Executive Summary

The Bivings Group completed the following research in order to assess the degree to which America’s 50 most circulated magazines are pursuing online strategies. Stagnated circulation trends in 2005-2006, decreased ad dollars spent on the print magazine industry, and a decline in the number of new magazine launches have made it clear that the magazine industry is not immune to the continuous shift toward online resources by consumers. As readers flock to online media sources for news and information, magazines must increase their presence on the Web. In our research all but two of the top 50 commercial magazines had active websites, but the quality of these sites varied greatly.

After examining the websites of popular American magazines, it became evident that the magazine industry’s online strategy is dramatically different than the tactics used by newspapers. Where the newspaper industry uses websites to present recycled content in a digital format, magazines are using the Web as an opportunity to develop interesting, unique, and easily digestible online content. Magazines have proven that the Internet can be an effective supplement to, rather than replacement of, printed content, and have begun using their websites to give consumers content not available in their print editions. However, while the general online strategies of newspapers and magazines may differ greatly, the two types of publications are similar in that neither is making use of online features reflective of today’s Web 2.0 environment. Further, online magazine content is often limited and focused on pushing paid-for subscriptions through the use of banner and pop-up ads.

Key findings:

  • The most common online feature offered by magazines is RSS feeds (48 per cent). All of the RSS feeds offered by magazine websites are partial feeds. This means that RSS feeds display story headlines or brief excerpts from articles as opposed to offering full content via RSS. This indicates that magazines are using RSS to push customers to their site rather than make their content available in alternative formats. In addition, none of the magazines are including advertisementsin their RSS feeds, while just 28 per cent of magazines divide their RSS feeds into different sections.
  • Message boards/forums are offered by 46 per cent of magazine websites. This seemingly old-fashioned form of communication is extremely popular on magazine websites, particularly on the sites of women’s magazines. While the forums generally allow users to read posts without registering, most require that customers become members before making a contribution to forum discussions.
  • 38 per cent of the magazines require registration to view all of the site’s content. While this feature is only present on 23 per cent of the nation’s top 100 newspaper sites, it seems that magazines are still heavily reliant on website registration. It must be noted, however, that newspaper and magazine online registration is very different. The large majority of the magazines we investigated allow users to view article content free of registration. However, to participate in forums, registration is required. This seems to serve as a mechanism for monitoring content that people post on message boards rather than to collect demographic information, as is the case with newspapers. Thus, this 38 per cent figure largely represents magazines that require forum registration, not registration for the purpose of reading articles.
  • 40 per cent of the magazines offer at least one reporter blog. Readers can comment on 17 of the 19 magazine blogs, while eight reporter blogs offer blogrolls, or external links to other blogs.
  • Videois an offering on 34 per cent of websites.
  • The use of other Web 2.0 features was very limited:
  • Just 14 per cent of sites offer podcasts and bookmarking;
  • Eight per cent of sites allow comments on articles
  • Six per cent of magazine websites use tags for organizing and searching articles.

The following graph summarizes these results. More discussion follows.

Methodology

The Bivings Group researched and analyzed the websites of the top 50 commercial magazines in America, based on circulation figures for combined subscription and single copy sale figures. To determine the degree to which these magazines are using the Internet, we evaluated their sites based on the presence or absence of the following elements:

  • RSS Feed: Does the website offer an RSS feed? If yes, is it a full or partial feed? Note that this does not consider RSS feeds for reporter blogs, only for the newspaper’s content.
  • RSS Feed for Different Sections: If the website offers RSS, does it divide the feeds into different sections?
  • RSS Feed Includes Ads: If the website offers RSS, do the feeds include ads?
  • Most Popular: Does the website offer a “Most Popular” function? This can be any
  • feature that keeps track of and displays the “most popular”, “most read”, or “most emailed” articles of the day.
  • Video: Does the website offer video content?
  • Podcast: Does the website offer podcasts?
  • Tags: Does the website use tags to search and organize articles?
  • Reporter Blogs: Does the website offer reporter blogs?
  • Reporter Blog Comments: If the website has reporter blogs, can readers comment on the blogs?
  • Blogroll: If the website has reporter blogs, do the blogs contain links to external blogs?
  • Mobile Version: Does the site offer an alternative version or content designed to be viewed on mobile devices?
  • Comments on Articles: Can users post comments on articles?
  • Registration Required: Is registration required to view articles? If so, is registration free or paid?
  • Bookmarking: Does the website offer a bookmarking function? Is it internal (i.e. save the article on the website) or external (i.e. send the article to a Digg account).
  • Message Boards: Does the website offer message boards or forums?

