Jessica Dicker of CNN Money wrote today that Gourmet Magazine after 70 years of publication will be shut down despite over 1 million subscribers. In addition to Gourmet, parenting magazine Cookie and two wedding magazines, Elegant Bride and Modern Bride will also be getting the axe.
“The magazine industry is in a difficult position generally speaking, it’s losing revenue to online advertising and it’s a tough business right now,” said Richard Dorfman, managing director of Richard Alan Inc., a financial advisory and investment company focusing on the media industry.
This is futher evidence that online advertising is indeed hiting conventional media hard where it hurts.
A pity really, magazines need to embrace the internet. But that is a lot easier said than done. Unique current content found in specific magazines cannot be found on the internet, because users are unwilling to pay for such content. As soon as unique articles are published on the internet it reappears, usually rehashed, for free in some other internet source, rather than actually paying for the original source.
Once new content is added online it gets redistributed quickly, often without the permission of the magazine/newspaper/author and the original authoring company rarely gets any fees for publishing the article.
While we hail the success of internet and internet advertising there is a tendency to rejoice in the demise of print advertising. As anyone who enjoys a good read knows, it is hard to beat the editorial input of professionals in print, be it in a magazine or newspaper.