Do Not Stop the Presses
October 8, 2009
One of my two or three readers called to my attention that certain sectors of publishing are doing well. I asked this former newspaper professional and licensing expert to expand on her email. The original essay by Patricia V. Roberts appears below:
If you’re waiting for paper publishing to die, don’t hold your breath. Gloomy headlines notwithstanding, the total audience for magazines has quietly increased over the past decade. MediaDailyNews reported recently that an analysis of 81 top titles shows an overall audience gain of 8 percent between 2000-2009. How can that be? Print is going the way of the dinosaur, isn’t it? Nobody reads on paper anymore, right? Well let’s just take a peek and see.
Magazine subscriptions reached a ten-year high in 2008, and 21 percent of new subscriptions came from the internet. And magazines return the favor. Paper publications outperform internet and email advertising, online communities, and WOM in influencing consumers to do a merchandise search online. In the past five years, the number of issues read per month has increased 5 percent among the total population, and that’s not just among older readers. In the oh-so-attractive 18-34 year old segment, the number of issues read each month rose by 8 percent. In fact, the median age of magazine readers consistently trends younger than the total population.
It makes sense if you consider a few of the key characteristics of paper publishing that aren’t easily translatable to the electronic world. Magazines are portable, they can be shared easily, and they can be beautiful. You can’t tear a page out of an electronic newsletter, and even if you print a copy of a travel article with a gorgeous photo of the Rainbow Bridge, the quality of your printer and your paper will determine how pretty it looks tacked over your desk. Magazines can be kept and read again, or passed along to others. They can cover topics in depth versus the “new right this minute” blurbiness of the internet. Don’t be fooled by the “soft” nature of these benefits. Smart publishers are using multiple channels to delight their readers. So don’t stop the presses just yet.
Sources: Media Post Publications, FOLIO, DMNews, MPA.
Patricia Roberts, October 8, 2009
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