Magazine Group
Magazine Industry Past	Magazine Industry Present	The Future of Magazines

 

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Magazine Industry Present

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The Present State of the Magazine Industry

 

I. Table of Contents 

The Present State of the Magazine Industry The Current Business Models of The Magazine Industry  The Introduction of Subcompact Publications The Primary Issues that are Influencing the Magazine Industry Today The Era of Specialization The Internet is Continuing to Reshape the Business Model of the Magazine Industry The Evolution of Digital Magazines The Magazine Industry Experiences Growth Newwstand; Physical Presence to Virtual Reality The Tablet; Changing the Way we Consume Magazine Content The Magazine Industry Experiences Decline The Extinct Period of The Single Issue Employment Drops in the Magazine Industry The Dominant Issues that are Challenging the Magazine Industry Today  Magazine Quality Paper Costs and Shortages Magazine- Advertisement Challenges Personal Magazine- Prosumerism  The Competitive Nature of Magazine Industry Circulation Issues in the Industry Future Outlook

"Today, the Magazine Industry has evolved in to one of the most democratic forms of Mass Media. Magazines have more freedom than any other form of media to "encourage, mobilize and increase participation in democratic debates" (Cambell). Fact, there are more magazine voices circulating in the world's market place than television channels. Magazines are a significant form of mass media because they imply the role to unite dispersed groups of readers. In addition to bringing people together, the magazine industry has given cultural minorities and newly arrived immigrants a sense of membership or belonging to a more dense community. Although magazines are monthly, or bimonthly, they have a much more relaxed deadline pressure experienced by other forms of mass media. Magazines dive deeper than any form of mass media because they can offer a wider range of analysis and insight in to particular issues that appear in today's modern society. The competitive nature of the magazine industry is undeniably one of the most difficult to invest oneself in to because of its business model's relying significantly on advertisement revenue and little on circulation income. The magazine industry has played a core role in transforming the United States in to a consumer society from a producer society. "

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"The table of contents for this section of our magazine industry wiki site will assist you in understanding the various complex issues that are occuring in the magazine industry right now. There are many different notions that are influencing the magazine industry and allowing growth within its mass medium distribution. On the other hand, there are challenges facing the industry because of the rising age of digitization which is causing both excitement and distress for the magazine industry. The adjustments the magazine industry has had to face in the past become increasingly significant as the present day arises with many different issues such as moving towards a paperless industry, refiguring out the most important factor of the magazine industry: ad revenue, dealing with the era of prosumerism and social media, reaching out to the competitive scope of publishing companies alike and justifying the most efficient and effective forms of circulation and distribution. Overall, there is a general sense of change and transition lurking in the magazine industry's scope of their near future. Please refer to our table of contents to navigate your way through this section of the magazine industry's page. "

  

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"The change from the early 1950's to today is that magazines have lost a large portion of the powerful national voice they once had. Today, there is a

surplus of specialized magazines appealing to specific targeted audiences which diminish the role of a national identity. Essential information about politics, society, culture, leisure, and more, the possibilities are endless within the magazine industry. However only about 20 percent of magazines that enter in to this modern market of mass media will succeed. The growing problem in the magazine industry is how many define their consumers as priority and citizens as a secondary role, Like other mass media, magazines hold their own in a world of scattered media content with their own problematic issues and far-reaching benefits. Currently, "The magazine industry has become fast paced and high risk" (Cambell). During the era of specialization, the magazine industry has developed itself through the continued change of their business models during the development of digitization. Both mass media based newsstands and electronic tablet devices have digitally advanced the playing field of the industry and in doing so have created challenges through the double edged sword the Industry itself has created. The challenges of resource production and employment, to the advertisement struggles of today, even the competitive nature of social media and prosumerism have created lasting effects on the magazine industry. The most important component of the magazine industry today lies in the knowledge of the producer's audience. Control over any portion of the magazine industry's business model can change the entire outlook of the industry itself and with that comes powerful innovation and difficult challenges as well."

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The Current Business Models of The Magazine Industry
 

The story:

 

Specialized Magazine Content + Specialized Magazine Advertisement + Specialized Magazine Circulation/Distribution = Economic Success in the Magazine Industry

"Current Major Model of the Magazine Industry is reliant on advertisement to specialized audiences. The content found in magazines in the now era has many advertisement investors looking for ways to reach out to a specific targeted audience and supply the advertisements that will reach out to the majority of specialized people. The content found in magazines must pertain to a specific topic or set of subcategories in order for the specialization of the magazine business model to work. Since the fall of general interest magazines there has been a shortage of nation wide audience advertisement as well as the struggle to increase the effectiveness of quality communication towards the directed audience. The influences and challenges the magazine industry is experiencing today is through the complex nature between reaching out to few and specialized or broad and general audiences."

"The idea behind the magazine industry from the past still carries on through today. The editorial and production sector of the industry begins with the initial exploration of magazine content, the advertisement portion ECT. In the magazine industry, a publication’s health is typically measured by two key indicators: circulation (the number of copies sold, either on newsstands or through print or digital replica subscriptions), and sales of advertising copy, known as ad pages."  ^[10]

"The global publishing industry is going through a period of turmoil, as broadband penetration rises and new devices for delivering digital content arrive on the scene. Consumers are increasingly switching from traditional print media to digital media, although the manner in which they are making the transition varies with age, gender and nationality. The global publishing industry is going through a period of turmoil, as broadband penetration rises and new devices for delivering digital content arrive on the scene. Consumers are increasingly switching from traditional print media to digital media, although the manner in which they are making the transition varies with age, gender and nationality. In this study, we have examined the outlook for consumer magazine publishers and media buyers, as they adapt to the digital revolution."

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The Introduction of Subcompact Publications

 

The story:

 

"As the world around us becomes more technologically advanced, as do our methods of making various technologies portable and accessible from a number of different channels. In the era of specialization, the Magazine industry has been producing subcompact publications to reach their specialized audiences with a number of different tactics to do so. The elements that make up these subcompact magazine layouts are below in the next section. Subcompact publishing deals with the layout of advertisement, content, and circulation around the magazine industry and effects all the magazine industry companies that have been producing content for long periods of time. The current state of magazine publishing is in an exciting yet difficult transition and with an industry as democratic, variable, and efficient as the magazine industry, there will be new innovations through text based issues, interface dilemmas and navigation of distribution issues that each and every one of the publishers will be scrambling to find out how to see past the challenges of tomorrow. However, the idea behind subcompact publishing assists in creating new layout ground for the magazine industry as it enters in to the digital age." 

 

"Subcompact publishing has been defined as a method of digitally publishing focused HTML-based content targeted at carefully identified audiences, primarily via mobile devices, in small, weekly (or so), mainly text-based issues, adhering to simple user-interface and navigation principles. Each issue may be free or may demand a small payment. Monetization happens via Apple’s Newsstand, Amazon’s Kindle platform and more."

