Do you subscribe to any magazines? What are they? What is their focus, their purpose? As I look at the various printed products that we can advertise in, I'm willing to bet that the current event style magazines, that are published weekly are going to suffer, just as the newspaper business has suffered.
Declining interest in "old news" is the major reason. The instigator? The Internet and the websites of the printed products. FortWayne.com is the most visited website in my town, Fort Wayne, Indiana. And it is operated by the local newspaper.
Nationally, there are cuts going on too:
U.S. News & World Report to Go Monthly, Source SaysA U.S. News rep would not confirm the change, which was reported earlier Nov. 4 by Folio and Mediabistro.comNov 4, 2008  A U.S. News rep would not confirm the change, which was reported earlier Nov. 4 by Folio and Mediabistro.com. Another source close to the magazine said U.S. News announced to employees Nov. 4 that the magazine would be putting greater focus on the Web, with emphasis on such topics as education, health and news. “I know they’re looking at everything,” the source said. Newsweeklies have been hard hit, along with many magazines, by the current ad downturn; but separately, the category has long suffered from readers’ ongoing migration to the Web for news. So far this year, ad pages at U.S. News tumbled 30.5 percent, to 960, per the Mediaweek Monitor. (The title published 11 fewer issues so far this year versus the comparable year-ago period.) U.S. News already scaled back dramatically once this year, whacking its rate base to 1.5 million from 2 million while chopping its frequency to 36 issues from 46 issues. At the same time, it has sought to carve out a niche by increasing its focus on service journalism, building on its “Best Colleges” rankings franchise. U.S. News isn’t alone in rethinking its business model; Newsweek also cut its guaranteed circ this year, by 16 percent to 2.6 million, and under CEO Tom Ascheim is said to be mulling alternative formats for the 75-year-old title, including scrapping its print edition and publishing online only. A year earlier, Time magazine cut its rate base cut 19 percent, to 3.25 million. |
Here's a story about our local newspapers from FWDAILYNEWS.COM:
Fort Wayne’s two daily newspapers both saw declines in circulation in the last year, according to preliminary figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation.
The Journal Gazette, the city’s morning newspaper, saw a 3-percent decline in its weekday circulation, which was 61,709 at the end of September, compared with 63,727 a year earlier. Sunday circulation declined nearly 5 percent from September 2007, dropping from 114,798 to 109,359.
Julie Inskeep, the Journal Gazette’s publisher, said she had expected another circulation drop at the newspaper, but also believes the numbers will pick up.
Inskeep said about 80 percent of the decline was related to the company’s Friday-through-Sunday subscription package. Rates increased, and that likely forced some customers to drop subscriptions, she said.
“I really do think that we’ll bounce back up a little bit,” Inskeep said. “We’re hopeful we’ll get some of that back.”
The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne’s afternoon daily newspaper, lost 10 percent of its weekday circulation, dropping to 22,618 as of Sept. 30, compared with 25,078 a year earlier.
News-Sentinel Publisher Mike Christman, who also is president and CEO of Fort Wayne Newspapers, which produces both newspapers under a joint operating agreement, could not be reached for comment.
Most of the newspaper industry took a hit as circulation continued to decline at some of the nation’s largest papers, including the New York Times, which saw about a 4-percent drop in weekday circulation over last year, and the Chicago Tribune, which saw nearly an 8-percent decrease.
The Indianapolis Star, Indiana’s largest daily newspaper, saw its weekday circulation decrease more than 3 percent and Sunday circulation drop about 5 percent from September 2007.
The News-Sentinel’s decline has been particularly dramatic during the last few years. Since September 2003, weekday circulation has decreased 43 percent. In September 1999, the paper boasted a weekday circulation of more than 46,300, more than twice its circulation now.
The News-Sentinel does not publish a print edition on Sundays.
The Fort Wayne dailies exist under a joint operating agreement that ensures they maintain separate editorial staffs. They share advertising and other business functions through Fort Wayne Newspapers.
Inskeep said she wished her competitor was stronger, but said the News-Sentinel is following the trend of most other afternoon dailies. She said circulation declines should be expected among afternoon publications.
“They’re just totally following the trend line that afternoon newspapers are following,” she said.
ABC did not list figures in its FAS-FAX report for several smaller papers in the region, including those owned by Business Weekly parent KPC Media Group Inc. KPC President Terry Housholder said the company submitted the figures, but they did not make it into the report released Oct. 27. Business Weekly was not audited by the ABC.
The Herald-Republican in Angola saw its Sunday circulation drop by just one copy from its September 2007 figure, and Monday-through-Saturday circulation decreased by 1 percent. Circulation of the News-Sun in Kendallville decreased 3 percent throughout the week, according to numbers Housholder provided.
The Evening Star in Auburn decreased nearly 5 percent on Sunday and 3 percent Monday through Saturday.
Housholder said in an e-mail he was pleased the papers have some of the most stable print circulations in the state.
“That’s despite the economic decline in northeast Indiana in recent months,” he said. “Prior to this year, we have seen consistent circulation growth in our three dailies.” Sphere: Related Content
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2 comments:
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While I was browsing the Internet for ways to boost my website exposure, I read about how effective offline media is for getting additional exposure. Since online media advertising has become so competitive, I thought I will complement the online marketing efforts of my products with offline media advertising like newspaper and magazine advertising. This can be the best way to get a wider coverage for a website and draw additional traffic. I think it is a great marketing strategy to use both online and offline advertising to get more customers.
I thought this information might be useful for anyone looking for solutions to get me-ore traffic to their website.
One of the biggest challenges traditional media has is revenue. Their business model was based on a stream of money coming in before the masses started going to the internet to get at no cost, what they used to spend money for.
That's the biggest problem with the newspapers and magazines.
On the other hand, there are still plenty of people that read them, but unless they can revamp their cost of running their businesses, they will disappear.
And Mass media can be a good way to get the word out about your online presence.
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