The Death of IRL (In Real Life) Newspapers and Magazines

with Fern Phan

The death of print moves closer.  Magazines are reporting along with newspapers that circulation and ad sales are down - Washington Post, Rollingstone, NYT, Vanity Fair, etc.  Some of it can be attributed to summer.  The bigger culprit is the internet and the dissolution of publishing bottlenecks coupled with new advertising models it brought with it.  Year of year comparisons across different magazine publications have up to double digit advertising losses since 2006.  MPA

High end, lifestyle, and some monthly glossies are an exception - GQ or Harper's Bazaar are doing well and actually increasing circulation. Times UK

The rule might be that for any paper or magazine where information reigns supreme (and shelf life is finite) and the tactile quality of the publication isn't as important, an electronic version should replace it.  This applies only for pulp, dailies, weeklies, and monthlies.

High end books, glossies that include boutique, vanity, industry and fine art publications will continue to do well and actually grow market share as they differentiate more.  This is the case for the following reasons: 1) size matters - over-sized coffee table collectible image based books; 2) collectibility - small runs with high craftsmanship and detail; 3) exclusivity - industry or vanity runs of publications offers a limited edition (finite supply) not replicable over the internet and/or easily passed out through that channel.  If the paper or magazine has value-added high quality production including design, paper, image, text, and art direction, the internet won't displace it so easily. Especially if it can almost be viewed as something to be collected.

Just as a lot of high detail illustrations and ads of yesteryear were replaced by photography. the internet, digitization and dessimination of information will replace traditional modes of news/trend gathering and dessimination . Bottlenecks have shifted or disappeared as new paradigms emerged and caused structural disruption of old ways of doing things.