Magazines & Newspapers Going Out of Business
Conde Nast is closing some of their magazines, Time Inc. is closing publications and laying off people by the thousands. Everybody's blaming the Internet. The Internet is killing all the newspapers and the magazines. There are plenty of websites that keep track of which publications are dying. The 2 big ones are:
- Magazine Death Pool
- The Photo District News Pulse as part of their coverage for photographers.
The Magazine Publishers of America is an association that keeps track of 249 magazines and their ad revenues. In 2009, 227 saw their ad revenues shrink in 2009 compared to 2008. That's 227 out of 249. This means that there are 22 magazines that make money and grow in spite of the recession and in spite of the Internet:
| Magazine | Increase in ad revenues 2009 over 2008 |
|---|---|
| Better Homes And Gardens | 1.9% |
| Ladies' Home Journal | 2.5% |
| Soap Opera Digest | 2.5% |
| Executive Travel SkyGuide | 4.0% |
| Family Fun | 4.3% |
| Woman's World | 5.4% |
| Endless Vacation | 5.7% |
| Women's Health | 8.8% |
| More | 12.7% |
| Muscle & Fitness | 13.2% |
| Scholastic Parent & Child | 14.5% |
| Flex | 15.4% |
| Organic Gardening | 17.4% |
| OK Weekly | 17.5% |
| Fitness | 17.5% |
| Saveur | 18.9% |
| Family Circle | 21.8% |
| Twist | 22.1% |
| The Week | 30.4% |
| People Style Watch | 32.2% |
| Fine Cooking | 66.2% |
| Spry | 550.6% |
So why these magazines are growing when the rest of the industry is crashing and closing? My opinion is that the badly managed magazines and newspapers are the one in trouble. And the majority of magazines and newspapers are very poorly managed. Some well managed information companies are growing in these hard times. Take a look at Bloomberg. The New York Times can't get people to pay $20 to $50 per month for their Internet website. Bloomberg charges between $1700 per month to as much as $5000 per month for access to financial information that you can find most of it for free at Finance Yahoo.com or Money Central MSN.com
- It's always easier to blame somebody else for your problems instead of looking as what you can do to improve.
- What's your competition doing right? Why is this wedding photographer making money hand over fist while you are struggling?
- What can you copy from your competition?