THE RISE AND FALL OF PRINT MEDIA
By Mona Loring
Early this year, MLC PR publicist Jordyn Borczon wrote a piece about the dying breed of print magazines. It seems that she was right on the money and the print media industry has sadly, only gotten worse. According to recent statistics, so far this year 92 print magazines have gone under... I am getting word daily of more magazines hanging on by a thread including XXL, INTERVIEW, and many others.
According to MediaFinder.com (an online database owned by Oxbridge Communications) and other sites offering news of the magazine and online media industry, there were 187 new magazines started in the first half of 2009. But there were an unprecedented number of magazines folding - 279 - which means a net loss of 92 titles.
The magazine category faring the worst was regional publications with 27 titles closing, including DENVER LIVING, FLORIDA INSIDE OUT, OCEAN DRIVE EN ESPANOL. The lifestyle category saw 14 titles shuttering and business saw 10, including Conde Nast's PORTFOLIO.
Trade magazines were not spared with construction-related titles hitting the hardest with 18 magazines gone due to the difficult conditions in the American real estate market.
TV GUIDE* is trying to survive and owner private equity firm OpenGate Capital appointed Jack Kliger, former Hachette CEO as interim CEO and senior adviser to the company. The magazine has already cut staff, trimmed its rate base from 3.2 million to 2.9 million, and reduced its frequency from 46 to 40 issues this year. The magazine recently launched its website at tvguidemagazine.com, but it may suffer from the confusion with tvguide.com, which was sold separately...
Music magazines are being hit hard as well. VIBE, the urban-music magazine founded by Quincy Jones, ceased publication effective June 30, due to "lack of additional financial investments." Danyel Smith, Vibe's editor-in-chief wrote: "On behalf of the VIBE CONTENT staff (the best in this business), it is with great sadness, and with heads held high, that we leave the building today. We were assigning and editing a Michael Jackson tribute issue when we got the news. It's a tragic week in overall, but as the doors of VIBE Media Group close, on the eve of the magazine's sixteenth anniversary, it's a sad day for music, for hip hop in particular, and for the millions of readers and users who have loved and who continue to love the VIBE brand. We thank you, we have served you with joy, pride and excellence, and we will miss you." The magazine has been stumbling along for several years, dropping ad pages 36% since 2005 and with newsstand sales falling 11% in the second half of 2008 from the previous year. The owner, Wicks Group of Companies, last February cut Vibe's circulation 25%, reduced its frequency from 12 to 10 issues a year, and slashed salaries 10% to 15% but neither was of any help.
The future of the music magazine genre looks bleak. BLENDER* is gone, ROLLING STONE* and SPIN* ad pages are down 21% and 26%, respectively. And, THE SOURCE, XXL, FADER, PASTE – may not make it past 2009...
For teens, COSMOGIRL and TEEN magazine have shut down and numerous online teen websites are taking their place and successfully, too.
That leads into this: what can we do as people in the PR industry to fix this? Turn to online media that is just as credible and popular among readers. For example, Maxim.com has 2.5 million viewers a month. That is an incredible amount of exposure. Plus, the upside to online publications is that it costs the companies less to produce content and therefore, they are a bit more likely to offer coverage and sometimes, more of it. Additionally, with the beauty of Google, people are much more likely to catch an interview or feature story online than someone is to pick up a magazine and find you in it.
Needless to say, MLC PR is a strong believer in online media, and we are hoping that our clients and colleagues understand the necessary shift in thinking. Even though we think it’s better to be online, for the non-believers out there, you may not even have the choice much longer.
* MediaFinder.com provided many of the statistics in this document.
