The last couple of weeks have seen another sizeable shift in the media landscape, most notably with the closure of the News of the World, but also with the final printed editions of New Media Age (NMA) and Design Week going on sale.
Personally, I’m not an avid reader of the News of the World, but I did joke with Design Week’s News Editor about getting him to sign the front cover of the last printed issue so that we could frame and hang it in our design studio… well, I was half joking and he wasn’t completely horrified at the idea.
To me, a newly printed magazine or newspaper feels a bit like a piece of treasure. Its pages aren’t yet dog-eared and marked with post-its by colleagues marking up stories relevant to their clients, and it’s a nice feeling knowing that you’re the first person to discover what’s inside.
Aside from that, there’s a very real value to the physical layout of a printed magazine like Design Week or NMA; it guides the reader from start to finish. For instance, I know that a story in the first few pages is likely to be something that I need to know about, whereas if I want to get a good, all-round overview of the industry news that week, I can just flick to the news digest pages. It’s the same with the features; I know where to go even though I don’t know what I might find.
The thing I love about working in PR is that no two days are ever the same and being such a fast paced industry means that you have to think ahead constantly. We’ve experienced this change in media landscape before, when Brand Strategy and Precision Marketing magazines folded in close succession, and we adjusted then, like we’re doing now.
The question is though, is this the beginning of the end for printed magazines? I hope not. Partly because, yes, I enjoyed picking up and reading Design Week and NMA each week, but also because I believe they shouldn’t be replaced with website equivalents. In my heart, possibly because of my profession, there will always be a need for something that lands on your desk as opposed to uploads on your desktop.
I too hope and believe that print will never die out. It's changing, there's no getting away from that, but people's attachment to pieces of paper is undeniable.
ReplyDeleteCertainly in terms of book publishing there will always be a call for limited edition works that will essentially become works of art in their own right. As the generations pass and today's techno-savvy youth grow older I should imagine we will see the decline of the throw-away paperback and maybe even the mass-market hardback as novels/biographies/etc. get moved to just digital versions.
As for magazines and newspapers... I'm not sure. I find online 'magazines' difficult to navigate and there is too much choice of what to read. There's certainly a demand for printed magazines at the moment but who knows what will have happened in 50 years time? Certainly in the short-term I don't think we're in any danger of print disappearing.