The Decline in the Print-Based Magazine Industry

The majority of regional magazines are print-based therefore,  before I start planning my regional magazine I wanted to know how and reasons why the overall distribution and sales of print based magazines has declined. Regional magazines include different features so by knowing what people have an interest in, I will adapt features to fit my regional magazine.

With the increase digital platforms and convergence of media, it is more efficient and easier to access magazines on your personal device. This is the most likely explanation as to why the print based magazine industry has declined by 18% overall subscriptions with a 10% overall fall in 2011.  432 UK print magazines closed between August 2011 and July 2013.That means for every 100 magazines published in August 2011, 15 were closed within two years.  142 magazines have been launched in those two years, but seven have already closed since and that still means there are 290 fewer print magazines in the UK now, than there were in August 2011.

There have been new pitches, inventing apps which replace the magazine on tablets and electronic devices. Alternative magazine formats on electronic devices include; PDF: fixed aspect ratio layouts; HTML. The Times and Vogue apps, for instance, do as good a job in delivering the daily newspaper now as the paper version. With the delivery of the basic information these apps enable the user to organise their own interests by having a section of their most-read topics, thereby creating a more user-efficient magazine. Most aspects of these apps are free and are more beneficial for those struggling financially.
There are major benefits of ads being seen in the tablet rather than paper format. More and more  magazines are moving from a print-first production process to a digital-first process.



The Increase of particular print-based magazines
Although the overall sales in the print-based magazine industry have recently fallen, some small magazine companies have found an increase in buyers, whilst these larger companies, such as Vogue have lost sales.  I was surprised to find that the most sold magazine of 2015, according to Better Retailing, is TV Choice which has sold over 1 million single newsstand copies.  The magazine predominantly focuses on pop culture gossip, the target demographic stereotypically being young women and mothers.  However the basis of the magazine is a TV guide and so the elderly may be high buyers, being that they generally won't know how to look for TV listings in the guide digitally.