Mr. Magazine

Whenever I told someone this past year that I was researching the state of children’s magazines in America, their response was almost always the same: Aren’t they dying?

At first, I’d laugh and say, “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” But over time, I started pushing back with curiosity. “Why do you think that?” I’d ask. The answer was always—you probably guessed it—screens.

For my master’s degree thesis, “Magazines Matter: An Analysis of Children’s Magazines in Post-Pandemic America,” I interviewed executive leadership of many publishers across the industry, including Highlights for Children, Scholastic Magazines+, TIME for Kids, Inc., Cricket Media, Topix Media, The Week Junior, Ranger Rick, Kazoo, Honest History, Kennedy Publishing, DC Thomson, Storytime, and past leadership at LEGO Publishing and National Geographic Kids. I also spoke with experts in editorial, distribution, newsstands, accessibility, and the magazine industry in general (including Mr. Magazine himself!). Legacy titles and newcomers, school-based and home-based, subscription and newsstand—my interviews touched most corners of the industry to provide a well-rounded snapshot of its current state.

And here’s what I learned: No, children’s magazines aren’t dying. But they are still figuring out their place in a shifting landscape.

What I Found

The pandemic boosted magazine sales. Parents turned to subscriptions as screen-free tools to keep kids engaged at home, while school-based publishers quickly pivoted to launch digital editions for virtual learning.

That boom didn’t last. Since the return to (somewhat) normalcy, sales have flatlined or declined.

Affordability is a major concern for both publishers and customers. Not unfamiliar to the rest of the publishing industry, costs are rising across the board—paper, production, shipping, distribution, retail space, you name it. Publishers are limited in how much they can pass on to the customer, though, as children’s magazines have a lower ceiling that customers are willing to pay than the rest of the magazine industry.

Competition is fierce for time, attention, and money. Because magazines operate in such a gray space—not quite a toy nor a book—competition isn’t just with screens, but with anything that could fill a child’s time or anything an adult might buy their child for entertainment or learning.

Publishers need to be findable. Because children age out of magazines quickly (within 5-7 years), publishers emphasize acquiring new customers, not getting renewals. But traditional marketing methods are becoming inaccessible, with direct mail increasing in cost, SEO falling victim to artificial intelligence, and social media ads providing mixed results.

Traditional retail is not working. Checkout pocket costs are increasing, the overages are inefficient, and availability is shrinking because of retailers prioritizing more profitable products.

International publishers face unique challenges. U.K.-based publishers cite high overseas shipping costs, difficulty navigating the U.S.’s distribution infrastructure, worries about America’s heightened litigation culture, and unsustainably high retail return rates.

Content ecosystems are the future. Publishers are shifting from thinking of themselves as magazine publishers to content companies. They’re repurposing stories across newsletters, podcasts, videos, books, and other media.

Niche magazines are thriving. Kazoo, Honest History, and other indie titles prove that tightly focused, mission-driven products can succeed with passionate audiences willing to pay for quality.

Why It Matters

Child reading scores in the U.S. have been declining since 2012 and are now at levels unseen since the 1970s. While magazines haven’t been found to directly improve reading scores, plenty of research shows that they get reluctant readers excited about reading. Magazines blend play with learning, spark curiosity, build confidence, and create community. Flexible and low-pressure, they are tactile and screen-free reading materials that easily fit into busy lives. They also scale efficiently, making them a cost-effective way to get print into underserved communities.

In short, children’s magazines can be one of the best tools to spark a lifelong love of reading. They help not only develop the next generation of readers and leaders, but also safeguard the future of the publishing industry.

The Path Forward

If children’s magazines are going to help address falling literacy rates, publishers need to:

Find their place in content ecosystems. Print should complement digital, not compete with it. Children don’t want to choose between the two mediums, and they shouldn’t have to.

Double down on print’s strengths. Print magazines are the tangible, finite, and premium component of content ecosystems and should be treated as such. For example, The Week Junior, the fastest growing magazine in America, succeeds by taking the news—a topic that can easily overwhelm kids with how endlessly available it is online—and explaining it in a concise way that kids understand and adults trust.

Stay financially viable. Diversify revenue streams, especially by repurposing magazine content for licensing and other product lines. Lower costs by smartly thinking through how to make the business more efficient.

Build communities, not transactions. Loyalty comes from a sense of belonging, not one-off sales. Magazines offer a safe space to connect for kids who are too young for social media, and they can also be a natural community for parents looking to find others with shared interests or values.

