The decline of pop magazines

I have decided to produce a pop magazine aimed at teenagers for the main part of my coursework task (rather than a magazine such as 'Q' which is what I originally thought I would like to produce), but I have noticed that pop magazines are no longer as popular as they used to be as of late. I have done some research into when pop magazines started to become unpopular and why exactly this began to happen.

The two most well known pop magazines are probably 'Smash Hits' and 'Top Of The Pops'; one of which is still available to buy in shops now, and the other which sadly had to be abolished due to poor readership ratings.

'Smash Hits' was a fortnightly pop magazine which started out in 1978 and peaked in the 1980's when it was becoming recognized all over Britain as "the new pop magazine". By 2006 though, the sale of 'Smash Hits' had greatly decreased and publications had to be ceased. And it's not only the UK version of 'Smash Hits' that is no longer published; the same thing has happened to the Australian magazine. The decline of magazines is turning into a worldwide problem!

One of the main theories to explain the reason for the decrease in sales of the magazine is the fact that the internet is taking over everything. Almost every household in the UK has access to the internet these days, and so rather than teenagers going out to buy a magazine to find out about the latest music, they will just surf the net instead. This obviously causes magazine readership to decrease, which in turn causes both magazine production and publication companies to lose money and eventually magazines end up having to be abolished. This type of decline is likely to cause major worry for magazines because the kids and teenagers who are no longer reading magazines are the future generation. So not only will there be a decline in the readership of kids and teenage magazines, when these teenagers become adults, magazines aimed at adults will also suffer. If teenagers aren't buying magazines now, then they are not going to suddenly want to start reading magazines when they become adults. This could potentially cause magazines to become extinct altogether!

Although 'Top Of The Pops' magazine is still up and running these days, it is probably the only teen pop magazine around and it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as popular as it used to be when I was the typical age at which people read it. I remember buying 'Top Of The Pops' magazine regularly, and I know that a lot of my friends bought it too, but I very rarely see it in any shops anymore, and I am not aware of anybody that reads it. Does this perhaps mean it is heading in the same direction that 'Smash Hits' has?