How the hell do some of these magazines stay in business??

I picked up a copy of Running World the other day and as I leafed through it, it felt like Déjà vu all over again. It’s not that sitting on the subway was so familiar but it was as if I’d read all the articles before. I checked on the front cover and it clearly said December 2009 but somehow that didn’t seem real. See there are a handful of magazines (Men’s Health, Marie Claire, Vogue, Maxim to name a few) which somehow survive by regurgitating the same article over and over again. Every issue of Elle will give the woman reading it some information on how to lose that extra 10 lbs, just like ever issue of Runners World gives you information how to ‘Run Pain Free’ or the ‘way to perfect abs’ featured in .

 I’m sure there are tons of other examples but it reminds me of the cartoon industry, I had a buddy who worked for Nickelodeon a few years ago as a cartoonist for one of its kids shows. After a couple of years at the job he told me that they started to lay artists off, this was a few years before the recession so the layoffs seemed inexplicable until he told me the reason. After so many hours of drawing, the show had all the settings, faces, expressions and character combinations it would ever need. The entire concept was they would just splice old footage together in a new order for new shows, what was once a thriving industry was now just a cookie-cutter business.

When you get to these magazines and you realize you are just reading the same badly written crap over-and-over again you understand it’s just mindless clutter.  You read it and it leaves your brain so quickly because there really isn't a redeeming mark to the entire piece.
Now with all the major news-outlets cutting resources, staff and size this seems like there will be a very natural decision which the conglomorates will make.
My prediction:  It won’t be long before Men’s Health and Elle star literally printing the same articles they did a few years ago because your audience apparently isn’t smart enough to notice.

Hell maybe they've done so already.