Half Of You Stopped Reading About What You Can't Have
Americans are picking up magazines half as often as they once did, sez the latest ABC circulation data. This might be because magazines are a luxury, and in an economy where everyone is tightening budgets, they're expendable. Or maybe because the $3,500 dresses, $85,000 watches and $210,000 sports cars magazines regularly feature are, for readers, no longer aspirational reminders of what's possible, but nightmarish Post-It notes about what will never be.
[WWD]
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Editorial Director
Or maybe it's because I can pick up one magazine at a newsstand for around $5…and nearly every week there are subscription solicitations in the mail that offer a full year for $5 to $10.
There are too many magazines, point blank. There are too many terrible magazines, point blank. There are too many magazines reporting the same damn thing, point blank. There are too many magazines that seem to be copies of each other, and thus end up unoriginal, boring, and not worthy of reading, point blank. The industry needs a correction of eliminating about 500 titles, and the industry should just focus on the other 500 that have something to actually say and something to actually report on. Just one example: Why did anyone sane on earth think that we needed another business magazine such as Portfolio, when we already have Business Week, Money, Inc., Forbes, and Fortune? Plus, business news in myriad magazines and newspapers and a business news all over television, radio and the internet. Why Portfolio? It's that type of duplicitous thinking that creates problems in the magazine world. We simply don't need this many magazines, anywhere, anytime, anyplace.