July 360° Brand Audience Report shows rising digital magazine readership; plus, Gannett & Ancestry partner on publishers’ archives
Digital magazine readership – or audience, for our purposes – keeps climbing. Even as publishers grapple with ad viewability, mobile content strategy, and other challenges, they can take comfort in the fact that consumers are demanding your product more and more, judging from the exhaustive studies of the Magazine Media 360° Brand Audience Report.
Our friends at MediaPost cover the Association of Magazine Media’s latest release, as well as a new effort to build publishers’ archives and another big move from Time Inc. digital.
Magazine Readership Grows Again in July, According to MPA
We’ve watched with great interest the MPA’s releases of their Magazine Media 360° Brand Audience Reports, which debuted in late 2014. With July’s edition, the streak of good news continues, according to MediaPost.
“The total print and digital audience for U.S. magazines increased 7.6% from 1.57 billion in July 2014 to 1.68 billion in July 2015, and the majority of this growth came from mobile devices: the total mobile Web audience jumped 58.3% from 281.4 million to 445.5 million over the same period. Meanwhile the size of the audience accessing magazine content via desktops or laptops edged up 3.2% to 256.9 million,” Erik Sass writes.
“As in previous months digital growth more than offset a smaller decrease in magazines’ total print audience, ad combined print and digital editions (which make up a small part of this subtotal) slipped 5.6% from 961.3 million to 941.4 million.”
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Gannett and Ancestry Team Up on Archiving Effort
Mequoda Members know how near and dear we hold the online magazine library, a key component in repurposing content as part of a multiplatform publishing strategy. So, we were thrilled to read on MediaPost about this initiative from Gannett and Ancestry.com, which will digitize the archives from more than 80 newspapers – upward of a 100 million pages – across the country.
Gannett subscribers will gain access to the past two years’ worth of archives, while all-access subscriptions will be available via monthly and annual rates, MediaPost reports.
Time Inc. Digital Launches Branded Content Studio
If you read our Digital Publishing Trends posts often, first, thank you! Secondly, you’re probably used to (tired of?) hearing about two topics in particular: Time Inc. digital efforts and the emergence of the in-house branded content studio. Hey, what can we say? As far as trends go, these two are at the top of the list in 2015.
Today’s news combines both: Time Inc. digital is joining the business-wide embrace of content studios, MediaPost reports.
“The wave of in-house agencies and studios continues to grow with Time Inc.’s launch of The Foundry, a new cross-channel creative shop focused on content and intended to help launch new brands. The new division, which will ultimately be based in Time Inc.’s new space in Industry City, Brooklyn, will draw on talent from Time Inc.’s other in-house assets, including the Innovation Studio and Content Solutions, as well as new editorial verticals like The Drive, its new automotive site,” Sass writes.
“It will bring together writers, editors, Web and app developers and tech experts to create content marketing programs for new and emerging brands, according to the company.”
Looking to boost your own digital magazine readership? Download our free Organic Audience Development Strategy Handbook to get started!
To read more about the rise in online magazine readership, visit MediaPost and Magazine.org.