"Based on this definition, calling this trend “fresh” may seem unjustified. What’s the big deal? After all, advocating for simple navigation and standards-based coding is nothing new. But this collection of attributes represents nothing less than an entirely new mentality, birthing a new experience and, in the end, a new business model to support it, a business model centered on digital-only publishing (selective even to the point of using just iOS or Android), with low overhead and operational costs."

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"The reading experience is built on long-form content, delivered to the right audience — a public thirsty for it — primarily via mobile devices and wrapped in a delightfully uncomplicated user experience. It represents the minimal viable product, an experience that’s satisfying precisely because it’s both tailored and trimmed, a product that includes no extraneous or dubiously useful features. It fits its context and purpose naturally, like a glove."

"At this point in the evolution of digital experiences, people are wary of flashy websites and apps. They just want something that works, that delivers the content and functionality they need without frills, anywhere and anytime they want it. Users are no longer amused by excessive navigational flights of fancy. They appreciate design for what design is good at: solving problems smartly, elegantly and beautifully, without excess or complication."

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"This pragmatic philosophy of design contrasts starkly with the majority of magazines currently available for tablets, whose issues can take a long time to download because of their heavy graphics and excessively dense contents. Publishing only once a month — a print-based schedule of production — requires that these magazines include a lot of articles in each issue. In essence, they are glorified PDFs — print layouts crammed into a very different platform and experience and, thus, unsuccessful in their attempts at attracting an audience."

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"The editorial and production sector of the industry begins with the initial exploration of magazine content. Deciding what content can/cannot go in to a magazine is crucial to its success. In unpaid subscriptions this burdens less crucial because of the "free" aspect behind the product which inclines more readers to dive in to new content they may have not explored before. By incorporating open/free content however, this sector of the magazine industry relies heavily on ad-based funding which becomes the more significant portion of this business model."

 
Main Idea: The magazine industry relies on two circulation models similar to a few other forms of mass media. Unpaid circulation with a larger amount of advertisements and paid circulation with a diminished amount of advertisements. Although the majority of magazine business models are supported through a magazine's advertisement revenue, both types of circulation carry a degree of placing their customers first priority rather than citizens who are the direct audience of their content. Recently, circulation has retained a constant number of magazine subscribers whereas newsstand sales are receiving the harsh effects of the digital age and easier access to magazine content.

Free Content + Significant Amount of Advertisement           or          Paid Content + Little to No Advertisement

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The Elements of Subcompact Publications

 

The story:

 

"Skeuomorphic business models

Skeuomorphism is traditionally attached to design decisions. We bring the mechanical camera shutter sound to digital cameras because it feels good. We render paper page flips in our digital reading applications because it’s familiar.

But skeuomorphism also cuts into business models.

A publisher like MATTER brings the best of the old — an understanding of editorial ethics, storytelling, craft — and changes the shape of the content and distribution models of the content to match digital. This isn’t always the case.

Business skeuomorphism happens when we take business decisions explicitly tied to one medium, and bring them to another medium — no questions asked. Business skeuomorphism is rampant in the publishing industry. The simplest example is with magazines."

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"DIGITAL MAGAZINE ‘COVERS’

 

Not a single cover is readable. This may seem like design skeuomorphism, but it’s not. No designer looked at those covers in Newsstand and said: "Perfect! Ship it!"It’s driven by business decisions and legacy-facing infrastructure.⁹

The farther out we zoom, the clearer this becomes. A generalized print magazine may be composed of the following qualities:

• Each issue contains a dozen or more articles.
• Issues operate on a monthly cycle.
• All articles are bundled and shipped at the same time.

Almost all of these qualities are the result of responses to distribution and production constraints. Printing and binding takes a certain amount of time. Shipping the issues takes another chunk of time. In order to find a balance between timeliness of content and shelf-life, a month makes a pretty sensible — if brisk — publishing schedule."

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"Old into new

So why do so many of our digital magazines publish on the same schedule, with the same number of articles as their print counterparts? Using the same covers? Of course, they do because it’s easier to maintain identical schedules across mediums. To not design twice. To not test twice (or, at all).

Unfortunately — from a medium-specific user experience point of view — it’s almost impossible to produce a digitally indigenous magazine beholden to those legacy constraints. Why? Not least because we use tablets and smartphones very differently than we use printed publications.

One of the great benefits of being part of the emergent publishing world is that you don’t have multiple mediums to publish across.¹⁰ You can and probably should focus squarely on digital. Perhaps later — contingent on market demand and content quality — you can consider publishing a print anthology to give your publication a stronger literal edge".^11" 

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"Below are the new ways of exploring magazine content based on the consumers and producers of the industry. The present day business models of the magazine industry use the following innovations to reach their audience in a spectrum of digital and print mediums of the various magazines. The layout of magazines continues to carry some past concepts that help readers define what content they're consuming because of past print technologies a large portion of people are used to. Although, the layout of magazines also includes a few new innovations that allow the print style magazines to enter in to the age of digitization and transfer through this new medium of internet tabloid magazines smoothly. Subcompact magazines in part with it's elements allows the magazine industry to grow through new influences and challenges it will face and ultimately prepare the industry for its uncertain future."

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Flat Hierarchy    
"These publications avoid layering content, in favor of as flat a hierarchy as possible. Bring the audience directly into the story that you are highlighting, rather than ask people to “shop around” to find something they might be interested in reading and then have to click on successive levels of detail before getting to the heart of the matter."
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Scrolling
"Scrolling is favored over pagination to move users through content. And multi-column layouts are avoided. Layouts with vertical scrolling and single columns are easier for audiences to use on smartphone and even tablets, and they are certainly easier to design."
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Minimalism  
"The navigation is very minimalist: a simple table of contents per issue, with at most a link to previous issues, all tucked away in the now ubiquitous hamburger menu. This menu does not even need to be persistent, because the navigation drawer can be invoked by a familiar touch gesture (in this case, a swipe to the right). Trusting the user’s command of their own device’s interface means respecting the user enough not to burden them with

excessive visual cues."                                                                      

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7-Inch Tablets
"Craig Mod notes that 7-inch tablets are the ideal form factor for consuming long-form content. Utility-based apps might have a different optimal size and shape but would ultimately also benefit from the “minimal viable product” mentality of subcompact publications."
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Typography                                                                                    ^[26]
"Beautiful custom typography is quickly becoming the norm across digital experiences. Featuring it on the Web has been difficult for years, but no more. Subcompact publications that rely on HTML5 embrace the best that the typographic tradition has to offer — myriad typefaces to choose from and optimized tracking and leading, line widths, contrast, sizing, ligatures, old-style figures and more. In fact, The Magazine considers text to be its main design element, recognizing its essential role as a vehicle of narrative and also a pillar of all Web content."

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The Primary Issues that are Influencing the Magazine Industry Today

 

 

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"The magazine industry is constantly being reshaped by new technological advances in today's world. The industry in 2014 now finds itself still in the era of specialization which is the effect of television, radio, newspapers, the internet and much more. During the early stages of the influencing factors that cause the change and desire for the era of digitization. The evolution of digital magazines is a direct result of the power of the internet as a mass medium channel. New innovations such as tablets and virtual newsstand are saviors of the print medium reaching out to millions of people world wide. The magazine industry specialized and undergoing change is adaptable to new sources of technology and is beginning to find new ways to circulate distribution in the most effective way possible. This form of mass media is faced with new challenges because of the many influences it has created over time to where it is today. Digital Evolution of magazines continues to set the bar for print media around the world in the realm of advertisement, content, layout, and most important, interactivity."

