Madison’s Lumber Reporter transitions to digital with human-driven price intelligence and industry insights

Kéta Kosman reinvents Madison’s Lumber Reporter into a digital data business, blending human expertise with advanced technology to navigate volatile North American lumber markets amid political and climatic shocks.

Since joining Madison’s Lumber Reporter in 2003 and taking ownership in 2008, Kéta Kosman has repositioned a 70‑year‑old price newsletter into a digital data business that seeks to bridge the practical world of sawmills with the analytics demands of...

timber buyers and policy watchers. In an interview with Fordaq, Kosman described a career that began in graphic design and print production and evolved into a market‑facing role built on weekly price collection, long‑standing source relationships and an insistence on accuracy.

Madison’s origins and digital transition
Madison’s was founded in 1952 as a weekly bulletin of US and Canadian softwood lumber and panel prices. According to Madison’s own about page, the publication broadened its remit over decades to cover everything from raw logs to biomass and to supply industry contacts and market insight. Under Kosman, the company moved from static print to interactive delivery: in 2018 Madison’s partnered with Forest2Market to host its Weekly Lumber Report on the SilvaStat360 online business‑intelligence platform, a collaboration confirmed in press releases from both Newswire and PR Newswire that announced the exclusive, cloud‑based delivery of Madison’s price series and archives on SilvaStat360. Complementary partnerships with services such as Blue Book Services and the Lumber Blue Book have also expanded the reach of Madison’s sawmill and producer directory, which lists more than 23,000 companies across Canada and the United States.

Method and market perspective
Kosman emphasises that Madison’s edge derives from personal sourcing and rapid customer service rather than fully automated feeds. She told Fordaq that the company’s small team historically pooled research, interviews and editorial judgement to adapt inputs after major structural events such as the 2006 US housing collapse. That hands‑on approach, she said, underpins why many sawmills remain subscribers: “accuracy” and immediate human contact are cornerstones of Madison’s service, the company website states.

Her concise characterisation of price cycles , macroeconomic conditions, timber supply, weather events, logistics and rising political impacts such as trade duties , reflects the dual pressures shaping North American lumber. In the interview Kosman said political decisions in 2025 produced unusually disruptive short‑notice changes that collided with sawmills’ long production planning horizons, creating uncertainty even as underlying price series remained relatively stable compared with the pandemic years.

Outlook for 2026: demand muted, structural shifts underway
Kosman framed the end of 2025 as a low point for housing starts, lumber demand and prices, and warned that trade measures had materially altered export patterns. She noted US wood products exports fell roughly 15% in the first half of the year while Canadian totals remained steadier but shifted their destination mix. The interview also referenced disruption to US economic reporting following a government shutdown that delayed critical data releases in October, compounding market opacity.

Longer term, Kosman pointed to a structural pivot toward higher‑value engineered wood and mass timber products. She highlighted a wave of new facilities for Glulam, LVL, LSL and CLT, and observed that these products rely more on peeler‑grade logs than the now‑scarcer #2 Sawlog feedstock. That dynamic, she said, is changing sawmill strategies and export opportunities , particularly as Asian demand for engineered wood remains strong and India is watched as a potential growth market. European imports continue to matter, especially in the eastern US, while South American softwood and plywood flows (notably radiata pine from Chile) are entrenched inputs for US construction.

Technology, data and limits of automation
Kosman expressed scepticism about the current utility of large language models for pricing intelligence. Speaking of the technology landscape after attending a major Web Summit, she quoted developers’ concerns that these tools “hallucinate. And it is getting stupider”, and warned users to “beware of the answers.” For Madison’s, she argued, the value lies in human relationships for data gathering even as delivery becomes increasingly digital. The 2018 launch of a live dashboard and the SilvaStat360 collaboration are cited as evidence the business can combine person‑to‑person sourcing with modern, 24/7 access to historic and current price data.

The people question and industry leadership
Kosman underlined shifting demographics in timber and timber manufacturing: more women in senior roles, a workforce ageing toward retirement and continued difficulty attracting young labour in both forestry and construction. She stressed adaptability as the defining skill for future leaders and urged investment in upgraded mill technologies and new manufacturing processes to match changing consumer and building preferences.

Risk and resilience
Weather‑related shocks figure prominently in Kosman’s forecast. She warned that wildfires, storms and floods are becoming routine drivers of reconstruction demand and supply‑chain disruption, and that even short‑lived events have protracted effects on mills because transport delays and damaged infrastructure slow recovery. The message is that sudden shocks should be a central planning assumption for 2026.

What Madison’s offers the market
Beyond price reporting, Madison’s expanded product set , including a searchable online directory with detailed company profiles and contact data, and integrations with third‑party platforms , aims to make the service a practical tool for timber buyers, remanufacturers and exporters. Contact databases and frequent, human‑sourced price updates are presented as differentiators in a market where digital noise and superficial services can proliferate.

Kosman’s arc, from designer to publisher and industry commentator, illustrates a broader industry tension: the need to combine long experience and human networks with the efficiencies of digital delivery, while remaining cautious about emerging algorithmic tools that have yet to solve the verification problem for price discovery. As she put it in the interview, those who were first to adopt new processes and technologies tended to be rewarded , but they also needed the resilience to respond to abrupt political and climatic shocks that can reshape markets overnight.

Source: Noah Wire Services