Tags : Media Industry, MSM, new media, newspapers, old media, time magazine
Mainstream Media’s Death – Pending
Everyone has seen it coming but those effected by it: the mainstream media has been in a long, slow slide that will inevitably end in its death, and they have long since decried this as outrageous – but the cracks are beginning to show. Newspapers are asking for federal permission to collude as an industry, magazines are failing left and right, and all forms of publishing media has seen extensive layoffs and the closure of “extras” like non-local bureaus.
But what about the venerable media institutions that fall somewhere in-between newspapers and magazines? These are the TIME Magazine’s, Newsweek’s, and U.S. News‘ of the world.
TIME, along with it’s weekly brethren, typically has historically had more journalistic integrity per paragraph than any newspaper does per page – this is common knowledge, and it was assumed by many that they would weather the perfect storm of media collapse better than most. This, apparently, was an incorrect assumption.
Looking over the last three issues, disturbing trends begin to emerge.
The November 9th, 2009 issue of TIME has 64 pages: 25 are ads, and 11 are the beginning filler nonsense no-one reads – that’s over half the magazine, and another 5 pages are dedicated for entertainment “news” that doesn’t belong in a publication like TIME. But here’s where it gets good: there’s two “book adaptation” articles that total 6 pages. All told, that leaves just 17 pages for true journalism, half of which are actually commentary pieces.
The November 2nd, 2009 issue has 80 pages: 44 are ads, 11 are introductory filler, 10 are entertainment “news”, and there’s another 5 for commentary – leaving just 10 pages for journalism. The trend continues in the October 26, 2009 issue: 64 pages in length, 17 are ads, 5 are full-page “infographics”, 12 are intro filler, 3 are full-page pictures, 5 used for entertainment, and another 5 for commentary – 17 for journalism.
Did TIME think its readers wouldn’t notice? That people who care enough about politics and world issues to read lengthy stories are somehow too busy or ignorant to realize the content they pay for is dwindling substantially? The content I personally pay for now only represents somewhere around 20% of the magazine each week, and this is somehow supposed to be acceptable?
There was a time, just a few years ago, where the magazine took well over an hour to read – and it was an enjoyable, informed, educational timesink. Now it takes less than half an hour of mostly brainless reading, depending on the week’s content, because the majority of the magazine gets ignored. It’s understandable that such publications are going through tough financial times, due to a decreased readership and a number of other issues, but the way to increase your membership, or even maintain the status quo, is most definitively NOT to follow TIME’s current behavior.
To all the media moguls out there, here’s an important point you might want to write down for future use: when you need to increase your publication’s readership, replacing content with ads and journalism with reprints or filler is not going to net you the results you desire. This, in all honesty, should be common sense.
It goes without saying that I am not only disappointed in TIME for such behavior, but also that it deserves to fail in a miserable and public fashion, because it has proven itself incapable of making rational editorial decisions when threatened with existential questions. Since I don’t subscribe to Newsweek or U.S. Magazine, it’s hard to say definitively whether they are acting similarly, but this industry has proven to be very open to groupthink…
In short, let TIME and its ilk die the slow, painful death that they deserve.
Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.
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