Happy Mags vs. Dark Streamers
Which niche are you? Issue #109
What is it about magazines that lights me up? Is it the cover images? The feel of the paper? The sheer overwhelmingness of a well stocked and merchandised newsstand? No matter how much I tried to like them, I never got into digital magazines. I bought into the hype a decade ago that digital mags on tablets were going to “save us”. It didn’t, and I figured out the reason pretty quickly. A digital replica, to be honest, is boring as hell. A website can call itself a magazine all it wants, just like CBS’ 60 Minutes calls itself a “news magazine.” But it isn’t and they aren’t. Sorry.
For a long time I’ve been consuming my news digitally via my desktop while working, and a laptop when not. I was also reading a lot of books on an iPad until recently - because my iPad finally died of old age and I just don’t feel like handing any more money over to Apple right now. So I’m back to reading books in actual print. It turns out that printed books make me happy.
Magazines are about doing things. Literary titles encourage you to read and expand your horizons. Sewing magazines encourage you to take out a thread and needle. Boating magazines are all about being on the water.
And yet, so much of our other entertainments are about dark things. What is it about this time in this decade that brought that about? How many shows on streaming channels celebrate anti heroes, true crime, corruption, the worst people? The most current iterations of the Star Trek franchise don’t celebrate the advancement of science and human decency, but reflect the current negativity in our culture. Likewise, the super hero movies are mostly about breaking things and blowing stuff up.
I admit that I’m mostly thinking about the niche service titles. The magazines with sub 100K print runs that are all about trains, or car collections, fishing, traveling in RVs or reading books.
We need more light in this world. Do you have a niche title that makes you happy?
one___Ms. Magazine at 50 years
I honestly can’t remember the last time I watched a show like 60 Minutes, but while searching for things about this celebrated feminist magazine reaching 50 years of continuous publishing, this was the first thing that popped up. And it was incredibly interesting to hear the founders discuss their vision, their struggle, and to think about how there is still a direct line from then to now and how similar the struggles remain.
While you’re at it, I often think about one of my very first solo clients, Sassy Magazine. Here’s an interesting piece from The Yale Review comparing and contrasting the impact of Ms, Sassy and the Jezebel site.
two___NME is back in print
As long as we’re celebrating the 50th birthday of a magazine on this side of the Atlantic, let’s look “across the pond” and applaud the revival of NME, one of the most influential music magazines in the UK.
The original incarnation of NME was a paid print title that at one point hit 300K copies. But by the previous decade, under the ownership of Time, Inc UK, the title became a freebie and then in 2018 was canceled as a print publication and made all digital.
The newest version of the magazine, like so many re-born print titles, will be a high cover price bi-monthly. At £10 (About $12 in the US), this is not going to have a huge circulation. In the UK, you’ll be able to find it at Dawsons and what they refer to as “exclusive global drops.”
three___Four months later, does print really have a new lease on life?
I’ve been thinking about this opinion piece by City Guide, NY publisher David Miller for the past month. Yes, he’s right. People, or some people (maybe people over the age of 40?), get fatigued with digital and are turning back to print.
Yes, there is something of a resurgence of print. And, yes, there are pieces out there about Gen Z liking print .
And, yes, advertisers and readers find print advertising less intrusive, etc.
But as someone who spends most of his time on the business side of the magazine world, all I can say is that the economics of print are still incredibly difficult and the resurgence in print may wind up being something like the resurgence in vinyl records. Cool. Fun. A better experience. But there’s still Spotify to contend with.
four___Jeune Afrique Magazine suspended from Burkina Faso
The Western African nation of Burkina Faso, formerly a French colony, underwent a military coup recently. The junta expelled the French ambassador to the country and recently suspended French funded broadcasters like France24
Jeune Afrique is a French language pan-African newsweekly that was founded in 1960. It is published in Paris but is, according to its Wikipedia page, the most widely read pan-African magazine.
It’s expulsion from Burkina Faso suggests that press freedom in the country is endangered. Democracy and freedom in West Africa could be endangered.
five___The richest billionaires in Media and Entertainment
I guess “media” and “entertainment” are essentially the same thing here in 2023 and that kind of grates on me. Note that four of the first five billionaires started on third base.
On the one hand, would the Reuters News Service still be around if the Thomson family had not purchased it in 2008?
On the other hand, is the press truly free when so much of it is concentrated in so few hands?
This week in “Things placed in front of the magazine rack…
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