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Essay
Intro
By the Project for Excellence in Journalism
Winners and Losers in Circulation
The numbers for the Big Three news weeklies over all dipped
slightly again in 2003 (the latest numbers available), continuing
the downward path the magazines have been on for decades.
In contrast, the circulation figures of some of the non-traditional
news magazines continue to rise. Those increases raise further
questions about whether the news genre is undergoing a slow
remaking.
The success of the non-traditional format of the boutique
news magazines can be measured in several ways, but the most
telling may be the most rudimentary - growing circulation.
While many print media outlets decry declining reading habits
and find themselves facing shrinking subscriptions, two of
the four nontraditional news weeklies whose data is readily
available, The New Yorker and The Economist, continued to
see increases in the 2003 data.
Along with the three main news weeklies, we look at four
nontraditional news magazines that report with the Audit Bureau
of Circulations - The New Yorker, The Economist, The Atlantic
and Jet. In this group, The New Yorker witnessed a 2% bump
up in 2003, while The Economist saw a more substantial rise
of 6%.
Also noteworthy in the New Yorker figures were indications
that the magazine that has historically treated New York City
as one of its primary characters is seeing its circulation
broaden geographically. Publisher's Statements show that for
the first time there were higher circulation figures in California
than in New York - 167,000 to 166,000.
While that might not be completely surprising, considering
the size of the population of California, it is significant
considering the magazine's roots, its focus and the fact that
New York is the home of the magazine publishing industry.
Not all the numbers are positive among the nontraditional
books. Both The Atlantic and Jet saw fairly substantial declines
in 2003, in the range of 30,000.
For Jet, targeted at African Americans, the 3% decline in
2003 continues a trend that began in 2000. In fact since 1999,
the magazine's circulation is down by about 90,000, or about
10%. The loss of circulation could be due to reader discontent,
or it might be tied to the decline in African American incomes
in the U.S. The Economic Policy Institute reports that the
real median income of African American households is off by
about 6% since 2000.
When household budgets get tight, magazine subscriptions are
often among the first things to be cut. The 6% drop in 2003
circulation at the Atlantic, though, comes after an increase
in 2002. In fact, after years of stability, the past four
years have seen the circulation at the monthly go up and down
yo-yo style, though hovering around the 500,000 mark.
Rising by roughly 60,000 between 1999 and 2000, then dropping
by 34,000 in 2001, then up again by 37,000 in 2002 before
this latest drop. The first rise coincides with David Bradley's
purchase of the magazine in 1999 and might be explained in
part by buzz it received from a change in ownership. But the
drop and the subsequent increase are harder to explain. Regardless,
considering the moves by Bradley to double subscription rates
and drop circulation, the bobbing up and down may be finished.
We will watch this number closely in years to come to see
if this circulation drop is limited.
At the traditional news weeklies, changes in content have
coincided with dropping subscriber numbers - a combined 1
million in circulation lost for the three magazines over the
last 16 years. The latest figures, for 2003, show those declines
continuing for Time and Newsweek while U.S. News and World
Report actually had a very small increase, of 2,000.
Only time will tell whether that increase is a one-year blip
or something more substantial. As was true a year ago, the
magazines essentially now sit about a million apart from one
another in circulation. As of the end of 2003, Time had about
4.1 million, Newsweek 3.1 million and U.S. News 2 million.
Along with those general circulation trends, newsstand sales
continued to fall into 2004. Time was off by about 4% in the
first half of 2004 compared to 2003, Newsweek slipped by about
7% over the same period and U.S. News saw a 4% newsstand decline.
Those numbers mirrored industry-wide declines. The weeklies
experienced a large bump in newsstand circulation in the weeks
and months after September 11, 2001, when it seemed Americans
were again interested in news, but the effect was short-lived.
When year-end 2004 numbers become available it will be interesting
to see whether the presidential election and the events in
Iraq drove the newsstand numbers up again. These declines,
combined with the growth of the boutique magazines, may be
pushing new players into the news magazine market. Though
still really getting off the ground, The Week, a magazine
launched by Maxim's Dennis Publishing in 2001 that prides
itself on summarizing the entire week's news in a succinct
40 pages, is surviving and claims a readership of 200,000,
though the Audit Bureau put the figure at 178,000 for 2003.
A Grayer, Greener Audience Across the Board
Reports of younger Americans turning away from print news
are, it seems, borne out by the figures for news magazines.
