The NewsHour Media Unit is funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts. A changing news industry Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the media. Media correspondent Terence Smith reports on the end of Life and the changing world of magazines. But the May issue of Life, now on newsstands, is its last. After ceasing publication as a weekly in 1972, its monthly edition will now be gone, as well.
Life is the latest victim of an extraordinary revolution that is under way in the magazine industry.
The once-great general interest giants are being crowded out by a vast new crop of special interest titles. Over 800 new magazines were launched last year alone, more than 1,000 the year before, an average of three new titles a day. He says he could not see the kind of future for life that looks so promising for other, more targeted magazines. And the other is that we want that some advertising base that will be there to support the magazine. Life didn't have a core of advertisers that had to be in Life every month.