In the news: Women's magazines have hit rough times. What's behind the downturn, and is it reversible?

More and more women's magazines are disappearing from newsstand shelves. Many of the ones that are left have pared down to monthly, bimonthly, or even quarterly schedules. "The magazine industry as a whole has been belt-tightening for years thanks to a print advertising famine, eliminating costly paper copies while trying to establish a beachhead on the Internet," writes Lavanya Ramanathan of WashingtonPost.com. "Yet women's publications somehow feel much more endangered than the rest, especially now that even the woke online upstarts that once aimed to replace them ... are themselves turning off the lights."

Part of the problem, Ramanathan asserts, is that much of the content once found in women's glossies is now widely available online. Fashion editors and writers have been replaced by "makeup bloggers and YouTube influencers." What's more, many iconic magazine brands are now online only.

Read more about the state of women's magazine publishing here.

Also Notable

Condé Nast to Paywall Its Content

By the end of the year, Condé Nast will put all its magazine content behind paywalls. Citing the press release from CEO Bob Sauerberg, Jon Levine of TheWrap.com writes that "the move was prompted by the success of paywalls for many of the company's signature brands." With page-view advertising profits on the decline, he notes, more and more publishers are turning (or returning) to paywalls to drive revenue. Read more here.

Developing Sound Paywall Strategy

If you decide to implement a paywall at your own publication, how best to go about it? In a recent piece on Foliomag.com, Dean Horowitz discusses what must happen for a paywalled online publication to succeed. In a nutshell, he says that "growing your subscriber base after moving content behind a paywall requires continuous research into customer satisfaction." He lays out six strategies to accomplish this end. Read the article here.

Add your comment.