Task One: How has the Uk consumer magazine industry evolve?

Overall, the decline in circulation, production and distribution from the early 2000's to the present day. One factors of the decrease in Magazine production etc. is the social media. The introduction of platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and X show how the impact of news and trends being released on social media negatively effect the magazine industry. In addition, the use of social media and the production of quicker and better quality releases mean that people are more enticed to go through the use of social media rather than a hard print copy of a magazine. Magazines over the past 4 years have had a long term decline with the revenue declining by almost 35% and the circulation dropping by one third from 1.6 billion to just shy of 550 million. This overall shows that the disturbance within the magazine industry has caused a long term negative effect which will keep progressing within years to come. Another way in which the industry was effected from 2020 onwards is the global pandemic of Covid 19, this caused a serious disturbance within the industry as people could not go out to purchase the content and decided to resort to the internet and social media for resources. This further meant that the money spent on magazines dropped from 1.4 billion to 669 million in one year, the pandemic effected the industry so much that it has never restored its former glory. 

In addition, the decline in magazine sales has significantly impacted the industry as it has forced publications to adapt to the change or close down entirely. The revenue made from the advertisements within the magazine has also diminished as the now digital magazines online with pay wall barriers and subscriptions dominate the print industry. Also, the reduced amount of circulation over the past 5 years has seen a significant drop in advertisement rates which strains the finance needed to run the magazine. This has meant that many magazines has shifted their focus into the digital side of displaying content as the risk for paper display is too high. Not only have the introduction of social media and Covid 19 negatively effected the business side of the industry but also has effected the social side meaning many staff members have been pay cut or dropped in general due to lack of labour rates to pay them.