There is a lot of talk about how the old print media is doomed and is fated to go the way of the dinosaur. Here is some good news about how a venerable member of the print media "evolved" into a sucessful new media company:
Quote:
Inside The Atlantic: How One Magazine Got Profitable by Going ‘Digital First’
With consecutive quarterly growth in both print and digital advertising sales, The Atlantic has emerged as a vanguard in an industry harassed by declining ad revenues and falling circulations. And the credit, its executives say, belongs to the “digital first” strategy it embraced four years ago.
The Atlantic, a monthly magazine on politics, foreign affairs, economics and culture, made $1.8 million in 2010, its first profitable year in decades. In October, digital ad revenues topped print for the first time, up 86% year-over-year, but not at the sacrifice of print. In fact, The Atlantic sold more print ads in October than it had in any other month since David Bradley acquired the title in 1999. Traffic to its three web properties — TheAtlantic.com, TheAtlanticWire.com and TheAtlanticCities.com — recently surpassed 11 million uniques per month, up a staggering 2500% since The Atlantic brought down its paywall in early 2008.
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So the transition from print first to digital first can be done. The story is significant for me because I am a longtime print subscriber to The Atlantic. Despite their success, I do think their Ios magazine app kind of sucks, so they have more work to do. The good news is that they'll be around to do it.