Print in Peril: More Magazines Bite the Dust

Last week the magazine industry suffered from more cutbacks.

Thursday, the Reader's Digest Association said it will lay off about 300 people, some eight percent of its employees, it'll put employees on unpaid furloughs and suspend contributions to workers' 401(k)s. The Company publishes its eponymous Readers' Digest, Every Day with Rachael Ray, many magazines overseas, websites including Allrecipes.com, and a new magazine and organization, Purpose Driven Connection, built around Rick Warren. The company isn't shuttering any of its U.S. magazines or websites, but it is cutting back at its operations around the world.

Other magazines aren't so lucky—last week Conde Nast decided to shut down its Domino home magazine and website. The magazine's ad pages dropped just 4.5% in 2008, compared to the 9.4% drop in ad revenues of magazines as a whole. The housing crisis having its impact—Domino is the latest of a half-dozen home magazines across the publishing companies to shutter in the past twelve months. Country Home from Meredith Corp. (MDP) is publishing its last issue in March. Time Inc. (TWX) pulled the plug on Cottage Living, which printed its last issue in December 2008. Hearst Magazine (HTV) was forced to close O at Home, despite the fact that the quarterly magazine had 700,000 paying subscribers when it shut down in the fall.

Green-themed magazines are also going extinct. National Geographic ended its Green Guide magazine in December, just nine months after introducing it. Just this month a green living magazine called Plenty shut down. Stocked in newsstands and Whole Foods (WFMI), it promised advertisers a paid circulation of 200,000 six times a year. Still, the magazine couldn't raise enough financing to continue.

But magazine's challenges aren't genre-specific. Hearst's Teen Magazine is no longer, Walt Disney's (DIS) ending its Wondertime parenting magazine. Ziff Davis Media is closing down Electronic Gaming Monthly and PC Magazine. Time Inc is ending Sports Illustrated Latino.

The list goes on and on.

If you're looking to really wallow in how bad the magazine industry is these days, check out this blog, magazinedeathpool.com, which chronicles the latest closings.

Comments

[donzelion]

Railroads + autos = the end of horse buggy manufacturing.
Inexpensive photoprinting = the end of Life Magazine (up til it closed, the most successful periodical...)
Internet + digital readers = end of print magazines.

We should not mourn the passage of time and the toll it takes, but only the crisis and turmoil of those stuck trying to make the adjustments. If hope a good number of the journalists looking at getting laid off come up with alternatives quickly.

2009 Feb 01 03:54 PM

[Big Al45]

donze

As any resident of Central Pennsylvania can tell you, there is still a market for horse and buggy manufacturing, albeit a very small one.

Likewise, there will be a market for newspapers and magazines, but the number of suppliers will have to decline significantly.

2009 Feb 01 08:54 PM

[Marcap]

It's not at all surprising that the magazine Industry is in a downward spiral. Unfortunately most publishers have lost sight of what their products should really be. Rather than providing valuable content for which subscribers are willing to pay a decent subscription rate, with few exceptions subscribers are simply swamped with catalogs of the same advertisements, spotted with just a few regurgitated stories in an feeble attempt to fit the magazine's title. This of course renders such magazines virtually worthless to either readers or advertisers.

2009 Feb 01 11:13 PM

[prudentinvestor]

I believe there will be a market for printed magazines well into the forseeable future. It will shrink due to the internet, but not disappear. There are some, including myself, who enjoy the physical attribute of reading a good magazine, and being able to take it to along and share it with others.

Perhaps we had just gotten to the point of too many titles within each theme, so maybe the number will shrink, perhaps considerably, before stabilizing.

2009 Feb 02 07:54 AM

[Midwest]

Thank you but the cry of the "Death of magazines" because of the web has been going on for 12+ years while the industry continued to make 10 or more times the revenue than the web did. And, by the way, the revenues generated by web ad sales is still a fraction of the revenue raised by traditional media despite the horrific downturn that has taken place.

The end of print? Yeah, just like we're going to have a paperless office...


On Feb 01 03:54 PM donzelion wrote:

> Railroads + autos = the end of horse buggy manufacturing.
> Inexpensive photoprinting = the end of Life Magazine (up til it closed,
> the most successful periodical...)
> Internet + digital readers = end of print magazines.
>
> We should not mourn the passage of time and the toll it takes, but
> only the crisis and turmoil of those stuck trying to make the adjustments.
> If hope a good number of the journalists looking at getting laid
> off come up with alternatives quickly.

2009 Apr 28 10:51 AM

[Midwest]

You are right on with this comment. Because a mildly successful magazine can make so much money, publishers rush in where there is no market to begin with and then fail miserably.

A quality product that is NOT given away for free will survive in both digital and print formats.

During a bull market, some marginal products survive. However, in a bear market, no marginal products ever survive. We're seeing the death of average magazines that exploited a spend happy consumer and the willingness to buy less than optimal product.


On Feb 01 11:13 PM Marcap wrote:

It's not at all surprising that the magazine Industry is in a downward spiral. Unfortunately most publishers have lost sight of what their products should really be. Rather than providing valuable content for which subscribers are willing to pay a decent subscription rate, with few exceptions subscribers are simply swamped with catalogs of the same advertisements, spotted with just a few regurgitated stories in an feeble attempt to fit the magazine's title. This of course renders such magazines virtually worthless to either readers or advertisers.

2009 Apr 28 10:56 AM