A “magazine” in English language …… is a type of periodical characterized by

entertainment and miscellaneous matter written by more than one author, often
with illustrations/pictures/images …... It is usually different from newspapers as it
contains less news coverage and has a lower frequency like weekly, monthly, or
less, as opposed to daily.

In the nineteenth century magazines had emphasis on light entertainment, and

usually included fiction. But since the twentieth century, “magazine” has been used
to denote entertainment periodicals with a high visual content.

There are various ways of classifying magazines. The closest to the core meaning
of “magazine” ……today comprises. the expensive “glossies” on high-quality,
glossy paper. These promote consumer culture, sometimes with global reach and
national variations …. Examples are magazines such as Cosmopolitan [1886-],
Vogue [1892-], GQ [1988-], Time Out [1968], NME (1952),

Less glamorous are the highly specialised or local publications such as Book and
Magazine Collector, Kent Life [UK], or Metropolis [Tokyo]. They mainly derive
profits from advertising revenue.

The second kind is the “pulp” magazine, printed on low-quality wood-pulp paper.
These comprise mainly cheap mass-market fiction magazines, and derive profit
from high circulation. They vary between themselves as much as the glossies, from
the conservative story papers which are actually aimed at older people such as the
various national versions of Readers’ Digest (1922-) and the Friend (1869 ) Peg’s
Paper (1919-1940). They often stimulate reader's contributions as a way of keeping
down costs.

Other categorisations of magazine may be made based on the demographic of the

target audience (“lads”, “girl teens”, “women”, “computer enthusiasts”, “football”)
and/or on the genre of material covered….. “Trade” (e.g. the Builder, (1842-), the
Grocer (1862-1978) and, more recently, magazines associated with specific retail
outlets can be thought of as further subcategories of the demographic model.

Now…..all these categorisations evolved historically and are culturally specific,

depending on printing and paper-production technologies, distribution capacities,
standards of living and literacy rates. For this reason, magazines are almost all read
and produced in the industrially developed world, with the USA, UK, Germany
and Japan amongst the highest consumers.

The Gentleman’s is often stated to be the first magazine as far as format is

concerned. However, it based its practices on previous periodicals, most notably
the Gentleman’s Journal (1692-94).

The word magazine first appeared in 1731 with the occurrence of the Gentleman’s
Magazine. The word, magazine, derived from the Arabic word, meaning
‘warehouse’, was used to describe the place which deposits large quantities of
various goods, while the analogy used to describe a book that contained many
useful information for the travellers and sailors.

The first publication which can be called a magazine was the German ‘Erbauliche
Monaths Unteretungene’, launched in 1663. It was a literary and philosophical
publication, and after its release, several other periodicals with similar content and
topics, mostly targeted for an intellectual audience, were published.

Initially, the magazine started as potpourri of various prime news items about
social, political or economic news covered in the newspapers, besides literary and
creative works like poetry, prose or reviews of prominent literary books. Such
magazines were issued after a week or alternate week after such items were
published first in the then newspapers.
The reception of success of the magazine was great but the cost of every issue was
higher than the previous issue. Printing cost was higher vis-à-vis newspapers and
the number of printed copies could not be more than couple of thousand, because it
was technically impossible to squeeze a larger amount of paper through the
machine at one go. Distribution was also a big problem because it was difficult to
move large number of magazines at great distances.

Language magazines

Pundit Jugal Kishore Shukla started the first newspaper-cum-magazine in India in

Hindi language and named it Udant Martanda and its first copy was launched on
30 May 1826 in Calcutta. The paper was in Khari Boli and Brij Bhasha dialects of
Hindi. Only with 500 copies, the issue sold like hot cakes.

A serious and concentrated beginning of Hindi newspaper and periodical

publishing efforts goes back to Bhartendu Harishchandra’s efforts in the years
1850-1865 by publishing his own writings with a social message of mass appeal.
Several other Hindi writers followed his writings. A reputed publication during
that period was Saraswati, a monthly magazine published from Allahabad by
Chintamani Ghosh, on his owned printing press named Indian Press, Allahabad.
He handed over the command of editing of Saraswati to a great litterateur Mahavir
Prasad Dwivedi (1903-1920) and it led to the flourishing of modern Hindi prose
and poetry, especially in Khari Boli dialect. This was followed by Gita Press,
Gorakhpur publication Kalyan, which was mostly dedicated to religious preaching
and analytical articles about Hindu scriptures. The Indian freedom movement gave
a big boost to Hindi publishing with scores of Hindi newspapers and periodicals
being fielded to reach the masses.

