RedCedar,
It's not quite that simple. These days companies split their advertising up.
They still buy paper magazine ads, but they also buy advertising in the on-line versions of the same magazines, but often don't want to pay as much for the on-line ads, partly because paper-magazine advertising tends to reach more readers, because a paper copy is often read by more than person. They also advertise on-line in other ways, including on websites such as Facebook, 24hourcampfire--and television.
Another factor is that tobacco and alcohol companies bought a lot of advertising in magazines, especially after tobacco advertising was banned on TV. I worked at a staff writer for Field & Stream during the 1990s, at that time the largest of all hunting magazines (though of course they ran fishing articles too), which ran monthly issues up to close to 200 pages. Now F&S is, like many other hunting/shooting orieinted magazines, much smaller--and in the last several years started publishing less frequently. They went to 10 issues per year a while back, with two so-called "double" issues. Then they went to six issues a year, and recently four--and are somewhat combining with Outdoor Life (which has been owned by the same company since the 90s), sharing some of the same staff writers.
But both magazines continued to cover hunting, shooting and fishing long after more specialized magazines in each category had taken away readership--including specialized gun magazines. In general, gun and other specialized magazines are healthier.