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The Era of Specialization

Story:

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"Today, the term "Magazine" is defined as: A collection of articles, stories,and advertisements appearing in non-daily (such as weekly or monthly) periodicals that are published the smaller tabloid style rather than the larger broadsheet newspaper style. Magazines appear in a variety of different contexts and settings all throughout our daily lives. Around the world, Magazines are currently in the era of specialization. Specialization is a method of production where a business or area focuses on the production of a limited scope of products or services in order to gain greater degrees of productive efficiency within the entire system of businesses or areas. Many countries specialize in producing the goods and services that are native to their part of the world. This specialization is the basis of global trade as few countries produce enough goods to be completely self-sufficient. With many options available via the Internet for information and entertainment, you might think the attraction of magazine would be lost."

But for some, kicking back in their favorite easy chair with a slick magazine between their fingers is still the only way to go.
Interest in magazines has changed through the years from general interest magazine like Look and Life to specialty magazine that focus on things such as sports, home, fashion and hobbies."

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"Today the magazine industry is in the midst of a digital transition that is eviscerating its print business. Newsstand sales continue to fall, as readers sometimes find print magazine content less timely. Industry Consultant John Harrington noted that timliness poses a praticular problem in celebrity magazines, where celebrity gossip can be found online. "By the time the magazines come out, it's old news."  

"Yet, for all the laments of the magazine industry in the present, magazines might be particularly well suited to adapt their content to the digital turn in a creative and compelling way. The relatively bite-sized content of magazines-articles, essays, photos, glorified ads- is compatible with online reading habits, and the visual nature of magazines translates well in to tablet and online environments. And while most magazines have always focused on driving sales for their advertisers, tablet editions go one step better, and offer immediate links to e-commerce. One success story is the Atlantic which still distributes a print edition, but also has a network of websites with multimedia and blog posts. The Atlantic offers hope to others, in 2011 it became the first major magazine in which digital advertising revenue exceeded print ad revenue."  ^[32]

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The Internet is Continuing to Reshape the Business Model of the Magazine Industry

 

The Story:                                                                                                                                                   

 

"Then: (2010-2011) During the early stages of digital development in the magazine industry, the internet was one of the earliest channels

of distributing magazine content.However, it didn't take long for the media consuming public to express their negative feedback for the classic click/flip page layout on a monitor screen.Linda Rounds,Store owner of"The Bookshelf" which offers a large selection of specialty magazines. They sell the magazines found elsewhere, such as women’s interests and sports, but they offer much more: Everything from comic books, crosswords, do-it-yourself, historical, hobbies, and yes, even the plastic-covered, mature-audiences-only ones.“What’s more relaxing? Sitting at a computer, in that posture, or leaning back in your favorite chair with a magazine in your hand? Most people use the Internet as a research tool to find something they’re already interested in, to get answers. Magazines serve a different purpose. They’re a jumping-off point for creativity. You might research a quilt pattern or its history on the ‘Net once you know what you’re looking for, but without the magazine, you might never have stumbled across and gotten interested in that particular pattern."

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Now: Internet magazines began as a failure compared to what magazines would shortly become during the digitization of magazine content in only a 

matter of a couple years. Although, web magazines still exist today and are more prominent than their early counterparts would of liked to achieve. They are now referred to more formally as webzines or web like bulletin boards in a sense. While classifying many websites such as pinterest, flipboard, and more as magazines; the underlying issue is where do these specialized webzines become classified as websites. An issue that needs emphasizing since it could mean the deflation or ultimate eradication of the magazine industry all together. Webzines such as Slate, Wired, and Cosmopolitan just to name a few have embraced the webzine atmosphere and have created digital replicas of their once print form of magazines in to their digital output. Still, the issue remains of whether these are still really magazines and if the magazine industry is headed towards an all digital takeover, but there is much success to companies that are issuing their content online.     

                                                                                                                                                        

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The Best Current Magazine Innovations in the World; All Made Possible Through the Internet

"The 2013 Innovations in Magazine Media World Report reviews the best print and digital magazine innovations in the world 
The report was presented at a Magazines Canada event in Toronto on November 25. In this video, speaker John Wilpers, who co-edits the report, showcases examples of how "publishers are stretching the elasticity of their brands to reach out to customers in ways [that were once] unimaginable."

 

 

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Highlights from the presentation include innovations in:

1) Click-to-buy content (1:22)

"Through the powerful innovations that magazines have created on a digital scale, the idea behind inside marketing and click to buy content has put consumers in to more comfortable environments to shop for their favorite products. In today's world you can open up a digital magazine and as you page through click on various items that stand out to you and perform a number of different tasks with the product. The most popular is purchasing the product or "sharing" the product via social networking."

 

"Traditionally, publishers were limited in pursuing two time-tested avenues to revenue: selling subscriptions and/or advertising. But lately, content commerce strategies like in-text advertising and sponsored content have come of age, providing the potential to change the digital content dynamic and excite publishers that are struggling to remain relevant to readers and users."

 

"Two recent examples are ShopThis and ShopBazaar.com. The former is a partnership between MasterCard and Condé Nast-publishers of Vanity Fair, Vogue, The New Yorker and other popular magazines-whereby readers (initially, users of the November tablet edition of Wired) will be able to instantly buy products they read about in the issue's articles and ads without ever leaving the page. Simply click on the product, put it in your shopping cart and check out; the order is then fulfilled by Rakuten.com. The latter is a special branded content site created last year by Hearst, forHarper's Bazaar, that enables readers to buy products featured in the magazine"

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2) Outserts and personalized content (2:39) 

"While 2013 was all about harnessing data – in 2014, advertisers will learn how to activate their data and make it actionable and personal. Look for two major trends in 2014 that will: a) help marketers reach who they want, when they need and on the touch point that will deliver the best results; and b) give total control to the brand in every stage of an advertising campaign. The shifts in the use of data as well as planning and buying mechanisms will alter the overall advertising process in favor of the brand and the consumer."^[38]

Today in a world where Mass Amateurization and personalized creation flourishes, people are beginning to provide an a la carte way of organizing magazine content. By personalizing the various content you want in a magazine, you become the gatekeeper of even more specialized content and in doing so allows advertisement investors to reach out to audiences based on their web sorting, organizing and consuming habits. 

3) CinePrint (4:22) 

"To promote the Lexus ES, the company came out with what may be the most revolutionary print ad ever conceived and executed in the history of our beautiful world of advertising. The print ad allows readers to watch the Lexus ES print ad change colors, ambiance, and settings. Readers will also see the outline of the car and the dashboard lighting up. The funny thing is is that there is really nothing revolutionary about the entire thing. It is just a matter of putting an iPad at the back of the page of the Ad. The lights and special effects playing on the iPad is seen through the ad. The video if configured to hit the right spots on the ad to create an interactive experience for the readers."