Of the three types we examine to get a feel for the industry
as a whole - news, business, and entertainment/pop culture/lifestyle
- news has the oldest readership, even older than the business
group. The average age of news readers was 45.4 years, according
to audience surveys by Mediamark Research. Business readers
were the next oldest with an average age of 44. Those for
entertainment were much younger, an average of 34.9. News
magazine readers are also on average older than the adult
population on the whole, which has an average age of 43.8.
After a one-year drop in the 2003 data (possibly a statistical
aberration) in 2004 the average reader of every news magazine
we examined got older. The Atlantic reader is still the oldest
at 50.9 years, the Jet reader still the youngest at 38.7.
The other magazines are close together in between, with average
ages between 44.6 and 46.8.
It's worth noting that the magazine with the second-oldest
readership after The Atlantic is also the only one with a
growing paid circulation - The New Yorker. The good news here
for the magazines is there is room for growth even relying
heavily on this demographic. But the age data could also signal
a problem. It's hard to see how the trend bodes well for the
coming decades as the less print-bound generations come of
age.
The magazines might argue that the Mediamark's data are not
the last word in this discussion, because it gauges readership
rather than circulation. Mediamark's figures are based on
general public surveys that rely on reader memories, and are
not as solid as numbers emerging from subscriptions. Nevertheless,
Mediamark's reports provide the best data available.
If there is good news for the news magazines it is that their
readers continue to get wealthier. According to the Mediamark
data, the average income of readers rose by about $400 in
2004 to $65,958. That puts the news brand ahead of entertainment,
whose readers earn an average of $60,535. The business magazines
still have the wealthiest readership by far, however, with
an average income of $82,892. All three types of magazines,
incidentally, far outstrip the U.S. adult population as a
whole, which has an average income of $50,947.
Among the news magazines, Time saw a small drop in its readers'
income to $65,269 in 2004 from $65,697 in 2003, though (as
with all the numbers here) the amount is so small it mostly
just suggests something to watch over time. Newsweek readers'
incomes increase by about $1,200 to $67,964 from $66,739 in
2003. U.S. News also saw an increase among its readers, of
about $1,500, to $65,181 from $63,603 in 2003.
The Atlantic's readers are still the best off, with an average
income of $81,571, though that's down from $82,983 in 2003.
The New Yorker is second with an average reader income of
$79,005, up slightly from last year. And Jet's readers sit
far behind the rest with an average income of $36,755, though
that too is up a little from 2003. The higher income numbers
for The New Yorker and The Atlantic show again how the magazines
are playing to a smaller, niched market. That gives the two
magazines some special advantages, as we'll discuss in the
Economics section.
The Number of Players in News Grows
One advantage enjoyed by news magazines is that there is not
a lot of shaking up when good or bad economic times hit. Last
year was something of an exception in the news genre. The
2004 list of news magazines reporting to the Publisher's Information
Bureau grew in 2004 by one, from eight to nine, with the addition
of "The Week," which listed for the first time in
December. Business magazines, meanwhile, which saw their ranks
thin with the end of the bull market in 2001, saw even more
titles drop off the list - 16 listed with the PIB in 2003
but only 14 in 2004. Even the entertainment category, which
had seemed to be on an ever-climbing trajectory, finally saw
some of its weaker members disappear; the number reporting
to the PIB fell from 21 in 2003 to 18 in 2004.
But among the established titles on which Mediamark gathers
data we see the year was more mixed. Readership dropped for
all types - news, entertainment, business, sports, etc. -
across the board, according to Mediamark (mirroring a drop
for all print media), but the decline among the news magazines
has a special significance. The lower readership in the entertainment
and business areas obviously had something to do with titles
disappearing, a pattern both the PIB and Mediamark surveys
showed. As magazines disappear, readership necessarily drops.
But decline for news magazines occurred even as the number
of news titles Mediamark inquired about held steady at 6.
All the news titles on which Mediamark gathered data experienced
declines.
Polling Data
Along with circulation figures and readerships surveys, another
way of tracking media audience is through more standard polling
- surveys of the general public on their media likes and dislikes.
The Pew Center for the People and the Press has survey data
going back some 10 years on media usage - the news reading,
watching and listening preferences of Americans. The data
show that the public prefers news magazines over some media
outlets, but not others.
The number of people who say they regularly read news magazines
remained unchanged in 2004 from 2003 at 13%, according to
surveys from the Pew Center for the People and the Press.
That stability misses the longer trend, over the past 10 years:
Readership is down 3% from 1994. That drop is not as dramatic
as some others, notably those for newspapers and radio. But
considering the lower number news magazines started with,
there wasn't as far to fall. As a percentage decline, the
drop for radio was slightly less steep and the drop for newspapers
steeper.
When compared to outlets and media with smaller audiences,
the news magazine data look worse. Of particular note is the
rapid growth of the Online News numbers.
It is tempting to argue that news magazines may be losing
audience because they do not offer what many news consumers
want today, immediacy. But surveys show that media offering
more immediacy than the news weeklies are also seeing declining
audiences. Commercial radio has seen a drop from 47% of respondents
saying they turned to it regularly for news, in 1994, to only
40% today. And the number of people who say they tune in daily
to CNN, which offers news as it happens around the clock,
has fallen from 35% in 1994 to 22% in 2004.
Those numbers suggest it is more than magazines' inability
to deliver news at the moment that is leading to shrinking
audiences.
The Opinion Titles: TNR Sheds Circ
The world of opinion journals is as volatile as the world
of news magazines is stable. As we stated in the 2004 report,
the numbers seem to slide up and down depending on who is
in power in the U.S. politically - with the out-of-power party
seeming to attract the most readers. This was particularly
true for the liberal Nation. But we noted that The New Republic,
which had grown less partisan in recent years and more difficult
to characterize politically, seemed relatively immune from
this phenomenon. The latest set of figures shows a much different
picture.
According to its own estimates the New Republic has taken
a large hit in circulation, dropping by almost 25,000 from
85,904 in 2002 to 61,124 in 2003 (the latest numbers available).
That would be a drop of 29% in one year.
Such a precipitous decline warrants closer examination. The
magazine says shrinking its circulation was a business decision.
But there are a number of possible explanations for the drop.
The New Republic's stance on the war in Iraq - siding with
President Bush - may have angered some of its readers. The
war was a polarizing issue in a nation that polls showed was
already increasingly divided. The New Republic may have chased
some of its more liberal readers away by taking a stand on
that contentious issue alongside a conservative Republican
president. If so, the magazine's reconsideration of its position
on the war last summer may have helped mend fences. But its
tepid mea culpa - note the question mark on the headline of
that June 18 piece, "Were We Wrong?"- may not have
won back those who most deeply opposed the war. It is also
possible that a magazine that has positioned itself as iconoclastic,
a stance that might work during a Democratic or even moderate
Republican administration, may have made itself seem less
significant to the political dialogue after the Bush Administration
moved in a more clearly conservative direction.
There is an audience for a liberal voice on the magazine
rack. The reliably liberal Nation, which had a circulation
of 135,349 in 2002, saw the number climb again in 2003 to
160,029. That figure makes it currently the largest of the
three opinion journals we examined. (The Weekly Standard does
not list its numbers with the Audit Bureau.) This is quite
a rise for The Nation, which for years bumped along with circulation
numbers in the 90,000-95,000 range.
At the other end of the political spectrum, National Review
continued to hold relatively steady in 2003 with 156,157 in
circulation, compared to 155,430 in 2002. It will be interesting
to note, however, whether the 2004 audit numbers show a rise
in the presidential election year.
All of these numbers are likely to change, of course, as
the politics do. And in theory, the re-election of President
Bush may ironically lead to better times ahead for the liberal
opinion magazines. But there may be a larger issue looming
for opinion journals as opinion seeps more and more into mainstream
journalism and point-of-view journalism becomes more common.
One might argue that in the long term a niche may develop
that none of the existing opinion magazines serve. All generally
feature reasoned, thoughtful analysis and opinion, but they
are by and large policy magazines. They are not necessarily
easily accessible to outsiders and to those not familiar with
the intricacies of the Washington power game. That last is
especially true of The Weekly Standard and The New Republic,
which proudly consider themselves inside-the-beltway publications.
The success of Fox News, wildly partisan books such as "How
to Talk to a Liberal, If You Must" and "The Lies
of George W. Bush" - even Michael Moore's Fahrenheit
9/11 - may suggest a market for a more colorful, accessible,
mainstream approach in this field. While it may not be a welcome
idea for many traditional journalists, imagine a print equivalent
of Fox News or Michael Moore, something quite different from
National Review or The New Republic - magazines for Rush listeners
and Bush haters. Perhaps even more tantalizing, a political
magazine for younger readers. (Maybe that already exists,
in the form of blogging.)
It is not impossible to envision a future in the news magazine
world in coming decades where the circulation of the Big Three
sinks to a point where they find themselves essentially falling
into the category of niche magazines. Such a fall would not
be out of line with the general direction of the magazine
industry - or the news media in general, for that matter -
but it would fly directly against the broader, lighter content
strategy that Time and Newsweek have made a point of pursuing.
It could put them in something of a no man's land - straddling
between broad, mass-appeal content and small niche audience.
This is the problem U.S. News is currently facing.
Click
here to view footnotes for this section.
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