Circulation data used for this report was obtained from the Magazine Publishers of America. The list of magazines we researched can be viewed in Appendix 1. We omitted several of the publications in the MPA’s top 50 from our research. These magazines included Playboy, whose content we considered inappropriate for professional research; ESPN Magazine, whose website was merely an extension of espn.com; and various AARP and AAA publications, which we did not consider commercial publications. To make up for omitting these publications, we extended our research to the top 57 magazines, although we only researched 50 publications in total.

Data collected from the magazine websites was obtained during the period November 13-November 20, 2006, and thus represents a snapshot in time rather than evolving trends.

I. Introduction

As collaborative and interactive Web functionality, dubbed Web 2.0, increases in popularity, more and more people are turning to the Internet to obtain news and information. This trend towards the digitalization of the news media has been troublesome for printed publications such as newspapers and magazines. In a previous Bivings Group study, “The Use of the Internet by America’s Newspapers”, researchers noted that the number of newspapers in the media market, as well as the circulation figures for the nation’s largest papers, has been declining steadily since the 1990s. This has largely been attributed to the growing importance of the Internet and the fact that average citizens are beginning to search for ways to break the filter and control of the mainstream media. The magazine industry is suffering from a similar fate, and is battling to amplify its sales, circulation, and readership base by developing online strategies.

II. Industry Troubles

As a result of the print circulation declines experienced by the newspaper industry, more and more newspapers are being forced to adopt online strategies in order to combat declining print readership. In the Bivings Group’s “The Use of the Internet by America’s Newspapers”, research clearly showed that while the nation’s top 100 newspapers are present on the Web and using basic online capabilities, newspapers have failed in adopting interactive features, developing original content for the Internet, and integrating modern site designs and advertising models with new online trends. As a result, not only are newspapers losing print market share, but they are also losing out to online news aggregators and providers of niche content. Many newspaper critics believe that as online capabilities and services continue to evolve, newspapers may become a thing of the past.

Several differences set printed magazines apart from newspapers. First, while print newspaper editions present news and information that can be obtained from other sources, magazine content often fills gaps in the market of niche information. Featured celebrity exclusives in magazines such as People, teen-oriented content in magazines such as Seventeen, or gender-focused content like the stories in Maxim or Cosmopolitan usually contain unique and special interest content that is unlikely to be found elsewhere.

Second, newspapers are threatened by online news providers in a way that magazines are not. Magazines are more than just information providers: there is a culture surrounding magazines that relies on the physical aspect of flipping through pages and looking at glossy pictures. “Reading about celebrity weddings on a computer screen is one thing, glossy pictures another, and many readers would rather hold [the pictures] in their hands.”[1] It is because of these inherent differences between newspapers and magazines that print magazines have been able to maintain their presence in the world of new media, while newspapers have been struggling for decades.

Circulation Declines

However, despite the advantages print magazines have over print newspapers, the magazine industry is not without troubles. From 2004 to 2005, the total circulation of the nation’s top 50 magazines declined by .4 per cent. For the top ten magazines, circulation suffered a 1 per cent drop. Further, total magazine subscriptions for the nation’s top 100 magazines declined by .3 per cent last year, while single copy purchases suffered a 1.4 per cent drop.[2] However, where the newspaper industry has been steadily suffering for the past two decades, the magazine industry has experienced inconsistent changes in recent years. The chart below summarizes this volatility.

This volatility in the print magazine industry has led to serious problems at some of the nation’s largest magazines, particularly general interest and news magazines. For example, in December of 2005, Time Inc. was forced to lay off over 100 people, including Eileen Naughton, the president of Time magazine. This was preceded by significant job cuts at Business Week and followed by a second round of cuts at Time in January 2006.[3]

Advertising Declines

Print advertising has suffered as a result of circulation volatility and unpredictable future of print magazines. At Time, for example, ad pages were down 12 per cent (300 pages) and ad revenues dropped 8 per cent ($55 million) in 2005 compared to 2004. Similarly, Newsweek suffered an 11 per cent (247 pages) decline in ad pages and a 6 per cent ($30 million) decline in ad dollars between 2005 and 2004.[4] Sports Illustrated lost 17 per cent of ad pages, while ads in Fortune dropped by nearly 10 per cent. People also suffered heavily, losing 21 per cent of its ad pages, which accounts for about “one-third of the company’s operating profit.” According to the Wall Street Journal, these trends have continued through 2006, to the consternation of magazines throughout the industry.[5] Further, Advertising Age reports that this year, Internet ad dollars will exceed advertising in magazines, marking the first major media industry that the Internet has passed by in terms of ad dollars.[6]

Despite the significant reach of popular magazines, advertisers seem to be losing interest in the print media. Part of this could be due to aging readership, particularly among broad-content magazines. The following chart shows the average age of news readership for three magazines, Time, Newsweek, and US News for the years 1995-2005:

Source: Journalism.org State of the News Media 2006.

