Why magazines are losing audiences and advertisers

SOCIAL NETWORKING, PARTICULARLY TWITTER - Audiences expectations have changed so that we now expect to receive our information and entertainment instantly rather than waiting a whole month for another issue. Magazines used to thrive by providing audiences with celebrity gossip such as celeb relationships, weddings, break ups and break downs. HOWEVER: With the advent of Twitter, we no longer have to wait a whole month between a celeb event happening, for the magazine to be written and printed, so we can find out about it.. Not only can we hear about it instantly online, but we can hear about it directly from the celeb themselves.

Why read a magazine to try and work out whether Demi Moor and Ashton Kutcher's marriage is on the rocks when on Twitter Ashton Kutcher uploads pics of Demi Moore in her underwear and you can see them immediately? You don’t even need to wait to watch the news to find out that American socialite Casey Johnson (pals with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan) was found dead in her home, when her equally crazy celeb bisexual fiancé Tila Tequila puts her Twitter status as "My beautiful fiancé Casey is with the angels in heaven, miss you wifey!" This was before her death was even officially announced! Celebs are now able to connect directly to the audience without the magazine acting as a middle man and so audiences see magazines as out of date. Sometimes you can read Cosmo and there will be an interview with a celebrity about her and her boyfriend, when in actual fact they split up over 3 weeks ago because of the amount of time it takes to get the magazine onto the shelves (up to 3 months). Magazines can be out of date before they even get bought

TECHNOLOGICAL CONVERGENCE – Massive developments in technology over the last 10 years have meant that many technologies have “merged together” creating “technological convergence” where many gadgets can do multiple things. For example, a mobile phone now allows you to make calls, as well as take videos, upload footage, text people, read the newspaper, surf the net, play games etc. The consequence of this is that audiences now EXPECT to be able to access ANY information or entertainment on their phones rather than buy a newspaper, buy a game etc..Audiences want products (eg magazines) to be accessible on their phones, or on the internet, preferably for free. Here are a few clips to illustrate this change in the way we expect our media.

WEB 2.0 – Web 2.0 is a phrase that refers to internet based technologies that allow audiences to interact and contribute. For example Chat forums, Blogs, You Tube, Comment on articles etc. Audiences now EXPECT a certain level of interactivity that printed magazines just don’t offer

ADVERTISERS – Advertisers are very simply, following the audiences. If their audiences are spending most of their time online, then they prefer to place their ads online now. It is easier online to target your adverts at specific audiences as well, rather than ALL of the readers of Cosmo