How Long Left For The Industry Mags?

Anyone else noticed that the majority of industry magazines are getting thinner by the month?


Some of them are barely braking 30 pages, half of which are filled with massive adverts and repeats of stories I read months ago! I don't want to read about a company's 20th anniversary for four months running thank you very much! Nor do I want to read about the development of new screws or the delivery of a slightly different yet completely new cutting machine to a tiny little manufacturer I've never even heard of!


When I first joined the industry the magazines were filled with issues people could engage in. It would carry stories of rumour, articles that would piss people off a little and get debate going. Where has all this gone?


Luckily I write for a magazine who is trying to get back to those ways. They're trying to keep their articles fresh, no major repeats and no boring adver-articles. Obviously I'm going to be slightly biased and in Clearview's favour. But if I thought they were a backwards magazine on the way down like many of the others, I wouldn't write for them.


They've managed to scale their magazine way up over the last few issues, almost making the 100 page mark, which is about as big as an industry magazine needs to be. But they've now also launched their new website, which includes a fresh forum. The layout is clean, modern, easy to understand. Again, I know it might sound slightly biased, but I honestly am speaking truthfully.


Now to get to the point of this post. With many magazines slowly dying, and the advent of tablets and e-readers, how long will the printed word have in our industry? Clearview already have PDF versions of all their issues, as do a couple of others. Everything is becoming mobile as we all become busier during the day, so will the 25+ generation ever sit down to read the magazines, or would they prefer to read what's going on in our little word on a screen?


My personal opinion for now is that we still need print. There are still many older, techno-phobic people in our industry who will always prefer a magazine to a touch screen. But there will come a day where these people make way for people my age, who are far more used to screens than paper. It's at that point we may see the slow demise of the magazine. You never know, I might be wrong!