The Future of the Magazine Business: Looming Uncertainty - Essay Example

?The future of the Magazine business: Looming Uncertainty? With a flurry of social networking sites which are adding subscribers by the millions every month, the general impression is that everyone who matters has migrated to the internet and its myriad social platforms. Yet, the truth is that the print medium cannot be supplanted overnight. There is considerable steam still left in the business. Critics may scoff and say that in addition to the internet, technology applications that have given rise to newer platforms such as e-readers, tablet PCs and the like would effectively signal the demise of the print media. However, reality may lie elsewhere. It is an interesting exercise to probe and attempt to extricate facts on this topic. Our attempt is aimed at shedding light on this topic through different perspectives on the magazine business. Interesting statistics from the year 2010 point to a continued zeal and surge in the magazine business. Sample this: according to Samir Husni, who is the director of the Magazine Innovation center at The University of Mississippi, 68 new magazines were introduced in July 2010 (Brownberger 2010). The previous year, July 2009 saw the launch of 58 new titles. It appears that the industry is actually growing. Also one cannot go by merely launch figures. In the waiting rooms of executives, physicians, businessmen and politicians, several people routinely flip through a wide assortment of magazines as they wait for their appointments. There is hardly any statistics pertaining to the kind of readership prevalent in such situations. Another perspective on the same argument is the transfer of the medium of publishing. According to a research report released by mediaIDEAS, the revenues from the digital medium are likely to overtake that of the print media (BoSacks 2010). The report’s Author David Renard states that digital products would contribute a larger share of the revenue within a decade. According to his estimates, digital would represent about 58% of the revenues by 2020 and print would reduce to about 33%. Considering another interesting facet to the argument, Pimlott (2011) confidently states that the electronic media has actually increased the distribution of the simpler and ubiquitous form of communication – flyers, leaflets and pamphlets. He terms them as disposable literature and yet fully endorses the evergreen presence of such media. We can extend this argument to the business of magazines. Magazines are also a disposable form of media. It is quite evident that any of the e-readers or netbooks or laptops which serve as the digital platform for news and content cannot be conveniently disposed off. They come at a price and they carry substantial status value to the owner. Hence these technology gadgets are likely to occupy a certain pride of place and accordingly people are likely to keep them away from physical newspapers and magazines of any kind. On the one hand, you have disposable stale stuff such as yesterday’s newspapers and last month’s magazine; on the other hand, you have this technology gadget. Obviously, both merit a different kind of attention. Now we come to the crux of our essay. It is evident that magazines are going through a crisis. Circulation figures have dropped due to lesser off takes from the retail shelves. In addition, the advertising revenue has dropped. This is because a lot of advertisers have spread themselves thin, they are moving out to the internet websites, putting up flashing banners and focused messages on a plethora of potential sites. Their hope is that the target customers would be guided from these websites to their product or services, which could be online or in the physical world. On the other side, the magazines definitely lose out on their advertising revenues. Therefore their margin pressures build up. It is quite possible that a lot of newly established magazines shut down within a year of operations. While analyzing an industry, we look at both sides of the coin. On one side, we have the products and services of the industry, which in this case is the magazine and its content; on the other side, we have the customers, suppliers and competitors. Since customers are declining and competition is continually rising, margin pressures persist. Additionally, raw material cost pressures add to the burden. A fickle customer base which does not want to commit to a yearly subscription adds to the industry’s woes. A few decades back, a lot of magazine titles used to generate confirmed annual revenues from subscriptions. Nowadays, that is not the case. Whenever customers visit their neighboring retail outlet, they can exercise their freedom to pick up a different magazine every other week. Variety has started to kill margins in the business. Technology, a great enabler is often touted as the next big thing. It could be anything from television on your cell phone or tablet PCs that enable you to fit your business into your pocket; they assist in communication and aspire to do all your everyday tasks for you, e-readers that digitize hundreds of books and other such technology gadgets have unconsciously hit the magazine business. Content ultimately rules the business. It does not matter where the content resides. Now that content has moved to the Internet and thenceforth to the e-readers and tablet PCs, customers find it easy and convenient to mix their business tasks with a dose of news and entertainment, all encapsulated in a single gadget. Tremendous advances in microprocessors and software have miniaturized these devices so that they can fit into pockets quite easily. Understandably, it is easier to carry an i-phone and have access to all types of content than carrying a couple of newspapers and magazines. The second advantage of technology is the speed and versatility of access. You could be anywhere in the world and yet access your favorite news channels and magazines. The Internet, coupled with advances in telecommunications and microprocessors has made this possible. Earlier industries talked about technology, telecommunications and transportation, but they merely implied the process or product technology such as the manufacturing process, transportation in terms of the logistics and telecommunications in terms of phone calls. Now, the changes have been radical. Technology and telecommunications, to the current generation refer to the entire plethora of devices and applications which includes cell phones, internet and the available content. Meanwhile, it is quite clear that the magazine business would take a beating in the face of technological advances. What kinds of magazines are actually losing out on business? The answer seems to be hinted by Gabriel (2009) when he states that magazines dealing with shelter, luxury and teens have been amongst those that closed down. Now we need to view this in the context of the global recession of 2008-2009 where these industries took the brunt of the slowdown. As the economy picks up momentum and businesses register profits, the magazine business is likely to grow again. Ultimately it all boils down to consumption. Modern society with its emphasis on aesthetic gratification (Morris 2005) has merely stepped aside to sample something more versatile and simplistic: technology gadgets. Society has just attempted to substitute the print form for the digital one. What would actually drive business in the long run perhaps depends on the popularity and the ease of disposal of the media as was succinctly expressed by Pimlott (2011). For popularity, technology and the gadgets it spawns regularly would win hands down. Yet, when it comes to convenience and disposability, print media is clearly the undeclared winner. In today’s society we are facing a surge in popular demand for celebrity news, images and videos that vividly entertain (Schlesinger 2006). Celebrities could belong to the realm of sportspersons, actors or rock musicians. All this colorful content comes onto the media in its full glory. To a certain extent, the print media does lose out here since it cannot capture videos and moving images. Digital media, on the other hand is able to do full justice to such content. However, if we consider business news and political news, is the use of color and glamour warranted? The answer is a bit hazy. Suffice it to say that the digital media does provide a substitute for the print version. Yet, in the long run, both would coexist. Margin pressures and technology are not likely to squeeze magazines out of business. Reference List BoSacks 2010, Print is not Dead, but Most of the Magazine Industry will be digital in 2020, 16 April, viewed 22 July 2011, Brownsberger, Kari 2010, Is The Magazine Industry Really Dying? 27 Aug, viewed 22 July 2011, < http://www.walkersands.com/Blog/is-the-magazine-industry-really-dying> Morris, Martin 2005, ‘Interpretability and social power, or, why postmodern advertising works’, Media, Culture and Society. Vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 697-718. Pimlott, Herbert 2011, ‘‘Eternal Ephemera’ or the durability of ‘disposable literature’: The power and persistence of print in an electronic world’ Media, Culture and Society, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 515-530. Schlesinger, Philip 2006, ‘Is there a crisis in British Journalism?’ Media, Culture and Society, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 299-307. Sherman, Gabriel 2009, The Magazine isn’t dying, 17 March, viewed 22 July 2011, Read More