Entertainment magazines selling at toilet paper prices

It's no secret that people are choosing to opt out of newspapers and opt in for digital editions and online news instead, but is it really that cheap?

With so much content available online, and most of it free, why should readers even bother buying a magazine with film reviews or gossip columns when everything is available 24/7 without having to pay a dime for it?

One great example of how the value of magazines have fallen to toilet paper prices is a year's subscription to Entertainment Weekly for only $25. That's nearly 90% off it's old $200+ asking price, and the quality supposedly hasn't gone down. That's 52 editions and a lot of paper! The crisis is evident. How can journalists, film magazines and the rest make money when we are literally paying just for the cost of printing?

Some have tried the' paywall strategy' on websites but that simply won't work nor cover the cost of selling our 'bathroom edition prints'. There's too much content online competing with that idea to make it even thinkable to click to pay to read something. It's hard to see a way out because people are so used to not paying. Should advertising  be the sole business model to replace the lost magazine revenue or is it time to reach out to toilet paper manufacturers and say "Hey guys, we need you to print our magazine on your rolls to keep us in business"?

Iain Alexander

Founder - Film Industry Network

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