Overview of the magazine industry

In the magazine industry today, publishers, editors and directors are creating unique, interesting, enticing and exciting magazines for society. After 14 years of extreme concern with the magazine industry, publishers were suffering from lack of circulation purchases. Beginning in 1996, with the “Stamp sheet subscription decline” and “Wholesaler Consolidation”, the chaos followed on with the “tech bubble”, “Audit Bureau Rule Changes”, “The Competitive Threat of Search and Social Media”, “The financial bust” and “A shift towards female publications” to name but a few. Due to this, the magazine growth fell by 14% in 2006 and since then has had a large effect on the availability of magazines.

In the UK, it is said that 3.7 million magazines are sold per day, having 2,400 sold a minute. Due to magazines such as “the stool pigeon”, “Properganda” and “DIY magazine” being given to the public for free, the original circulation has decreased to the point that it is having a sudden effect on the magazine industry and the amount of magazines sold. In 2009, magazine publishing became a popular career whilst bigger magazine titles were being introduced to society, over powering the older, smaller brands. Through much disagreement, smaller brands began to create more appealing magazines that included all of the latest, important information, pictures and gossip to entice their target audience.

Having four major classified labels including "consumer", "business", "customer" and "newspaper supplements",  the magazine industry also provides the public with smaller labels, "part works" and "academic journals".

Through research, I have found many top listed magazine companies with the different kinds of magazines they published. Some of these companies include “Bauer”, “Conde Nast”, “Hearst” and “Time Warner”. Along with the companies, magazines such as “Cosmopolitan”, “Marie Claire”, “Entertainment Weekly” and “Soaps in depth” were created. It is said that in 2012, the most popular music magazines are both produced from the same company, Bauer. Both Q magazine, 1986, and Mojo, 1993, have a circulation of over 80,000 people each year, whilst producing magazines focusing around the latest music, radio, film and reviews.

Director of Bauer magazine mentions, “Bauer's influential music brands continue to dominate in the UK, underlining the loyalty of our highly engaged audiences and our commitment to delivering the best content in a 360 experience. Our magazines sit at the heart of our multi-platform music brands, which have never been more connected with their passionate and influential audiences in print, online, radio, events, TV, podcasts, social media and our world renowned awards."

Since the upgrade of technology, magazine publishers have had to create magazines that include unique, valued information to keep the circulation going. Other technology such as mobiles, radios and social networking give the target audience the information that is likely to be written within the magazine for free, acknowledging the fact that the magazine will lose their likely fans. The popular magazine, NME, has said to have decreased its circulation by 14.3% in the first half of 2011 to the circulation of 29,020 people. Although the magazine brand is being published in many different methods such as mobile, TV, radio, live events, social media and the magazines, “IPC” have mentioned that it is still recognised as a multi-platform media brand.

For the future, it is said that due to the sudden rise of magazine producers, new technology and bigger companies, methods such as organising structures, improving the “Circ quality”, improving app technology due to the rise in people purchasing smart phones, investigating in data development and becoming more familiar with the target audience are ways in which magazine companies can become stable.