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4) Digital Advertising (5:35)

"Global digital advertising spending broke $100 billion for the first time, according to eMarketer, which predicts the business will grow another 15.1% this year. That figure compares to a market increase of 17.8% in 2012. The slowing growth rate appears to be a natural consequence of the maturation of the industry — the larger it gets, the harder it is to grow. While figures for the entire ad industry's growth in 2012 aren't in yet, Magna Global last June predicted that the ad business would expand 4.8% worldwide in 2012. Digital advertising's stronger growth means it's taking up more of the overall business. eMarketer estimates that online advertising accounted for just under 20% of all advertising. This year, 21.7% of the advertising pie will be taken up by digital advertising. The double-digit growth is expected to decline steadily until 2016."

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5) Repurposing archived content (8:49)

"General idea: Long time, archives were perceived as a final resting-place for content until the inevitable process of deterioration set in. Fortunately, nowadays, archived content is being considered as a valuable asset, which should deserve a second life. Broadcasters all over the world are looking for ways to conquer new markets with this type of material (by means of different distribution platforms such as internet and mobile) or to discover new appealing uses for the public or a specific community. Furthermore, studies are being conducted that assess which kind of platforms are the most attractive for a specific type of user, often in combination with a particular content genre."

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6) Social sharing button integration (19:36)

"Avid magazine readers are connecting directly with magazines

and editors via social media. Those who consider themselves “avid magazine readers” are considerably

above average in all things social. They also interact to a much higher degree with magazine content and even directly with magazine editors via Twitter exchanges. The majority “follow” a magazine on Twitter or “like” a magazine on Facebook.

Sharing magazine content is important to young digital readers. Avid magazine readers and multiple platform social users are in the vanguard for sharing content with friends and they do it to a high degree using social devices. Most chat with friends on Facebook while reading a magazine and share what they are reading. A substantial majority also re-tweet articles from a magazine’s Twitter feed."

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"The 18–34 year old segment clearly represents highly connected users of social media. They heavily use social media to enhance their media experience and particularly place an importance on sharing magazine content. Social media is enhancing the magazine reading among 18–34 year olds:

• 56% of total Twitter users and 65% of avid readers ‘follow’ a magazine editor or columnist on Twitter.

• 51% of respondents have re-tweeted to a magazine editor’s Twitter and 42% chat with friends on Facebook while reading a magazine and share what they’re reading.

Full research available at magazine.org/socialresearch"

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7) Using contests to drive reader response (25:54) 

"Magazines have often integrated sweepstakes and contests to drive their readers interest further in to their brand and content. Magazines have also innovated advertisements in to contests to gain revenue through supporting specific products they feature in their issues. Contests are a common way of allowing consumers to interact with the media and creates a surplus of subscriptions for many industry publishers." 
8) Podcasting and making apps work (29:44)   

"The iPad has revolutionized the way we consume printed materials. PDF documents, e-books, and especially magazines highlight the iPad's form being well-suited for content consumption. There are plenty of options and unique possibilities available for magazine lovers to satisfy their media cravings."

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"Digital publishing firm Exact Editions has launched a geo-targeted promotional function called ByPlace for publishers who use the Exact Editions platform to produce digital editions of their magazines for iOS and Android mobile devices.

These publishers can use the ByPlace geo-location system to promote their titles. With the drop of a pin on a map, the publisher can grant free access to their apps, anywhere in the world to anyone with a 100m radius of the pin drop. This is an example of select advertising and marketing creating an even more specialized formation of the magazine industry."

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9) Video integration (32:32)

"We don't live in a world of print anymore; we live in a world of screens. The average American (and the average European) now spends more than 8.5 hours a day staring at screens -- from smartphones to tablets to computers to TV. That means that screen-watching is now our number one activity -- surpassing even sleep. And screens are very good at one thing, and that is video. Screens demand video. Every publisher of newspapers and magazines (and books for that matter), now understand that they must take their content online if they are going to get a readership. And that means moving their content to screens. And so those screens demand video -- or at least some video. But where are newspapers and magazines going to get their video? They could hire professional producers and crews, but at the cost that most production companies charge, they would be out of business in a few months. As magazines and newspapers move to screens and video, how are they going to produce the volumes and quality of video they are going to need without going broke?"  

"Also, we have found that print reporters, instead of feeling burdened with a "second job" actually find that using their iPhones as small video "tape recorders" helps their print work at the same time. When they go back to the office to write their stories, they have taken very good digital notes with their iPhones."

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"This is all about re-thinking what video is and the process by which it is made. Sure, if you are going to hire a cameraman, sound man, lighting person, director and producer, it is going to take forever and cost a fortune. But in a world in which the web demands a constant flow of new video content, no one can afford to do this -- nor should they.

The technology for cheap and simple and very high-quality video production is now in everyone's hands (or pockets) right now. What is necessary is to rethink the process whereby the video is created. If you can do that, and if you can put those tools in the hands of people who already know what they are talking about, then you have an incredibly powerful tool for cricket videos -- or anything else."

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The Evolution of Digital Magazines

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The Story:

 
THEN: "In the first decade of online magazines, there were not many great success stories to be told. Because of limited preparation time and low portability rates meant that readers didn't have the ability to sit at computer/laptop to read a magazine. Lately, many consumer magazines have been working to develop applications to put their titles on smart phones and did not go over well because consumers felt as if the content itself was compressed and lost its realistic magazine feel."

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NOW: "Magazines may have found their best home on a digital level: touch screen tablets. Apple was the first company to take a significant role in this new era of influencing the magazine industry. The Apple iPad is the closest a device has gotten to stimulating the tactile experience of holding a magazine and flipping its pages, with the dimensions and crisp color presentation similar to most consumer magazines. Other tablets such as Amazon's Kindle Fire, Barnes and Noble's Nook, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and Google Nexus 7 have all emerged as competition fighting for magazine distribution alternatives. The magazine industry is strong. Making its way through a recession and rising costs for paper, printing, and distribution, the iPad and other tablets offer the opportunity to reinvent magazines for a new addition to mass media in the digital age. Now the publishing world is excited but uncertain for the future of opportunities available to them by engaging readers through sharing content in new ways. Chris Anderson, editor in chief ofWired, claims "we finally have a digital platform that allows us to retain all the rich visual features of high-gloss print, from lavish design to glorious photography, while augmenting it with video, animations, additional content and full of interactivity."                                             ^[50]

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 "The Magazine industry is currently facing challenges in the transition from print to digital.Less and less print ad pages are being bought,less people being employed in the industry, single copy sales dropping,print circulation going down. While in the digital, still very little revenue is being brought on,circulation is not very high but it is growing and increasing. But that doesn't mean that the print copies will be completely nonexistent.As developed on the videos above, tablet and online magazines are bringing the best from print to digital. This makes the magazine industry have to adapt and focus on the growing sections. When referring to tablet magazines,Rick Levine, Condé Nast's director of editorial operations said:"We like this technology so much that by the end of the year [2011] every magazine will have a digital edition." Even though being outdated, it demonstrates how the industry is being influenced, with optimism, by the internet."

