MAKING MAGAZINES WORK IN THAILAND

In the 15 months I've been in Thailand I have seen a few English language publications disappear. There are more but the ones that spring to mind are Thai Day and Metro Magazine.
The latest title to join the list would appear to be Untamed Travel magazine, which apparently has not published for a couple of months due to an internal restructuring. Reading between the lines that means it's not making money but the publishers don't want to openly admit it is unlikely to reappear.
Exactly the same thing happened about a year ago with Metro Magazine. Metro had an excellent reputation and more than 15 years of history, yet it folded when advertising revenue dried up. Untamed Travel, which swallowed Farang Magazine a while back, looks to be heading the same way.
The way I see things is that English publications here are not read in great numbers by the Thai population. It's true that educated Thai people do have an understanding of English but given the choice (and there is a lot of that in the market) they naturally opt for Thai titles. That's why the combined circulation of the two English language daily newspapers is less than 1/20th of that of the most popular single Thai daily.
The other issue is advertising. Unless your publication can prove it reaches its audience then it's unlikely to be supported with large amount of advertising. There are a few exceptions but in general it's only the Thai titles that are making money right now.