Friday, October 24, 2008

Could the Collapse of the Magazine Industry be Upon Us?

I may have put my foot in my mouth when I wrote this post... because, just a few days later, I read this in the Huffington Post. Yes, it's true, Radar Magazine and Radar Online have folded. Though the magazine seems to have steady readership, both in print and online, and was even nominated for a National Magazine Award, it failed to meet financial expectations. The print version of the magazine will be discontinued, while it's online counterpart is being sold to AMI and will likely exist as somewhat of a TMZ-type site.

I still hold true to my claim that magazines offer the depth of coverage that blogs simply can't provide and thus won't completely abandon print in favor of fancy, interactive Web sites anytime soon, however with a 9.5% drop in magazine ad revenue this past year, investors are begining to lose faith that the industry will remain monetizable.

While I personally hope that magazines continue to stay afloat, this is proof that advertisers are begining to follow customers' desire to go digital and looking to spend more of their dollars online. In this industry and amidst Web 2.0, the magazines that will win are the ones who can show advertisers that print offers true value that digital sites can not.

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