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"Why is this important? The digital era is having a huge affect on the magazine industry and it has lead to producers scrambling to catch up with the new technologies. Print magazines are seeing growing profits from digital distribution and trying to master the new tools of the internet."Nearly 65 percent of U.S. magazines now have a digital replica edition, but those editions make up just under three percent of overall circulation.For some individual titles, though, digital growth was a lot more impressive."- Alliance for Audited Media. The Magazine Industry for the most part is embracing its digital future with new exciting innovations to bring this mass media to life."

 

^[54] 

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The Magazine Industry Experiences Growth

The story:

 

The magazine industry is in a time period of new growth and ideas to further innovation in its products. Magazines today are changing the way people have consumed content through tabloids throughout history. Appearing on a number of different channels and mediums, magazine content is almost everywhere we look. The newsstand and the introduction of the tablet have only been a select couple of the breakthroughs that have occured boosting both the magazine industry's content and their sales. Below you'll find how the magazine industry found ways to adapt to the increase in demand for digital products and how their medium was able to transition the publishers in to a whole new era of exploration.

 

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Newwstand; Physical Presence to Virtual Reality

 

The story:

^[55]

"The magazine industry is capitalizing on distribution as it becomes stronger in the realm of producing content to the masses. The introduction of the digital newsstand has brought together new innovation, new challenges, and an entirely new concept on how to send/receive/share content. In the past, newsstands have been physically present in distributing physical magazines at local businesses around the world as they provide copies of a selection of various specialized magazines. Newsstand sales used to be a fairly effective addition to the business models, however, since the introduction of subscription based and digital subscription based content, the newsstands around the world are beginning to fade away.
It appears that Future's success in the digital realm is in great part thanks to Apple's iTunes Newsstand, the iOS app that allows users to purchase, organize and store digital publications all in one place."

                                                                 ^[56]                    

^[57]     

 

                                        ^[58]
"Buy magazines online by the single issue or on subscription. We have over 3,000 different magazines and we post worldwide and same day, first class. Whether its UK magazines, American Magazines or publications from Europe and beyond, Newsstand is the leading online newsagent. Not only can you buy current single magazine issues online, you can start a magazine subscription straight away with our huge range of publications in stock. We’ve also the largest magazine cover library online, so feel free to browse tens of thousands of recent and current magazine covers to see what’s in them all, as well as see new magazine arrival dates."                                                                                                             (Personal Screen Shot) 

^[59]

 

"Subcompact publications are not ubiquitous yet, particularly on platforms such as Apple’s Newsstand. The trend is less than a year old, but I would have guessed that many publishers would have by now adopted this smart and economical way to feature stories and to deliver issues automatically in the background to subscribers.

Part of the reason, perhaps, is that Apple’s Newsstand remains an underexploited digital ecosystem. In a way, it’s never been easier to start publishing long-form pieces and to charge for them. If the quality of the content is high and the publication is properly positioned for the given audience, authors can greatly benefit from direct access to their audiences."

^[60]

 

"Newsstand Sales continue to slowly increase as the digital age of Magazines begins its slow but steady takeover. People are finding that digital magazine content is easier and time friendly to consume data from digital sources. This large breakthrough in mass communication is the magazine industries way of expressing its embrace of digital issues. This doesn't mean that print is entirely dead but clarifies a new transition for this highly competitive and democratic form of mass media. Both Producers and Consumers see the benefits to paperless content being distributed through single issue and subscription newsstands and currently, we are able to order any issue, any subscription, paper or digital anywhere and anytime through the technological advances we've made through digitizing magazine content. The possibilities are endless with digital, which in itself provides room for growth in the industry however sets new challenges and competition of business strategies within the magazine industry itself."

 

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^[61]

 

 

 

The Tablet; Changing the Way we Consume Magazine Content

 

The Story:

 

"The explosion of tablet and smartphone ownership offers opportunities for news magazines to reengage readers in the digital space. Mobile news consumers, Pew Research surveys have shown, are reading more long-form news content, more stories in one sitting and reading stories they were not necessarily searching for – all very different habits than the quick, search and find tendencies of desktop news consumption. But magazines still have a long way to go to capture a solid portion of that mobile news audience. Just 11% of smartphone owners read magazines on their phone weekly, as do 22% of tablet owners. And revenues, both in digital subscriptions and digital advertising are far from what the print realm was providing."

^[62]

 

"Eighteen months after the introduction of the iPad, 11% of U.S. adults now own a tablet computer of some kind. About half (53%) get news on their tablet every day, and they read long articles as well as get headlines. But a majority says they would not be willing to pay for news content on these devices, according to the most detailed study to date of tablet users and how they interact with this new technology." ^[63]  

^[64]

 

 

"The study, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism in collaboration with The Economist Group, finds that the vast majority of tablet owners-fully 77%-use their tablet every day. They spend an average of about 90 minutes on them."

 

"The revenue potential for news on the tablet may be limited. At this point just 14% of tablet news users have paid directly to access news on their tablet. Another 23% get digital access of some kind through a print newspaper or magazine subscription. Still, cost is a factor, even among this heavy news consuming population. Of those who haven’t paid directly, just 21% say they would be willing to spend $5 per month if that were the only way to access their favorite source on the tablet. And of those who have news apps, fully 83% say that being free or low cost was a major factor in their decision about what to download." ^[65]

^[66]

 

"Substitution is already occurring to large degrees. Fully 90%

of tablet news users now consume news on the tablet that they used to get access in other ways. The greatest substitution is occurring with news that people used to get from their desktop computer. Eight-in-ten tablet news users say they now get news on their tablet that they used to get online from their laptop or desktop computer. Fewer respondents, although still a majority, say the tablet takes the place of what they used to get from a print newspaper or magazine (59%) or as a substitute for television news (57%)."^[67]

"Incidental news reading is prevalent on the tablet. Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) of those who read long articles in the last seven days ended up reading articles they were not initially seeking out. In addition, 41% went back and read past articles or saved articles for future reading.
Those who rely mainly on apps for news, 21% of all tablet news users, represent a kind of power news consumer. Close to half of this group say they now spend more time getting news than they did before they had their tablet (43%). That is more than twice the rate of those who mainly go through a browser (19%). App users are also more than three times as likely as browser news users to regularly get news from new sources they did not turn to before they had their tablet (58% versus 16% for browser users)."^[68]

 

^[69]

 

"Word of mouth is a key component of tablet news sharing. Fully 85% of those who get news on their tablets said they had talked with someone about a long article they had read there. This is more than twice the percentage who say they had shared articles electronically. Some 41% of tablet news users say they share news through email or social networking at least sometimes. And when a select group was asked specifically about their behavior in the last seven days, again about four in ten say they had shared news content through social networking sites or email."

