Magazines report another drop in readership.  Take a closer look at the reports.  The drop referred to is in newsstand sales which are far more profitable to publishers than the typically heavily discounted subscription sales.   Surprised? You shouldn’t be.  The impulse to buy a newspaper or magazine for a flight or train ride has been greatly diminished.

Next time you are on a bus, subway, or train note the lack of people reading anything not on a screen.  Most are not reading at all.  Now they are listening, viewing, or playing.  Remember in the olden days of the late 20th Century, that there was no radio reception in the subways, no Blackberrys and so on.  The “default” alternative was to read a tabloid newspaper or magazine – then came boom boxes, CD players, and eventually those morphed into iPods, which became acceptable to an adult generation. Music was no longer a teenage delight.  Free television on Jet Blue further diminishes the need for their customers to pick up reading material for company on either a short or long flight.  Commuter bus lines routinely have screens for free TV programming and/or movies.

Video games for adults have also supplanted reading.  Cell phone use on buses and trains further compete with the former sole choice of newspapers and magazines for diversion on either local or longer rides.  People whose jobs did not include reading or looking at screens decades ago now see screens all day long, so while commuting, would rather talk on cell phones, text or play games.  And oh yeah…laptops have permitted and/or forced commuters and travelers to work while they ride rather than relax. Relaxing without a screen is an outdated notion.  (Also note how relatively few people simply snooze on mass transit – note the popularity of “sleep deprivation” as a talk show topic.)

This society once nourished by the press and writings of all descriptions and kinds becomes another victim of our self-absorbed citizenry.  “Don’t worry cuz things won’t get no better even if you try”.

With the advent of cheaper screens, using much less power, like OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diodes), we think that soon, we’ll be seeing screens everywhere and on places you never imagined. A cab ride in NY used to be about watching the movable feast of people on the street, watching them from your comfortable seat. Today, you get an intrusive TV screen in the back seat, so you can watch the latest headlines. Stare at it and you may as well be anywhere, Des Moines, Cleveland, Albuquerque. All fine cities, but not Gotham. If you were in those cities, wouldn’t you rather see the city you’re in, itself, rather than a screen of the city you’re in?

Final note, and we know we risk the wrath of every parent in America.  Kids used to read, look out the window, talk, yell, play games and get into trouble when riding in the back seats of cars. Now, flat screens in car headrests, DVD players etc. are virtually standard equipment.  They serve to keep the kids shall we say, “quiet”.  Surely the sanity of the driver is paramount but this introduction of a few million more screens further diminishes the market for magazines and even dare we say it, books for children.

Will magazines morph into screens and become an electronic imitation of their paper versions? They may have to if they are to survive. Mores the pity.