certainly back any new launches as it seems any reasonable site would be almost guaranteed to succeed!

Tags: EDN Europe, Electronics, Electronique, EPN, EPN France, Europe, France, Online, Reed

It’s clearly not a good time for trade shows. ESC UK was disappointing, and now the big manufacturing show, productronica has announced a 30% drop in visitors compared with the last show in 2007 (28,000 vs. 40,514 in 2007). The fact that attendance fell is not a surprise, given the current economic climate, but the size of the drop is concerning.

Not surprisingly restrictions on travel had a significant effect on attendance, with around 11,700 foreign visitors, whereas 2007 saw around 18,200 non-Germans attend: a drop of 35%.

There was a little good news, with the fall in exhibitor numbers around 20% – dropping from 1,477 in 2007 to 1,150 this year. Clearly the trade show is not dead in Europe, and suppliers understand the benefit of meeting potential customers face-to-face at events. I’m sure that visitor numbers will recover in 2011, assuming that the economy is in better shape, but it will be interesting to see if visitor numbers approach the level of 2007. People, particularly in Germany, still use trade shows as part of the way that they do business, and this isn’t going to stop in the next few years. I’m confident that the show will return to its former glory, but with the number of exhibitors tied closely to the number of visitors, it is important that attendance jumps up significantly in 2011, otherwise the show could begin a period of slow decline.

Tags: ESC, Europe, Germany, productronica, Shows and Events, UK

Hot on the heels of the launch of electronicsBOM.com, MMG has announced that Electronics Sourcing North America will be launched in April 2010. The title will launch with a circulation of over 40,000 electronics purchasing professionals, a new list that the publishers say has been 100% telephone researched from orginal SIC codes.

The launch pad for ESNA will be at the “Electronics Distribution Show” in Las Vegas and the circulation, editorial and design will take the same approach as Electronics Sourcing UK & Electronics Sourcing Europe.

It’s great to see the MMG continue to show confidence in our industry, and have the courage to continue to launch new products despite the economic situation. I hope that their confidence proves well-founded and that they show the US that magazine publishing is really not dead!

Tags: Electronics, Electronics Sourcing, ESE, Europe, MMG, Research, UK

Power Systems Design will launch “ePowerPack” in September 2007. With both print and online versions, this new product will let companies reach 54,000 power electronic design engineers in Europe and North America directly, as well as appearing as a new section in Power Systems Design Europe.

Tags: Direct marketing, Europe, PSDE

From January 2007 issue, Micro Technology Europe will change to A4 size from its present tabloid format. Although costs are an obvious factor, and in fact MTE is one of the last magazines to “shrink”, we are also promised a new layout and design that will make the magazine more attractive to readers.

Tags: Europe, Micro Technology, UK

The first digital-only issue of Boards & Solutions has just been published – click here to view. As a digital-only magazine, it is available as a 74-page PDF in landscape format – great for viewing on screen, but perhaps less good when printed. The mixed approach to publishing with print and digital titles working alongside each other might well prove to be a winner for ICC Media. At Napier we can’t see any sign of print disappearing in the near future, so finding the right way to enhance the printed magazines with quality online content is a major challenge: particularly for publishers that do not offer a high-frequency news title.

Tags: Boards and Solutions, Europe

Tags: EE Times, Europe