^[70] 
"When it comes to ownership, many see the tablet computer as more of a household device to share than as a strictly personal one. Half of those with a tablet share it with other members of the household. And the iPad still dominates the market-81% of tablet owners in this survey own the Apple product."
^[71]

Why it's important: "There is a widespread debate over whether the introduction of the tablet saved or harmed the magazine industry.

However, in the age of growing digitizing mass media content, the tablet has allowed many magazines to survive that would of been beat out of the market a while ago.Today we live in a world where you can read about anything you want, wherever you want, whenever you want and now however you want. Tablets are reinventing the business structure of the magazine industry and play a significant role when it comes to the transition between print and digital. Tablets are changing the way people consume content and are a clear upgrade from early online magazines that used to only be read at computers. People found that the magazine industry supplied a level of comfort when they consumed content and that this standard of comfort can be matched by using tabloid style tablets to consume content with."               ^[72]

"There are both print and digital magazines alike flowing in today's society and with them comes various forms that benefit all people."
"Both magazines and their core form of income, advertisers, have had to think outside the box and get smart when it comes to growing in the competitive age of digital mass media technology. By using tablets in combination with the digital newsstand there are a number of different possibilites for applications and innovations to reach the largest specialized group of people using this outstanding form of mass media."

^[73]

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The Magazine Industry Experiences Decline

 

The story:

 

Often with media industries, with growth comes decline. The magazine industry is no different. The single issue is on its way out showing the brand loyalty of applying for subscriptions when it comes to consuming magazine content. Consumer loyalty is critical in the magazine industry because it represents the key for advertisement investors when they choose to purchase ad space based on the specialized audience of the specific magazine content at hand. On top of that the magazine industry is laying off hundreds of employees monthly because of the competitive nature and outward struggle to create brand loyalty and gain subscriptions from consumers. These notions are forcing the industry to think outside the box before the decline turns in to extinction of the magazine industry. In the section below you'll find the two major issues in modern day that are causing the magazine industry to experience decline. ^[74]

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The Extinct Period of The Single Issue

                                                                                                                           ^[75]

The story: 

 

"Newsstand sales continued to decline for a fifth consecutive year. Single copies dropped about 8% compared to the same period last year.” 

^[76]

 

" Magazine subscriptions are rising but as they do so the single issues sales are declining and fast. In order to recover from this decline the magazine industry is going to have to approach this problem head on with suppport from various publishers in partership with other forms of mass media to ultimately economically succeed with their print medium product."

 

"Sales of single-issue copies plummeted 16% on average for the news magazines, roughly two times the 8.2% decline in single-issue sales that the magazine industry as a whole suffered.  Time was the hardest hit, plummeting 27%. Newsweek, on the other hand, declined just 5%, the lowest drop among the six news magazines.  While newsstand sales account for just a small portion of total circulation, they are deemed a more objective indicator of a magazine’s editorial appeal than subscription circulation, which is often influenced by discount programs and promotions. Niche publications also saw declines in 2012 in newsstand sales — 17% at The Economist, 18% at The Week and 12% at The New Yorker.  The Atlantic’s 7% drop looked good only by comparison."

^[77]

 

 

^[78]

Current Statistics regarding the magazine industry after its intense period of influences, challenges, innovations creating both growth and decline.

 

 

 

 

^[79]

 

                                    

^[80]

      

                                                                                                                             ^[81]

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Employment Drops in the Magazine Industry

 

The Story:

"Economic downfall plays a huge role in determining employment for the magazine industry. Because this form of mass media is almost solely reliant on advertising, when other industries are impacted by economic turmoil, the magazine industry will also experience the economy's damaging affects when their revenue is accounted for."

 
"The number of employees in magazine industries are decreasing as of recently. This is partially due to the economy, but it also has to do with the industries transition from print to digital and how companies will have to think smarter rather than harder when it comes to using technology in their industry."

Magazine Employment

"Faced with that difficult advertising climate, magazines cut jobs sharply in 2012. Employment at U.S. magazines fell 4%, more than twice the 1.7% decline in 2011, according to Advertising Age’s analysis of recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data."

^[82]

 

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The Dominant Issues that are Challenging the Magazine Industry Today

 

The story:

 

Every single mass media industry is filled with various challenges and struggles that effect its business models, distribution and advertisement revenue. The magazine industry has experienced many problems throughout the entirety of its time as a mass media but has overcome all odds and turned in to one of the most beautiful form of print media still available today. The magazine industry specializes in all aspects of the industry and faces countless challenges from various issues resulting in threats to the existence of the entirety of the industry itself. Currently, the treacherous and challenging issues affecting the magazine industry can be found below, as they are a direct result of raising the stakes in the era of digitization. The magazine industry faces a difficult transition of analyzing how to solve the difficult unanswered questions of how to adjust to the growing era of specialization and the uncertain future beyond.

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 Magazine Quality Paper Costs and Shortages

 

The story:  

 

"Magazine Paper is becoming more expensive and less common to purchase due to the digitzation of the magazine industry. Digital magazines are cheaper to produce and can incorporate a number of different concepts than the typical print work of a physical copy magazine. 

"Magazine paper shortages are becoming a challenge today for the Magazine Industry. Producing quality magazine paper requires a significant amount of money for most magazine publishers which may be causing people to switch to digital or other formats of producing their mass media. Forest products industry information provider RISI predicts a 20 percent loss of magazine paper usage within five years, a number that will rise to 51 percent within fifteen years. (IOANNA OPIDEE) And even though a drop in demand might ordinarily mean a drop in price, the paper industry has become increasingly unstable, and such a fall in demand might lead to additional mill consolidation and closures, as well as greater under-utilization of machines—all of which, many publishers fear, could lead to dramatic prices." (IOANNA OPIDEE)"

^[83] 

"It is true that this segment – let’s call it “graphic paper” – is in trouble. The economic downturn has led to reduced spending in publicity in the press, and therefore to less paper consumption. Also, the abundant information available through electronic media is a serious competitor to the printed press. And this competition is likely to become even stronger."

^[84]

 (Bernard de Galembert: Forest and Innovation Director, Social Affairs Director, Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI). UNECE)

 

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Magazine- Advertisement Challenges

 

This section goes in to depth about the current state of the most important economical component of the magazine industry: Advertisement. News magazines are one example of how the industry is experiencing a big hit when it comes to producing a balanced amount of pages dedicated to advertisement. Recently studies have shown that since 2012, the total number of ad pages in a magazine has dropped by almost 25 percent from major news magazine companies.

^[85]   [86]

  

 

                  

The reason behind this is that advertisers are finding cheaper, easier, and more effective ways to show off their product or service that reach out to various audiences through different forms of mass media, such as internet.

^[87]

 

"Ad pages dropped in 10 of the 12 categories the Publishers Information Bureau tracks.

