Teen People Going Out of Print
Posted by anastasia on 07-26-2006
I was pretty surprised when I received an alert that Teen People was going out of print, just as I was when the news about Elle Girl dropped weeks ago. Surprised yet not so surprised once I thought about it. This must have sent chills down the spines of staffers at Seventeen, CosmoGirl, Teen Vogue, etc. The writing has been on the wall for some time in terms print magazines and this generation of "totally wired" teenagers. Go digital. Go mobile. Or ultimately go away. Seventeen is now on MySpace. CosmoGirl is blogging and Conde Nast is "secretly" readying its launch of some sort of teen girl portal/social network. I guess my question to Ypulse readers is do you think there will always be a place for printed teen magazines? I don't doubt that many teens still love getting their mag in the mail or at the drug store to read flopped down on a bed or on the beach flipping through the pages with their friends…but still fewer teens than in the past with the internet and cell phones competing for their time and attention.
I'm hoping you guys will post your own theories and reactions to Teen People going out of print in the comments.
Was it the editorial? Has the increased popularity celebrity weeklies and blogs like Go Fug Yourself replaced the need for a celebrity driven teen mag that's more than just pin-ups? Teen not tween, as the success of J-14 and others says tween celeb titles are still doing just fine.
Are advertisers beginning to move away from print in favor of Web sites where teens are spending hours vs. 15 minutes flipping? I think most advertisers are still afraid of unmoderated ugc on siites like MySpace, but don't be suprised if there isn't an editorially curated teen channel soon.
If the above is true, how can publishers justify spending so much money on print, fullfillment, etc. for an audience that will only be there for a year or maybe a couple of years at most?
I'm looking forward to seeing what Conde Nast comes up with online. Will it be the glossy teen mag version of gURL? I wonder how gURL is doing numbers wise. I would guess it's a small but passionate community….
Update from Ypulse reader D. Yancey: What struck me about the story in a Ypulse context is the backstory, namely that publications aimed at influencing teens are learning that the slick-print messaging cycle of 6-8 weeks just cannot hope to compete with the near-instant interactive news and trends world the teens live in and, in a major way, actually are beginning to *manage*. The traditional 'zine publishing model may still be relevant content-wise, but it's simply too late to be influential. Because of the web and its info-sharing channels, topics that used to take a few months to develop, like fashion trends, are being sucked into what journalists called the news cycle. The magazines cannot cope with this challenge to "timely relevance", and their advertisers are sensing this.
Update from Anastasia: In response to D's comment, I would acknowledge that you can find the latest news and trends online everwhere instantly and ask how important is a strong editorial voice in curating all of this content? Do teen girls need "big sister" editors to guide them through fashion, boys, astrology, etc. (the traditional role and relationship of these mags to their readers) or will social media/user generate, peer-written and edited replace this, too?
