The effects of website provision on the demand for German women’s magazines

What happens to the demand of the print version if a magazine launches a website? This question is empirically analyzed for the German women's magazine market, a particularly relevant segment of the German magazine market. Static and dynamic nested logit–type demand models are estimated on quarterly panel data covering the period 1996 to 2001. Main findings are that website provision does not have a significant effect on magazine demand — a conclusion that is robust to alternative specification of the potential website effect (including 'passive' learning and 'active learning') — and there are significantly positive 'awareness' spillovers from website presence of competitors. and Birgit Zöllner of Jahreszeitenverlag for kind data provision and advice. Comments from two anonymous referees lead to substantial improvements of this paper. This research also benefited from comments received during presentations and the 2nd workshop on media economics hosted by the Norwegian School of Business in Bergen. I particularly thank the following individuals for their valuable inputs: