Hasta La Creative!

Are magazines going the way of broadcast TV? Internet advertising is set to surpass broadcast TV in sales in just three years. But magazines were supposed to break through our seriously fractured attention span and deliver readers the sort of niche content they wanted. But with almost universal circulation declines in the first half of 2008, it looks like that may be changing, and mags might be the next medium on its way out. Blame it on the economy, or the fact that my entire generation is broke. Either way, mags have been posting newsstand losses for a while. Of course, not all the news is bad. Free airplanes mags are still hot, with an average read time of 26 (!) minutes. Maybe it’s just that the way we read mags is long overdue for a change. Single issues off the newsstand? That is so passé. Maghound, a new Netflix-like service, is hoping to launch soon, giving readers the option to switch titles any time they please for a flat monthly fee. Sounds cool, but of course, I read all mine online.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers