Depends on where you live. If you happen to live in the US, then yes…craigslist has killed the classified ad revenue model for newspapers, advertising pages for most magazines are down and many magazines and newspapers are just throwing in the towel.
Come to India and it’s whole different ball game, newsprint is doing well and the number of new magazine launches is insane. In the last few months I’ve seen at least 6 new launches, Lonely Planet being the latest. Lonely Planet is published by Worldwide Media a joint venture between The Times Group and BBC Worldwide. They also publish Top Gear and a yet to be launched home/architecture magazine.
I’m expecting more magazines to be launched as advertisers in India seem to be flush with cash. I’m really looking forward to two types of magazines, one is a Consumer Reports type magazine that will evaluate and rate products/services free of any payola – which is fairly rampant in India. The other is a personal finance magazine, that can give you the pros/cons for new products and real down to earth advice. Most of the existing personal finance magazines will never talk about a product in a negative tone for fear of losing advertising revenues.
India is different, when it comes to print media.
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