Are News Magazines on the Decline?



According to many experts in the field of media, it won"t be long before we start to see major news magazines such as The New Yorker or The Economist locks the doors to their printing presses. Tabloids such as US News will soon be a thing of the past. Instead we will get our daily, updated-to-the-minute news from websites such as Foxnews.com, Politcio.com, or Littlegreenfootballs.com.

In 2005, many experts worried the news magazine business was declining. The number of advertising pages sold was down in 2005 for many titles, and down sharply at some of the biggest, including Time and Newsweek. These industry experts were hoping for a 2006 bounce back. It never came. In its place, they were left with slumping advertising sales and overall disappointing profit margins on the year.

Many industry insiders point to the internet as the reason behind all of this; the growth of online news has eroded some of magazines" reader and revenue bases. The public is moving towards the internet for their news. Their attention is shifting from once a week news magazines to daily weblogs and news sites that can update their pages with the most recent stories. It"s an easier and more efficient vessel of information compared to a print article.

Part of their market, as the web grows, is moving away from big media and demanding more "stuff" and less "fluff" from their news. This is an audience that is starved for substance, which is successful at their jobs, that is educated, that wants information in depth and not just the latest sound-bite or factoid. This market is not easily fooled and they have the tools now to talk among themselves through this new interactive news medium. In other words, people would like to have news that affects their lives openly available to them and not to be told what is or isn"t newsworthy.

Let"s use the Anna Nicole Smith case as an example. While her life and story was tragic, many people will agree that weeks of unending coverage is a little overboard. I"m sure that some people are truly interested in who her little baby"s father is, but I am willing to bet most news seekers would rather read something more important to the global picture such as Iran or North Korea"s nuclear ambitions. Others would rather read background biographies on some of the soon-to-be presidential candidates rather than the misadventures of a few spoiled rich kids, i.e. Britney Spears or Paris Hilton.

There are some serious questions about what new methods and directions the publishing companies will implement. They will need to ask what it will mean to magazines and how it will work for the advertisers. In this difficult economic period, the magazine industry is open to any new ideas and strategies available.

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