Social networks 'suck' magazine profits as readers click online

It seems as though 2008 was a pivotal year for magazine titles as readers turned to the Internet for their news and social networks.

Paid content reports on how titles have seen a massive change in fortune - Haymarket Publishing, the owner of Hort Week, saw its post tax profits fall by nearly 50% from £8m in 2007 to £4.5m in 2008.

Hort Week has seen a fall in magazine subscribers by nearly 1,000 in the last year - source ABC.

"Still scared of cannibalising expensive print operations by publishing content online, mag companies either need to publish online and find a way to charge for it, or become genuine multimedia online producers. If not, they may find someone else has beaten them to it."

It is not inconceivable that magazines - which once enjoyed staffing levels of a couple of hundred - will operate using a handful of paid employees with the rest being made up of freelancers or contributors from the industries they cover.