Fewer Dying Mags

Lots of people still rely on magazines.  You know mags -- those paper things that show up in the mail once a week or once a month, those paper things you see on the racks at bookstores (where they also sell paper things called books).  There's good news on the magazine front, according to this story from AdWeek:

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Magazines aren't closing like they used to, but new ones aren't coming along as quickly any more either. 

The math looks good.  Publishers shut down 279 mags in the first half of last year.  This year publishers axed only 87 magazines.  Now a skeptic might say there were fewer mags left, so of course the number is smaller, but there are literally tens of thousands of magazines, most of which we never see.

Even while print closures ebb, a more modest pace for new launches suggests that a thinner competitive set will persist for many magazine categories. Ninety new magazines arrived in the first half of this year, down from 187 launches in the first half of 2009, MediaFinder said.