The hardest hit were automotive and food and food products, which fell 22% and 13%, respectively. Only toiletries did well, booking gains of 4%, while apparel and accessories remained flat. These categories have been growing for the past three years, but their gains are offset by the weak performances elsewhere, says Mary Berner, the President and chief executive of the MPA, the Association of Magazine Media. In the sluggish auto market alone, ads remain well below their 2006-07 peak, while a shift by food giant Kraft toward greater digital spending accounted for much of the decline in food industry ad pages".^48"

 

"The Magazine Industry doesn’t need anyone to tell them the rules have changed and irreversibly so. Digital transformation has drilled down to the roots of every sub-sector of the media and entertainment industry. And in many instances the content itself the product is now digital through most (and increasingly, all) of its lifecycle, whether the final output is digital or traditional.Advertisers are focusing as well on using digital platforms and online tools to engage with and measure ever-changing behavior of consumers who are more sophisticated about their use of technology than ever before.In this industry more than any other, therefore, embracing a strategic, forward-looking digital business model is critical to survival and success. The profound transformation that has gripped the media and entertainment landscape presents you with challenges, risks and opportunities as never before."
^[88]                                              ^[89]

"New ways of storytelling bring both promise and challenge. One area of expansion in 2013 was online news video. Ad revenue tied to digital videos over all (no firm calculates a figure specifically for news videos) grew 44% from 2012 to 2013 and is expected to continue to increase. For now, though, its scale is still small, accounting for just 10% of all digital ad revenue in the U.S. YouTube alone already accounts for 20% of these revenues and Facebook has now entered the digital video ad market and, based on its rapid growth in display ad revenue, is expected to quickly account for a significant portion of these dollars. In terms of audience appeal, one-third of U.S. adults watch online news videos, but that growth has slowed considerably. After a 27% increase from 2007 to 2009, the next four years saw just 9% growth. Again, large distributors of video content like YouTube and Facebook already account for a hefty portion of video watching on the web. Nonetheless, some news providers are making significant investments in digital video. The Huffington Post celebrated the one year anniversary of HuffPost Live, Texas Tribune held a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the purchase of equipment to stream live video coverage of the 2014 Texas governor’s race, and the multimedia company Vice in early 2014 launched a new multimedia portal just for news stories."
^[90]

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Personal Magazine- Prosumerism 

 

The story:

 

When you think about it, a majority of social networking sites are shaped to act as personal magazines by allowing you to choose exactly what content you want to appear in your feed and what content you don't. The advertisements are personal to you based on your browsing history and favorite pages as are specialized magazines. This prosumerism form of social networking can be seen through sites like mag+ and Flipboard which are a combination of both social netorking sites and traditional magazine content all in one easy to access flipbook. Mag + allows you to create magazines and share them with other people for non-commercial and commercial purposes. Both services are just a couple ways people are beginning to produce in combination with consuming content from the magazine industry.

 

 

"Flipboard, the tool which allows creation of individual and personal magazines of the modern prosumers. Flipboard allows users to choose social media, news content, personal content and organize it all in one convenient place. "It's a single place to discover, collect and share the news you care about. Add your favorite social networks, publications and blogs to stay connected to the topics and people closest to you." - Flipboard Co."

 

The sharing of content from magazines has allowed advertisers to broaden their specialized audiences, however, the magazine is struggling to keep up with distribution of their content as it is shared across social networks around the world. The specific content someone might be after will be shared across the web and decrease the need for the whole magazine. 

 ^[91] 

 

"Know your audience. Without that, the magazine won’t work. You must know your audience. It’s the most basic starting point for any idea."

Susan Currie Sivek, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Linfield College. She teaches media theory, writing, and editing, and does research on magazines, social media, and political communication.

 

^{[92]                                                       [}93]

 

"Social and mobile developments are doing more than bringing consumers into the process – they are also changing the dynamics of the process itself. New survey data released here find that half (50%) of social network users share or repost news stories, images or videos while nearly as many (46%) discuss news issues or events on social network sites. And with broader mobile adoption, citizens are playing important eyewitness roles around news events such as the Boston bombing and the Ukrainian uprising. Roughly one-in-ten social network users have posted news videos they took themselves, according to the data. And 11% of all online news consumers have submitted their own content (including videos, photos, articles or opinion pieces) to news websites or blogs. Just as powerful, though, are the shifts in how news functions in these spaces. On social sites and even many of the new digital-only sites, news is mixed in with all other kinds of content – people bump into it when they are there doing other things. This bumping into means there may be opportunity for news to reach people who might otherwise have missed it, but less of that may be in the hands of news organizations. Only about a third of people who get news on Facebook follow a news organization or individual journalist. Instead, stories get shared from friends in their networks. And few Facebook visitors, according to a separate Pew Research study of traffic to top news sites, end up also coming to a site directly. For news providers, this means that a single digital strategy – both in terms of capturing audience and building a viable revenue base – will not be enough."
^[94]

^[95]

                               

^[96]

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The Competitive Nature of Magazine Industry

^[97]

The story:

 

"Making sure you have sufficient income and cash flow, and having a variety of revenue streams. You have to be quite innovative in developing revenue. Brand extensions have to be unique to each magazine, but [you need] 3-4 revenue streams, including advertising and maybe pay walls, providing information that the reader will pay for. … Most of all with magazines, it’s offering a service that is valuable to readers. You have to really take the magazine apart every issue and look at rival publications. You have to be truthful with yourself and your team: what can you do better, what are you repeating, what direction can you take the magazine without alienating the readers."

^[98] 

"Another major challenge is distribution. In the UK, the retailers take a huge proportion of the distribution fee. If independent publishers can cut that out by finding a method of distribution that wi

ll work for them — maybe digital, or pairing up with partnerships. … For example, if you’re a health magazine, look at pairing up with health food shops. They may distribute for a smaller fee than the wholesalers."

^[99]

"A new trend over here is being a free magazine. They’re distributed around London, Manchester, Edinburgh, all the major cities. You see them on the train a lot, and they’re distributed to universities as well. They’re aimed at the 20- to 25-year-old student or professional. They’ve proved that free magazines don’t have to be rubbish in content. They can be high-end, quality products that have strong journalism and are really worth reading."

^[100] 

"Amid the broad decline of the magazine industry in recent years, news magazines have been among the hardest hit. That trend continued in 2012 for the six publications analyzed by Pew Research Center, Time and Newsweek, as well as four smaller niche publications – The Economist, The Atlantic, The Week and The New Yorker.  The year 2012 also brought another stark reminder of the sector’s continuing crisis: In December, Newsweek ended its print circulation, leaving Time as the sole mass-market magazine among the traditional news magazines."

^[101]

^[102]

Facts to Consider before Investing in the Magazine Industry...

