One editor advises his regular columnists to keep their features to 800 words with maybe a picture or two. Says the days of the 2-3,000 word columns, if not main features, are over. I don't know if it's attention span or a desire not to compete with the advertising space.
You're dead-center on-target.
"attention span" = excuse
ad space = money = reason
Many publishers fervently wish that they could eliminate editorial altogether and publish only advertising. Some magazines have eliminated paid subscriptions and news-stand "draw" in favor of free distribution (to carefully chosen recipients) solely supported by ad revenues, but soon failed miserably � in part because the lower quality and reduced space of their articles and columns failed to attract enough big advertisers. (One of my publishers tried this before I went there, and the aftermath of that humongous failure gave us misery for years.)
Magazines without ads have done better than magazines with too much space taken-up by ads.
Reader's Digest was a giant financed by subscriptions long before it started taking ad money. But publishers (especially new ones) still believe that advertising is mandatory from Day One. One would-be publisher I worked for even went so far as to
give free ad space to selected advertisers, to "prime the pump" and attract ad money to launch a new magazine. He published a grand total of
one issue and virtually bankrupted his backer. The impact of that single issue was about half as loud as a feather dropped down a well.
