Weekly news publications, I am told, are the ones most squeezed in today’s markets. They are wedged between the proverbial “rock” (instant news via the Internet that trumps weekly updates) and “hard place” (advertisers reallocating their ad dollars towards more established monthlies that target the same audience or online).
One of the magazines that I regularly read is DMNews, as in direct marketing news. It is a weekly publication (actually 50 issues a year as I recall). Although my work is on the peripheral of direct marketing, I find it an interesting read, usually picking up a tidbit or two as I thumb through.
It seems — this is not something I track, but I perceive it to be so — that in recent months, the number of pages in DMNews have shrunk, likely indicative of decreasing ad sales. There is, quite succinctly, less of it to thumb through.
In the April 20 issue, in the “news briefs” section on page 2, there is a small notice that effective immediately, DMNews has switched to biweekly (an unfortunately ambiguous word choice that could mean twice a week or every other week — I presume it to be the latter). It is again noteworthy that this comes just before the May 11 postal rate increase.
This is a wise move that I applaud. Instead of a knee-jerk reaction that pulls the plug on their print publication (as I noted another publisher doing in “Another One Bites the Dust“), DMNews has a prudent plan to continue to serve their readers’ in a careful manner that addresses all stakeholders.
This should allow the page count to increase, as advertiser support is consolidated into 26 issues versus 50 issues, allowing them to be around for the foreseeable future. Kudos for DMNews!
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Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.