Grow audiences intentionally. Organic PR builds credibility, and strategic partnerships (such as Highlights for Children’s recent collaborations with Google and Cocomelon) expand audiences for both parties. Some publishers are also focusing on younger audiences to funnel them in earlier and extend the time before the children age out of their products.

Lean into niches. Confident, purpose-driven magazines are proving resilient by attracting and retaining families that resonate with their message.

Expand access. Organizations such as MagLiteracy partner with publishers and the public to get magazines into underserved communities. Low-hanging fruit is the inefficient excess due to high return rates, but a solution would require coordination between many publishers and distributors.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. The most successful magazines are adapting to changing trends in where people shop, how to reach their customers, and the latest popular media. (Do anyone else’s kids have KPop Demon Hunters music on repeat right now?)

Know that we’re all in this together. The pandemic disbanded a lot of communication between publishers, but collaboration in the future will be key. Some publishers are already collaborating by hosting their licensed content on the same platform, negotiating scale deals with printers, and sharing checkout pockets.

The leaders I spoke with were cautiously optimistic, yet deeply realistic about the future of the children’s magazines in America. While up against many challenges, no one is predicting doom. Children’s magazines have survived the advent of the radio, TV, the internet, and smartphones. They can survive this moment, too, if publishers approach them with intention, creativity, and a willingness to change.

Molly Bruni is a freelance editor with a particular passion for children’s magazines and other avenues of learning through play. You can find her at mollybruni.com.

A Mr. Magazine™ Guest Blog

As editor-in-chief of Media Industry Newsletter from 1986 through 2016, I witnessed the business ups and downs in the magazine industry.  Although the aftermath from the September 11, 2001, attacks proved not to be the low industry point during my career (the economic effects from the 2008-2009 “great recession” were more damaging), the common denominator with the COVID-19 crisis was that the enemy was external.  Back then, it was a man: Osama bin Laden; now, it is a virulent germ.

Like today, it seemed as if everything stopped after 9/11. The literal “fear of flying” (air travel was actually banned for about a week) impacted sales calls and advertising, which was already hurting from the “dot.com” crash, plummeted further.  Many of the events that fall (important to establish  rapports with advertisers for 2002) were cancelled.

But that did not damage the spirit.  September 19, 2001, was supposed to be Condé Nast’s “welcome” to new Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive with a reception celebrating the release of the November issue. Instead, Leive and her staff worked late that night overhauling the issue to add a section honoring female “heroes from 9/11.”  It would be the first of many hallmarks in her 16-year career.

Leive’s optimism was matched by the many editors’ notes that min ran weekly through Thanksgiving.  The inspiration was the first one, from 1993-2014 Travel + Leisure editor-in-chief Nancy Novogrod, who capped her reasoning for the necessity of travel by quoting a post-9/11 French newspaper headline: Nous Sommes Les Americains (“We are all Americans”).

And 2000-2011 Bon Appétit  editor-in-chief Barbara Fairchild was so moved by the widow of a fallen New York firefighter telling The New York Times of his love of cooking and BA that she gave her a free subscription “in perpetuity.”

The COVID-19 pandemic is worse because of the enormity of the deaths, the restrictions to our “normal” way of life and the devastation to the economy, Were min publishing and I being editor, I would have again reached out.  But the editors’ notes will be more challenging at a time when most group publishers are furloughing and cutting staff and salaries. The uncertainty after 9/11 was comparatively mild to what we face today.

If the 2020 “Fortune 500″ follows its 65-year pattern by rating companies based on 2019 revenues when the issue is released later this spring, the data for many will be outdated because of the poor, COVID-19-affected performances since March.

Physicians, nurses and other health-care professions are now getting the recognition that firefighters and police officers received after 9/11. Included in an unlikely place: Vogue, where four female “health professionals in scrubs” are saluted in the June/July 2020 issue.  In an April 24 Washington Post feature, Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion correspondent Robin Givhan wrote that “the pandemic’s first responders have been ‘Vogue‘-i-fied. They haven’t been glamorized.”

Givhan also reported that the June/July issue was Vogue‘s first combined release in its 128-year history. That encompassed wars, recessions and an earlier pandemic: the 1918 “Spanish Flu” outbreak.

Technology now allows editors and staff members to produce print and digital editions from home as well as publishers and their staffs having teleconferences with advertisers. “Invention is the mother of necessity,” they say, and maybe these will be the new norms.

On 9/11, “We are all in this together” was best exemplified by members of Congress from both parties singing God Bless America on the Capitol steps. Today, with Washington and America in so much discord, perhaps magazine media can lead the way.

If editors with large and small readerships can rally the country as they did after 9/11, this would, in the words of Sir Winston Churchill, be “their finest hour.”