Thursday, November 18, 2010

Magazine readership is up; but not for Newsweek.

11/18/10

The latest fall 2010 data shows a 1% increase in total magazine readership to 1.82 billion. But not every magazine is a winner. Those who are include: Fitness, up 23.3%, Self, up 14.1%, Men’s Journal, up 11.1%, and More, up a whopping 31%.

The losers include Newsweek, down 16.1%, and Time, down 8%. And, earlier this month, U.S. News & World Report announced that by 2011 it will be a digital only publication. Combine that with the just announced merger of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, and it seems clear that newsweeklies will soon be just a memory.

So, what will take their place? Are you reading any of the aforementioned lifestyle pubs? Or how about celeb magazines; In Touch Weekly was up 13.1%. (Sass, 2010)

Sass, E. (2010, November 16) Celeb Mags Up, Newsweeklies Lose Audience. mediapost.com Retrieved November 17, 2010, from
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=139634&nid=120829

4 comments:

El DĂ­aLogger said...

Not only with so many magazines to choose from, but also all the online news forums it is difficult to predict what will take the place of news magazines. I've heard it said that print will eventually go away and I'm sure at some point it will be true and we can see that trend begin to take place especially with the magazines. People get their news from online sources more and more so to have one particular magazine take over is a tall order. I used to have a subscription to Men's Health some 5 years ago, but have not had one since. The health, entertainment, and lifestyle magazines seem to be doing ok maybe because with the over abundance of television news channels, busier schedules, and less time, the escape mentally is to live vicariously through the sculpted fit bodies, celebrity low lights, and amazing wardrobes that these magazines have to offer.

Miranda Kwei said...

I think with news happening every second, the Internet serves as instant access to this information. So I can understand the decrease in sales with News based magazines. With that said, digital only publication sounds like great idea, but not everyone likes to read from a computer screen. It can be a real eye soar. So not everyone would be pleased with the decline of these news based magazines. I have personally never purchased Newsweek, Time, etc. But I do purchase lifestyle and celebrity magazines frequently. Even though some of the stories and celeb info are online, I personally like to relax and read these actual magazines. The stories in these magazines are more for entertainment purposes, so we can wait for weekly publications. I can see celeb and lifestyle magazines replacing News based magazines, only because unfortunately In this day and age, when it comes world issues it is all about instant internet access to information.

leslie said...

i feel like the magazines that will continue to do well are ones that benefit from both either being credible or looking good. The magazines like fitness and self probably are doing well because it's so hard to find credible workout/diet advice now, with all the crazy things on the internet. magazines like vogue, GQ, or even something like national geographic, will also probably continue to do well because of the physical aspect of the photos looking good in the magazine. Sure, you can see them on the internet, but the tactile relationship i feel is important.
that being said, news is something you can reliably get online or on tv, and much more instantly, so waiting for newsweek seems like a bad idea, especially for people who really care about news (which would be newsweek's audience).

Alex Costa said...

I am not at all surprised by these statistics. I am not sure why but I will admit that the only magazines that I buy are cooking magazines, and lifestyle magazines like shape and fitness. I thought it was just me but I guess not.
Magazines are definitely a dying trend because you can find out the information that you would in Times or Newsweek very easily online and it is pretty reliable. I myself only use online sources for the news. However I find that when I need to look up recipes or workout routines online, I get many sources and a lot of them I do not trust. That is why I still use magazines for these. I think that this trend is only going to increase and that health magazines have a chance at increasing sales as long as being fit and eating healthy continue to interests to Americans.