Earlier this year we looked at how small culture-based magazines like Theme seemed to be thriving while established magazines and newspapers were struggling to maintain readership levels. A recent article in Urb Magazine by Raymond Roker picks up on this theme and wonders why everyone says that print is dead.
I really love magazines. I mean I know the industry is hurting right now. Hell, URB surely isn’t immune to the bruising. Advertising revenues for 99% of the magazines out there have declined (some, dramatically) and newsstand sales have dropped too. This year alone saw FHM, Stuff, Scratch, and a bunch of others you’ve never heard of, all shut down. Web 2.0 is the new, new media, and people are spending more time with texting than reading text…
But I can’t be bothered with all of this conventional wisdom and unimaginative doom and gloom. And like the cooler edges of the music industry, independent magazine publishers are creatively staving off their demise with innovation, perseverance and gravitas…
From Journal (a soft spoken chance find picked up at a bodega in the East Village) to Good (a sharp, fast-rising noble effort by a trust fund kid), to Color (doing for Skate culture what Wax Poetics does for music), to Metropolis (big, bold, beautiful manmade objects), and numerous others titles I devour, I’ve been inspired on each recent trip to the newsstand and mailbox. And if I’m drinking ink-colored Kool-Aid at the table of the industry’s Final Supper, pass me another glass.
Read more here.
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Reading magazines forms a large part of our research for our trend books and online service http://www.mpdclick.com. The great thing about magazines is the well researched informed perspective that a well focused feature can bring to the reader. The web is great for off the cuff opinion and democratised writings, but you can’t beat print for the considered approach. As Humans the engagement with our senses is also important, paper is touchy feely stuff that is loved by the artists and creatives among us, which makes me think that printed media is not going away any time soon.
Fiona Jenvey CEO Mudpie Design Ltd U.K.
November 20th, 2007 at 7:34 am
Until I can take the Web, roll it up & stick it in my pocket, sit on it, take it to the beach & get sand & suntan lotion on it, read it in the brightest sunlight & still get the high-quality color of 2400dpi 4C printing … magazines will have a place.
Newspapers, I’m not so sanguine about.
November 22nd, 2007 at 9:22 am