Where have all the magazines gone? – Poynter

In 2014 I wrote an obit for traditional newsstands in America — stores that sold mainly tobacco products and magazines — and about the birth of a new newsstand in grocery stores and bookstores. Tremendous change is now taking place at those new newsstands, which already look nothing like they did just a few years ago.Though the newsstand was the most visible sign of a magazine, newsstand sales were never a major factor in the circulation strategy of the larger audited circulation publications. The strategic importance of newstands has only shrunk. Newsstand sales fell from a high 35% in the late 1970s to less than 10% in the early 2000s to a mere 3% of the total circulation today. A magazine like Time, which sells almost two million copies, now has very little presence on the newsstands. Overall, the newsstand industry went from about $6.8 billion in revenue in 2006 to about $1 billion in 2022 in a major drop following many changes that can be summed in one word: consolidation.

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