Inside Magazine Publishing by David Stam Andrew Scott

Author:David Stam, Andrew Scott [David Stam, Andrew Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Language Arts & Disciplines, Journalism, Publishers & Publishing Industry, Social Science, Media Studies
ISBN: 9781315818528
Google: DFTGjgEACAAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-01-15T04:06:17+00:00

LIFELONG LOYALTY

We also said that readers traditionally looked to magazines in order to cultivate themselves; in the attempt to be a fuller, better version of the person they saw themselves becoming. In Victorian times, self-development was seen as the individual counterpart of social development enshrined in the concept of ‘progress’. This expectation was further predicated on the idea of adulthood, which, once reached, comprised a state or way of being that lasted for life. In recent decades, however, the Victorian ideal of progress has been widely criticised, along with the traditional idea of adulthood; and these developments have threatened the position of magazines as well as offering new business opportunities for magazine publishers.

In today’s context, while there is no shortage of individuals wanting a short-term fix for their make-up or their mind-set, fewer consumers are in it for the long haul. Less likely to see their adult lives as an unfolding pattern of progressive self-cultivation, they are also less likely to take out a lifelong subscription to a suitably self-improving magazine.

This is not to say that there has been absolute decline in magazine subscriptions. What has gone into abeyance is the prospect of cultivated readers who previously took a particular title – Punch, perhaps, or The Strand – until they themselves were taken out in a box. Neither does the general demise of the lifelong subscriber preclude consumer loyalty to particular titles. But such loyalties tend to be comparatively short-lived: this is loyalty that cannot last any longer than the age-bracket the magazine is aimed at, if that.

Predicated on the erosion of adulthood and the corrosion of Victorian ideals, market segmentation has allowed publishers to access whole new cohorts of ‘adultescent’ readers. Restless consumers, always questing for something different to define themselves by, have served as the launch pad for thousands of new magazine titles. Equally, readers who never grow up are not the stuff of stable markets. Thus since the 1960s the UK magazines business has expanded and destabilised at the same time.

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