Aging readership has caused the importance of magazines as an advertising channel to decrease. Advertisers generally target younger generations to maximize the effectiveness of their ad campaigns, and thus general interest magazines are “aging” themselves out of the advertising dollar market.

Another possible explanation for losses in print advertising could be the content of magazines. As more Americans turn to special interest or niche content magazines and online publications, the interest in news summary content is declining. Placing ads in magazines with specialized content allows advertisers to focus their strategies on particular gender, age, or interest groups, thus making advertising efforts more effective. Advertising in a magazine with broad content, such as Time, takes away the specialized advantage of advertising, and thus is less likely to produce results.

Due to differences in the inherent structure of the magazine and newspaper industry, the Internet appears to be less of a threat to magazines than it is to newspapers. As a result, circulation declines have been less pronounced among the nation’s top magazines than in the nation’s top newspapers. However, volatility among the nation’s most circulated magazines, coupled with aging readership of general interest magazines have caused advertising declines that threaten the business plan of some of the nation’s oldest and most popular publications.

As a result of these troubles within the magazine industry, it is imperative that print publications transition smoothly to online programs in order to benefit from the advertising dollars and readership flowing through cyber space.

III. Magazines Meet the Web

In our survey of the nation’s top 50 most circulated commercial magazines, we determined that these publications are embracing the Web to varying degrees. Some magazines, such as Popular Science, have highly developed websites that offer a plethora of features. Others, however, such as Family Circle, have little to offer in terms of Web 2.0 functionality. A general trend that is evident throughout the online magazine industry, however, is that while newspapers are attempting to replicate their print editions online, magazine websites act as supplements to print material, expanding interest in and interactivity with magazine websites. Easily digestible content, often in the form of polls and “how to” lists, make magazine websites attractive to Internet users, while leaving major articles off websites preserves the position of print magazines in the media market.

While this strategy works well for some magazines, including Maximand Cosmopolitan, many publications have pared down their online content too much, leaving much to be desired from the online versions of magazines. For example, the sites of magazines like Endless Vacation and Guideposts do not have any articles. These sites simply serve to push Internet users toward purchasing subscriptions. While in many aspects supplementary to print content, the content available on magazine websites might also be considered limited, minimal, and brochure-like, in that the sites use pop-up and banner advertisements to push paid subscriptions.

From a technical standpoint, magazines are generally struggling with their use of Web 2.0 features. Only three magazines, Newsweek, Popular Science and Time used more than half of the features we researched, while ten publications used none of the features. On average, magazine websites offered less than three Web features. Judging from this information, it is clear that magazines need to improve their online offerings, but their supplementary online strategies should not be overlooked.

Web 2.0 Features

Despite the fact that magazines have succeeded in providing online content that enhances printed content, the availability of various Web 2.0 features on magazine websites was disappointing. In terms of online functionality, newspaper websites clearly outperform magazine websites, even considering all of the problems with the newspaper industry’s general online strategy. The most popular Web feature for magazine websites, RSS feeds, is only offered by 48 per cent (24 magazines) of the nation’s top 50 magazines. In contrast, the most popular Web feature offered by the top 50 newspaper websites, reporter blogs, is offered by 92 per cent of online newspapers. The graph below illustrates that in the core categories of Web features, newspapers are more likely than magazines to present their consumers with Web 2.0 functionality. It is particularly notable that more magazines require registration than newspapers and that message boards, an extremely important component of magazine websites, are more likely to appear on the websites of newspapers than magazines.

By increasing the number of online features offered on magazine websites, magazines could heighten their presence on the Web, increase online readership, and secure their position in the rapidly evolving online media market.

An interesting strategy has been employed by Timemagazine, which has incorporated its content with CNN.com, a popular online news site. This strategy has enabled Time to provide regularly updated news content online and a relatively advanced Web strategy. Realizing that interest in its broad content, weekly news summary format is declining, Time has adopted an especially aggressive online strategy to buoy its readership base. While most other magazines use their websites as a supplement to their print editions, Time is one magazine that has the potential to go completely digital, leaving its print version behind.

Breakdown of Results

Blogs

Among the most disappointing of magazine features is the lack of reporter blogs on the websites of magazines. Blogs are rapidly becoming a core component of the online habits of American Internet users, and are an easy and effective way to add personality and direct communication to any Web program. The blogosphere continues to grow at an astounding pace, evidenced by the 55 million blogs currently tracked by Technorati.[7] Further, more than a quarter (27 per cent) of adult Americans read blogs at least once a week.[8] Using the estimates of the American adult population from July, 2006, this amounts to more than 65.2 million Americans reading blogs on a regular basis.[9] Therefore, it is a major oversight for 60 per cent of America’s top magazines to omit blogs from their online strategies.