Effects of a Magazine’s Move to Online-only
Post-print Audience Attention and Readership Retention Revisited
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12908802 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Neil Thurman (0000-0003-3909-9565, City, University of London, corresponding author), Richard Fletcher (0000-0002-5496-2112, University of Oxford) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 1225-1243 |
| Publication date | 2019-11-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journalism Practice (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1751-2786 • E-ISSN: 1751-2794 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17512786.2019.1685903 |
| OpenAlex | W2984975803 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 25 |
For financial reasons, newspapers and magazines are increasingly going online-only. By doing so, some have returned to profitability, but with what consequences for their audiences? To expand the scant evidence base, we conducted a case study of the UK’s New Musical Express (NME) magazine. By analyzing quantitative audience data from official industry sources, we estimate total time spent with the NME by its British audience fell dramatically post-print—by 72%. This fall mirrors that suffered by The Independent newspaper, which went online-only two years earlier. We also report that the NME’s official net weekly and monthly readership increased post-print, although these results are difficult to compare with The Independent’s because the two titles differed in their print publication frequencies. We conclude that the attention periodicals attract via their print editions is unlikely to immediately transfer to their online editions should they go online-only. Building a fuller theory of print platform cessation, however—one that also encompasses changes in readership/reach—requires more comparable data. This case study provides further evidence to suggest that though, for newspapers and magazines, a post-print existence may be less costly, it is also more constrained, with much of the attention they formerly enjoyed simply stripped away
Advertising · Audience measurement · Business · Media studies · Multimedia · Political science · Sociology · Computer Science · Digital Games and Media · Digital Marketing and Social Media · Psychology · Technology Adoption and User Behaviour
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| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2024 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |