Dan’s Writing Blog

Paper publication sales experienced their worst fall in sales for decades, in the second half of 2008. Sales of advertising in magazines was also hit hard, falling 12% on the previous year’s figures, and unfortunately this is a trend than many expect to continue into 2009. The year certainly didn’t get off to a good start, with first 3 months seeing advertising sales fall a further 28.3%.

Local newspaper are being hit especially hard by the decline in demand for paper publications. As the major newspapers, such as the New York Times, experience increased traffic to their websites, this has also come at the expense of visitors to the websites of smaller local newspapers, who are unable to gain the same level of internet exposure.

Magazine sales have been less seriously affected but have seen a decline in sales, in certain sectors. Automotive publications have been hit especially hard as a plethora of new and established websites cater for every type of car enthusiast. Top Gear Magazines subscriptions are lower than previous years and seem set to continue falling. Other areas of the magazine market remain relatively unaffected, with sales of female glossy magazines and Gardening publications remaining buoyant. Gardeners World Magazine subscriptions have remained almost totally static in the last few years.

Another major worry for the big media companies is increasing popularity of non-traditional news outlets like Google and Yahoo, whose power is undoubtedly growing.

E-readers may yet prove to be the savior of traditional paper publication companies. With improvements in technology making e-reading easier and more accessible, e-publications may well become replace paper newspapers and magazines. But as the race to develop the best news delivery method gather pace, it remains unclear what the new business model for news networks will look like.

Regardless of future technological advances in news delivery, the paper publication is unlikely to disappear altogether. Of course some magazines and newspapers will certainly be unable to survive but the big players will remain because they have the financial means to innovate.