Magazines
were truly America’s first national mass medium, and like books
they served as an important force in social change. The mass
circulation magazine grew with the nation. Between 1900 and 1945, the
number of families who subscribed to one or more magazines grew from
200,000 to more than 32 million. New and important magazines
continued to appear throughout the decades.
Magazine
industry research indicates that among people with at least some
college, 94% read at least one magazine and average more than 11
different issues a month. Nearly the same figures apply for
households with annual incomes of over $40,000 and for people in
professional and managerial careers, regardless of educational
attainment. The typical magazine reader is at least high school
graduate, is married, owns his or her own house, is employed full
time, and has an annual household income of just under $40,000.
Advertisers find magazine readers an attractive, upscale audience for
their pitches.
How
people use magazines also makes them an attractive advertising
medium. People report: Reading magazines as much for the ads as
for the editorial content, keeping them available for up to four
months, passing them along to an average of four similar adults, and
being very loyal, which translates into increased esteem for those
advertisers in the pages of their favorite publications. In
1950 there were 6,950 magazines in operation exceeding 22,000 in
2002, 12,000 of those being general interest consumer magazines.
Of these, 800 produce three-fourths of the industry’s gross
revenues. Ten new magazine titles are launched every week
(Magazine Publishers of America, 2000).
Magazine
specialization exists and succeeds because the demographically
similar readership of these publications is attractive to advertisers
who wish to target ads for their products and services to those most
likely to respond to them.
Source:
Introduction
to Mass Communication
Media
Literacy and Culture
Second
Edition
Stanley
J. Baran
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