Magazine Industry Research

What is the primary revenue stream for magazine publishing?
 
     -Most people believe ads are the way magazine publishers make their money.  This is true, but      
ads are not the only way they make their money.  Other means of revenue are through subscriptions,
single-copy revenue (i.e.. newsstands in convenience stores), website revenue (almost all magazine
companies have a website), and list revenue (renting their mailing list to advertisers).

How is that revenue stream being threatened?

    -With the growing technology these days, more magazine viewers are migrating fast to digital and mobile (i.e.. tablets, iPads, iPhones).  Most magazine companies are not capturing enough of the growth in digital revenue to make up for what is disappearing from print revenue.

What are some ways that the industry is trying to adapt to those economic threats in order to maintain profitability?

    -These publishers are having to find different ways of bringing in revenue, fast.  Since print advertising is starting to become a thing of the past, these companies are having to create new licensing deals and getting subscribers to pay more while working with software giants like Apple and Amazon.  But in the end, there are two things they have to be good at: Creating very good content, and connecting the consumers to advertisers.

How are these economic shifts leading to shifts in content within this industry?

    -I am going to talk about shifts in content within the mobile and digital perspective. Economic shifts are forcing these companies to switch to the digital age by creating apps and websites instead of solely relying on paper-copies.  They have to look at it from the perspective that a reader is probably not going to read a 5,000 word article about a product on a tablet, iPhone, iPad, etc.  In order to combat this problem, they have to create effective articles within these apps that are not too long, but at the same time, not too short.  This is how the content is changing within these companies.

My ideas about strategies:

    -I am going to talk about my strategy from a mobile device (App) perspective.  I believe the reason people buy these devices in the first place is for simplicity and ease-of-use, which happens to be how Apple portrays all of their products (look how successful is has worked for them).  So, if I were a magazine industry, I would design my app to be simple and easy to use.  I would advertise the new simple "app" we created on our magazine website as well as in the paper subscriptions.  All users like to see simple layouts that are easy to use.