With the advent of the Internet, newspapers (like the one I work for) and magazines have really taken it on the chin. In times past, I couldn’t wait for full-color, slick-paper magazines to arrive at my home so I could read them from cover to cover.
Now, with the Web, it is tough to keep printing a publication. The cost is becoming prohibitive. Add to that the fact that the moment a publication is printed, it is out of date. The Web is instantaneous, so one can always update a Web page as soon as something happens.
There was some speculation that magazines would bounce back after the initial hit, but that doesn’t seem to be happening, according to this article from The Financial Times website:
>>Magazine circulation fails to rebound despite rise in ads
By Kenneth Li in New York
Published: August 9 2010 21:24 | Last updated: August 9 2010 21:24
The two-year slide in U.S. magazine circulation accelerated in the first six months of 2010, in spite of a gradual recovery in advertising spending.
Even as ads returned to print media–in particular to the September pages of fashion titles such as Condé Nast’s Vogue and Time Inc’s InStyle–consumers continued to migrate from print magazines.
Reader’s Digest and National Geographic were among the biggest losers as U.S. paid circulation fell 2.3 percent year-on-year to 313.8m in the first half of 2010, compared with a fall of 1.19 percent in the 2009 period, according to data from the Audit Bureau of Circulation of 440 titles.
For full-year 2009, circulation dropped by 2.23 percent year-on-year–a period when print publishers faced a sharp curtailing of spending from automakers, real estate and also retail businesses.
In the first half of 2010, Reader’s Digest topped the list of biggest declines, with a drop of 25 percent to 6.1m circulation.
Circulation of Prevention magazine, published by Rodale, fell 11.6 percent to 2.9m.
Playboy, which reduced the number of issues it distributes to reduce its costs, cut its circulation by 34 per cent to 1.63m.
The publisher of the loss-making title, whose founder Hugh Hefner has offered to purchase the remaining shares of the company he does not already own, is expected to break even by 2011. Single copy sales, or magazines purchased at newsstands, fared better than earlier periods. Single copy sales fell 5.63 percent year-on-year to 32.5m.
The rate of decline eased compared with a 12.36 percent drop in the first six months of 2009 year-on-year, and a 9 percent fall for the full year 2009.
Among the top 25 consumer magazines, Game Informer, published by GameStop, a video game retail chain, topped the list of fastest gainers with a 21 percent jump in circulation to 4.3m.
Biggest gainers across all categories was led by Food & Family, a quarterly published by Kraft, whose circulation jumped to 1m from 144,656.
Newsmax, a magazine catering to U.S. conservatives, reported the second fastest circulation rise, nearly doubling to 182,000. Christopher Ruddy, the owner of Newsmax, had offered to purchase the financially struggling Newsweek from The Washington Post in June.
The Post agreed last week to sell Newsweek to Sidney Harman, who made his fortune in the audio equipment business, for an undisclosed price.
Newsweek circulation fell 40 percent in the first six months of the year compared with the comparable year-ago period as part of a deliberate cost-cutting initiative and strategy to court higher-end readers.<<
Personally, I think one of the problems weekly news magazines have had is that they clearly have a very particular point of view. I can make up my own mind about how to look at events, thank you!
Here’s a video about how Reader’s Digest changed the lives of several readers: