Fact vs. Fiction: A Few Thoughts on Magazine Media

Here’s a headline for you: Print is alive and well with consumers everywhere. I know it’s different than the headlines you’ve been seeing lately, but it happens to be a fact. True, the magazine media industry is in a transitional moment, but a few select stats can easily paint a picture that doesn’t reflect the state of our industry.

At Hearst, we value our core print business, and readers do as well. The most recent report for the first half of 2017 shows that, for the industry as a whole, print circulation is consistent, and, at Hearst, it was even slightly up. What’s more, more than half of our portfolio has seen audience growth, which is especially impressive considering that many of our brands have increased the cost of their subscriptions.

Magazines have successfully extended across digital platforms, and all expressions of our brands are consistent or improving in terms of audience numbers. For example, Good Housekeeping’s circulation is 4.3 million, where it has been for many years. At the same time, the brand has seen an increase in its overall audience, with robust traffic online and millions of social media followers across platforms. All boats are lifted. Print enhances digital and vice versa.

Here’s another headline: Hearst drives print circulation with digital and mobile experiences. Through initiatives with digital and mobile partners, we are building print audiences: Our T-Mobile Tuesday promotion in April engaged two million mobile app users and generated 235,000 paid subscriptions to 13 Hearst magazines in just one day. That’s demand. And we have two more programs lined up for later in the year.

Ibotta, a mobile rebate app, is a new partnership that’s augmenting newsstand sales. And our online sweepstakes platform continues to be a powerful driver of subscriptions across our portfolio—on track to bring in over one million subscriptions this year, and five million sweepstakes entries.

We’re proud of our partnerships, and the high-performing campaigns we’ve run with brands including The Walt Disney World Resort, Universal Orlando Resort, Warner Bros., Pier 1 and Williams Sonoma. What’s more, our new Hearst for Humanity social impact initiative amplifies voices and inspires action from our readers, providing a deeper way for consumers to engage with our editorial content, drive social conversations and make a difference around important causes.
more at:  http://www.hearst.com/newsroom/fact-vs-fiction-a-few-thoughts-on-magazine-media-1

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