Challenges facing media giant IDG, part II

Pat McGovern, chairman of IDG, on the current state of the conference business

This is the second part of my interview series with Pat McGovern, founder and chairman of media behemoth, IDG.

In this segment, Pat starts off talking about the quality of journalism - the good and the bad. 

He also talks about IDG's conference business, from how its changed since his first conference back in 1964, which drew 60 people, and how the economic swings have affected its current 1200 events from around the world, from the US to Nigeria to Cambodia to Serbia. To see a dizzying list of events, click here. IDG is the producer of some popular conferences, including DEMO, Macworld, E3 Expo and its largest event Hi-Tech Fair in Shenzhen, which draws an audience of 400,000. 

Pat talks about how the "local" events and events that are more verticalized (such as the C-level series of conferences for CIOs, CFOs, and CSOs) have become increasingly popular as more travelers opted to stay close to home and save some bucks. Pat also talked about attendance and revenue each event brings in. DEMO brings in about $4 million, Macworld - about $14 to $15 million and E3 - about $25 million (this is IDG's largest, in terms of revenue, according to Pat).

Don't let me give it all away. Watch the rest of the interview. 

Here's the first part of "Challenges facing media giant, IDG"