Maulavi Mohmmed Baqir in 1836 founded the first Urdu language newspaper-
cum-magazine by the name Delhi Urdu Akhbar.

Changes over the years

The first American magazine which appeared on the scene was American
Magazine in 1741 and was published by Andrew Bradford. This publication was
followed by a new publication General Magazine by Benjamin Franklin. Neither of
these magazines did last long. The first one ceased publishing after three months
and the second one just after six months of its inception.

The first really successful magazine in the United States was the Saturday Evening
Post. This weekly magazine first hit the newsstands by 1821 with very wide
circulation until 1969. Saturday Evening Post featured famous artists and authors.
The popularity of those writers contributed to the continuing success of the
magazine. Yet another mass magazine was Youth’s Companion. Then there were
exclusive news magazines like Time and Newsweek.

Rise of Indian magazines

On the home front, Indian journalism scene kept on marching ahead with the slow
spread of literacy in early 19th and late 18th century. By this time several English
and regional language newspapers had taken roots in the minds of the educated
class of people and the need for more reading materials was needed. Illustrated
Weekly was launched by Bennett and Coleman Group under the flagship Times of
India in 1923, which ceased publication in 1993. Its first copy appeared on the
scene way back in 1880 by the name of ‘Times of India Weekly’. Illustrated
Weekly was considered to be an important English language publication in the
country for more than a century. This publication was edited by many illustrious
editors. But the most popular was Khushwant Singh. It is well-known that he gave
a big boost not just to the Weekly but to all magazine journalism in India.

New Delhi-based Delhi Press gave a real and new twist to Hindi magazine
journalism by starting a cost-effective Hindi household magazine by the name
Sarita in 1945, immediately after its English magazine Caravan, which was
launched in 1940. What made Delhi Press group stand out was its capacity to
publish popular consumer magazines for women and children, besides Caravan,
Alive and Sarita, for more than 76 years. The group has always maintained
affordable cover price of the magazine while using cost-effective technology to
produce them.

Among the oldest in the world

Here, I may say, print-media started in our country as early as 1780, whereas Radio
broadcasting began in 1927. Indian print-media is among the oldest in the world.
As mentioned earlier, printing machines in India were brought by Christian
missionaries for printing their conversion materials and for printing of the Bible.
This appearance of technology was obviously responsible for the spread of the
printed word in India.

The print industry mainly comprises of newspaper and magazine publishing. Book
publishing is smaller but significant in terms of revenue; it is a mature industry.
New magazines are being launched every year. India has been one of the fastest
growing world economies since 2010-2011 (although there is slight pause because
of the Covid pandemic). Robust consumption and rising income levels added with
literacy growth in urban as well as rural India have helped the growth of print-
media, of which, the magazine sector is quite phenomenal. Economic Times, in its
recent first quarter survey of 2020, said, ‘Indian print and publishing industry’s
turnover will touch Rs 739 billion, which includes books, magazines and
newspapers, etc. The Registrar of Newspapers for India, government of India, in its
recent release, said more than one lakh newspapers and magazines have been
registered with the department (the exact figure is 1,05,443). This is a clear
indication of literacy growth and demand of reading materials.

Newspapers and magazines have become more affordable world-wide in the recent
times, the reason being in the late 19th century, prices of magazines and
newspapers became much affordable because print-runs increased because of new
advent of technology in the printing, binding and other quick and productive
technologies used in the print-production in shortest period of time. Rotary presses
with offset printing method, which is cost-effective, quick reproduction and
sharper images and new experimental designs and more number of copies at much
less cost and less time consumed in production operation and that is how we
entered 2oth century.

The growth of magazines and newspapers are on a continuous track onward

because the reader base in India is growing fast. India has always been a
multilingual country and with the country set to become a hub of the largest
English speaking population, magazines, newspapers and book sales will directly
grow-up, so will the sales of regional newspapers and magazines.

During the late 20th and early 21th centuries, the advent of online technology
began to affect both the magazine industry and the print-media as a whole. Much
like newspaper publishers, magazine publishers will have to rethink their structure
to reach out to an increasingly online market.