Effects of a Magazine’s Move to Online-only: Post-print Audience Attention and Readership Retention Revisited

For financial reasons, newspapers and magazines are increasingly going online-only. By doing so, some have returned to profitability, but with what consequences for their audiences? To expand the scant evidence base, we conducted a case study of the UK’s New Musical Express (NME) magazine. By analyzing quantitative audience data from official industry sources, we estimate total time spent with the NME by its British audience fell dramatically post-print—by 72%. This fall mirrors that suffered by The Independent newspaper, which went online-only two years earlier. We also report that the NME’s official net weekly and monthly readership increased post-print, although these results are difficult to compare with The Independent’s because the two titles differed in their print publication frequencies. We conclude that the attention periodicals attract via their print editions is unlikely to immediately transfer to their online editions should they go online-only. Building a fuller theory of print platform cessation, however—one that also encompasses changes in readership/reach—requires more comparable data. This case study provides further evidence to suggest that though, for newspapers and magazines, a post-print existence may be less costly, it is also more constrained, with much of the attention they formerly enjoyed simply stripped away

Comparable Ages for the Independent Origins of Electrogenesis in African and South American Weakly Electric Fishes

One of the most remarkable examples of convergent evolution among vertebrates is illustrated by the independent origins of an active electric sense in South American and African weakly electric fishes, the Gymnotiformes and Mormyroidea, respectively. These groups independently evolved similar complex systems for object localization and communication via the generation and reception of weak electric fields. While good estimates of divergence times are critical to understanding the temporal context for the evolution and diversification of these two groups, their respective ages have been difficult to estimate due to the absence of an informative fossil record, use of strict molecular clock models in previous studies, and/or incomplete taxonomic sampling. Here, we examine the timing of the origins of the Gymnotiformes and the Mormyroidea using complete mitogenome sequences and a parametric Bayesian method for divergence time reconstruction. Under two different fossil-based calibration methods, we estimated similar ages for the independent origins of the Mormyroidea and Gymnotiformes. Our absolute estimates for the origins of these groups either slightly postdate, or just predate, the final separation of Africa and South America by continental drift. The most recent common ancestor of the Mormyroidea and Gymnotiformes was found to be a non-electrogenic basal teleost living more than 85 millions years earlier. For both electric fish lineages, we also estimated similar intervals (16–19 or 22–26 million years, depending on calibration method) between the appearance of electroreception and the origin of myogenic electric organs, providing rough upper estimates for the time periods during which these complex electric organs evolved de novo from skeletal muscle precursors. The fact that the Gymnotiformes and Mormyroidea are of similar age enhances the comparative value of the weakly electric fish system for investigating pathways to evolutionary novelty, as well as the influences of key innovations in communication on the process of species radiation

Interindustry and Intraindustry Competition in Satellite Broadcasting: A Comparative Case Study on the United States, Japan, England, and France

This study explores the role of intra- and interindustry competition in the evolution of satellite broadcasting with case studies on the United States, Japan, England, and France. The case studies revealed that different patterns of inter- and intraindustry competition play a critical role in the business strategies of satellite broadcasters and their expansion in terms of subscription and market share. The findings of this research suggest that a policy framework that guarantees an adequate level of competition among content delivery technologies is required.

The Theory of the Niche and Spending on Mass media: The Case of the "Video Revolution"

This article briefly reviews research on the principle of relative constancy and concludes that further research using aggregate consumer and advertiser spending data should be suspended because the principle does not represent a theoretically based hypothesis but is simply an unexplained empirical generalization. Instead, I propose that further theory building and research is necessary to explain consumer and advertiser spending on the media and offer suggestions on the conduct of such research. I employ the theory of the niche and elements of the theory to explain the anomaly of the "video revolution" that stands as a major exception to constancy.