New Age Media Darling, Fast Company, Is Hemorrhaging Readers

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Fast Company, which was recently named Magazine of the Year, seems to be having a problem retaining readership online. A look at ComScore numbers for the past year show the magazine is down across all key measures with the exception of Unique Visitors.

Fast Company

Decline in Fast Company’s Total Visits

Year-to-year, Fast Company has seen their Total Visits is decline 8%, Total Page Views is down 16%, Average Visits per Visitor is down 11% and Average Minutes per Visit is down 13%. Even the Median Income for the publication went down from $92,672 to $87,552, a 6% decline.

And while their Unique Visitors might be up 4% compared to the same time last year, they have been experiencing a massive decline for 2014 – going from 3,239,000 in January to a 2,380,000 total for May. In addition, the publication still has  ways to go to beat its competition. Comparable outlets like Wired, Forbes and Entrepreneur enjoy a wide lead in the group, as do sites like Investopedia, Wall Street Cheat Sheet, and Digital Trends who also far surpass Fast Company’s Uniques.

Fast Company’s troublesome online presence

All this despite a major push by the publication to drive online readership with celebrity driven videos. A troublesome online presence for a magazine that’s supposed to be the leader in innovation, yet can’t figure out how to innovate enough to keep its online readership.

Perhaps Fast Company should focus a little more on their core business and a little less on Hollywood and maybe they can regain some of the ground they’ve lost over the past year.  Fast Company’s May 2014 Total Unique Visitors are  down 27%  compared with January 2014. That’s a big drop!

Comscore Numbers:

comscore data Fastcompany
comscore data Fastcompany

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