It’s Not Print That’s Broken, It’s Frequencies

[caption id="attachment_161651" align="alignright" width="263"] Mad's debut issue from 1952[/caption] While we celebrated our nation's 243rd year of independence last week, many also mourned the death of a nearly 70-year-old American institution—Mad magazine. I, along with most, were jarred by the news. But if anybody is surprised, then they clearly aren’t paying attention to what’s happening in this industry. As terrific as Mad was for generations, it failed in the same way many other magazines have over the past 15 to 20 years. It rested on its laurels, and continued to build its business around a print magazine with a frequency that was cut (too late) from monthly to bimonthly… for an audience that is now preoccupied by mobile devices. I apologize if this sounds cold. I truly loved Mad when I was younger, and still believe it created some of the best American satire over the past several decades. And right up to the end, its covers made me chuckle and I continued to admire its irreverence and cutting social commentary. Still, its time has come, and mourning another magazine’s death would become very tiring in my role. So instead I have to ask: how did we get here? And I don’t mean Mad magazine specifically, as it is merely another victim of a serious illness that will continue to infect print publications, which I believe is intensified by frequencies. Weeklies were the canary in the coal mine more than a decade ago, as we saw the number of them slowly diminish, or... Continue reading at 'Folio Magazine'

[ Folio Magazine | 2019-07-09 14:43:16 UTC ]
News tagged with: #entertainment weekly #scaled back #offer readers #high standards

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