Follow the Reader, Not the Advertiser

Magazines, once the wunderkind of the media industry, now are in the same sinking business boat as TV and newspapers. To survive, some magazines are changing their economic model and taking direction from their readers, not their advertisers.

National Public Radio broadcast a story last month noting newsstand sales of magazines have dropped sharply and advertising revenues plummeted 18 percent in 2009, as advertisers scrambled to the Internet. In a story aired today, NPR reported newsstand sales fell 9 percent in the second half of 2009 compared to the prior year. "The good news is that decline was less than the 12 percent drop the magazine publishers saw in the first half of 2009."

"I think the paradigm is shifting and magazines have to keep up," Brad Adgate of Horizon Media told NPR. He says one way magazines are adjusting is to plunge into the digital sea with Facebook pages, iPhone apps and Twitter feeds to get closer to their target audiences.

New magazines continue to crop up, but many have titles leveraging existing brand names from other media, such as Food Network Magazine. They also are sprouting from successful Web sites. An example cited by NPR is The Knot, which started as an online site for brides looking for help with dresses and wedding planning. The organization now publishes a magazine with 17 regional editions, as well as related publications for pregnant couples and new homeowners.