The Internet Kills Australia's Oldest Magazine

By Craig Arthur 

It was not a swift painless death deserved of an icon, rather it was a creeping, slow, strangling one.

The Bulletin was first printed in 1880. It was Australia's longest running magazine.

The issue that went on sale yesterday, was the last.

Over the last few years it's readers deserted the magazine... Last September it had 57,039 sales... In the mid-1990's it had highs of more than 100,000 a month.

If you were an advertiser over that same time no doubt you would have paid extra for your advertising space even though each year you were reaching less and less people. Not a good investment. 

Scott Lorson chief executive of ACP Magazines said, "This trend is consistent with that experienced by many leading weekly news and current affairs magazines globally and is somewhat symptomatic of the impact of the internet on this particular genre." 

With the internet biting savagely into readership of newspapers and magazines worldwide, prepare for many more closures in the print industry.