 

1. About one-sixth (16 percent) of the 235 million adults in the United States report that they have seen or read business/financial/economic/investment news in the past 30 days. Among all adults, television and magazines are "tied" as the platforms that reach the most adults for this category of news. Tied in the bottom position are the digital platforms for watching this type of news - computers, tablets, and smartphones. Those who read this category are somewhat more oriented toward consuming it on their computers..(Source: Shullman Research Center)
2. 78 percent of U.S. adults in households with annual incomes of $75,000 and over own smartphones. (Source: Pew Internet)
3. The iPad holds 88 percent of tablet web traffic, followed by Amazon's Kindle Fire at 3.6 percent. (Source: Chitika)

1. 40 percent of male smartphone owners have shared their locations with retailers, versus 25 percent of females. (Source: Shop.org)
2. 50 percent of tablet owners prefer to read news, magazines, and books on screen, rather than on paper. (Source: Gartner)
3. Americans use an average of three screen combinations per day. (Source: Google)
4. Mobile Internet users spend an average of 117 minutes per day online on their devices, and 140 minutes on their desktop PCs or laptops. (Source: CMO Council)
5. 46 percent of tablet owners spend more than $20 per month on purchases made from their devices, compared to 30 percent for smartphones. (Source: IAB)
6. 23 percent of smartphone owners prefer to use a website for shopping, compared to 14 percent for apps. (Source: BIA/Kelsey)

                                                        ^[103]

 

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Circulation Issues in the Industry

 

The Story:

  

All-you-can-read magazine subscription service Next Issue landed on iOS this week. After seeing mixed results with the iPad to date, traditional publishers are eager to learn whether this Netflix-style model can propel them into the digital future. There's a chance - if the smorgasbord approach can overcome three problems. 

The idea certainly has its merits. If consumers pay for music in bulk with Spotify and fork over $8 per month for Hulu Plus, why wouldn't they do the same for magazine journalism? The model may prove itself in time, but there are a few immediate challenges it faces at launch. 

^[104]

 

 

"1. Limited Selection

Perhaps it's rude to pick on Next Issue this early in its history, but from the standpoint of many consumers, its relative dearth of titles is a deal killer. Impressively, it has managed to sign up big-name publishers such as Conde Nast, Hearst and Time Inc. The result is a digital newsstand containing just fewer than 40 popular titles."

 

"That's not bad, but it's still not nearly enough. Time. Glamour. Golf Digest. Wired. Browsing Next Issue's digital shelves feels a bit like perusing the most generic airport newsstand you've ever seen. Some doctor's offices have more variety. There aren't any niche titles. No independent magazines. In the technology category, for example, we get Wired and Popular Mechanics. That's it."

 

"The audience's content tastes have become more specific than ever in the Digital Age. On the Internet, we can read articles from just about any newspaper or magazine on the planet, give or take the occasional paywalled operation. Granted, this content cornucopia doesn't lend itself to the kind of media brand loyalty that leads readers to pick a specific magazine from a newsstand full of titles. But it has trained us to seek content that is more specific to our interests and tastes."

 

"We've also been conditioned to expect access to that content without paying for it. This is exactly the problem that publishers are struggling to address via tablets and, indeed, Next Issue itself. The basic plan for this service costs $120 per year. Assuming the average magazine subscription costs, let's say, $20 per year, that means to be worth the fee, Next Issue must include at least six titles that a given subscriber is likely to read on a monthly basis. For many readers, that's just not likely to be the case. Not yet, anyway."

^[105]

 

 

"2. Print-Centric Design

One common complaint about the tablet-specific editions published by magazines is that they're too analogous to the experience of reading the print version and don't take full advantage of the digital possibilities."

 

"Things have evolved since the iPad launched in 2010, but in many cases, digital magazines are still little more than glorified PDFs. Some Conde Nast titles do a nice job of adding interactive bells and whistles, but don't go far enough to clean up their print layouts and mold them to fit the tablet form factor."

 

"The good news for media companies is that study after study has shown that people love reading on their tablets. Publishers had a hunch that this would be the case; that's why they got so excited about the iPad before it even launched."

 

"Readers are not, however, enamored of digital newsstands like Apple's Newsstand,according to one recent survey. Rather, they prefer to read on the mobile Web and, to a lesser extent, via stand-alone publication-specific apps, many of which still have some digital growing up to do."

^[106]

  

"3. Content Overload

 

"I don't know about you, but my Instapaper queue is completely out of control. As a technology writer, I may have reading habits that are outside the norm, but I suspect I'm not the only person who finds it hard to squeeze in everything I want to read in a given week. With Instapaper, Flipboard, Reeder and Wired (to which I subscribe), it's nearly impossible to keep up with everything. Don't even get me started on the Kindle app, where a virtual shelf of books patiently waits for me to purge my never-ending queue of news and magazine articles."

 

"The idea of gaining access to dozens of magazines sounds appealing. But for those of us with massive information appetites, how feasible is it that we'll be able to make the experience worth $10-15 per month?"

 

"Of course, it's still very early in this particular game. If the selection grows and digital magazines continue to mature, an option like this might catch on with consumers. If the financial model works out, it could help publishers build a stable bridge to the future - before print revenue hits rock bottom."

^[107] 

 

"While newsstand sales continue to tumble, down another 10% for the first half of the year, magazines continue to see rising demand for their digital editions.

According to the Alliance for Audited Media, in the first half of 2013, magazines distributed 10.2 million digital editions per month collectively, nearly double the number circulated in the first half of 2012. Still, digital editions account for only a fraction — 3.3% — of total circulation, leaving many publishers disappointed that the iPad and other tablets haven't done more to help their businesses at a time when newsstand and print adverting sales (fashion category excepted) are particularly adverse."

^[108]

 

"The numbers are worse the closer you look. While 10.7 million is the total number of digital editions distributed per month over the six-month period, that average is heavily skewed by top seller Game Informer Magazine, which circulated nearly 3 million copies per month. Number two, Reader's Digest, sold approximately 292,00 copies per month. Number five,National Geographic, sold around 180,000 per month."

^[109]

 

"Meanwhile, ad sales in digital editions are up 25% in the first half of the year, though the numbers suggest that digital ads are bringing in only a fraction of the dollars that print ads do, largely because they're reaching a much smaller audience."

^[110]

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Future Outlook

 

The story:

 

"Creating a successful future for digital magazines means you need to be able to pay attention to three unique trends at the same time: technology, age, and attention. Open just about any website these days and you will find more research, recommendations, and data on these three areas than you might know what to do with. It is a sea of statistics."

^[111] 

"One positive note is that there is some stability for our world. The content magazine publishers create is, and will continue to be, the one constant we can count on. After all, it is the high-quality content that creates the core of the magazine brand. But once you decide to take that content into the digital world, everything changes."

^[112]  

The magazine industry is under so much pressure from the various influences and challenges that it faces today. When going in to the future of magazines there is a clear uncertainty that reigns present in the consequences of digitizing magazine content. The magazine industry will once again have to prove its worth as it competes against other forms of mass mediums and even against itself. Setting standards for a higher quality print mass medium is the path the magazine industry has set its course to and in order to meet those expectations, publishers will have to start thinking both harder and smarter as tjhey move in to the future in regards to advertisement, digital content, circulation, and distribution. Because the magazine industry is the most democratic in nature, the specialized consumers have a significant amount of control of their content as well as advertisement. In essence, they control the publications, channels, mass mediums, and a large portion of the magazine industry's future. The future of magazines is in the hands of the beholder. Please continue on our Future of Magazines page to see some examples of our future predictions for the magazine industry.

 

 

	Magazine Group
Magazine Industry Past	Magazine Industry Present	The Future of Magazines

 

Magazine Industry Works Cited