The reality… is that the word magazine (derived, appropriately, from the Arabic for ‘warehouse’) describes a widening range of publications, digital services, business models – and performance. So it is that weekly celebrity-studded magazines have been shredded by the first-hand gossip on Twitter; special interest magazines and those targeting older audiences are fairly stable; global magazine brands have retained their hold on upscale international advertising despite pressure on circulations; ‘customer’ magazines are doing well – because they are funded by retail, travel and financial sponsors; and, in the UK, free distribution magazines are growing in readership, advertising and profitability. But many paid-for monthly women’s magazines, whose cover prices had long been ‘subsidised’ by advertising, are increasingly vulnerable.
Read the full piece at Flashes & Flames
