Wondering How Far Magazines Must Fall

Magazines are in crisis. People aren't buying them much anymore.

From a story in the New York Times...

The problem is more existential than that: magazines, all kinds of them, don’t work very well in the marketplace anymore. 

Like newspapers, magazines have been in a steady slide, but now, like newspapers, they seem to have reached the edge of the cliff. Last week, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported that newsstand circulation in the first half of the year was down almost 10 percent. When 10 percent of your retail buyers depart over the course of a year, something fundamental is at work. 

I talked to an executive at one of the big Manhattan publishers about the recent collapse at the newsstand and he said, “When the airplane suddenly drops 10,000 feet and it doesn’t crash, you still end up with your heart in your stomach. Those are very, very bad numbers.”