The demand for advertisements targeting readers interested in personal computers grew very quickly in 1979 and the early 1980s. Byte was able to capture much of the quickly growing advertising revenue because it took years for high-growth-capable competitors to Byte to get off the ground.
(Byte was mostly ads back then.)
PC Magazine started in Feb 1982. Its issues quickly became as thick or almost as thick and ad-filled as Byte's.
There were other magazines in the same market in the 1970s, e.g., Dr Dobb's Journal, but for some reason they never expanded their "portfolio" (terminology?) of advertisers the way that Byte did.
I guess the mainstream magazine publishers considered (probably rightly so at that stage of the industry) personal computers too niche to be worth their while. PC Magazine for example was started by an enthusiast, not a mainstream publisher.
The demand for advertisements targeting readers interested in personal computers grew very quickly in 1979 and the early 1980s. Byte was able to capture much of the quickly growing advertising revenue because it took years for high-growth-capable competitors to Byte to get off the ground.
(Byte was mostly ads back then.)
PC Magazine started in Feb 1982. Its issues quickly became as thick or almost as thick and ad-filled as Byte's.
There were other magazines in the same market in the 1970s, e.g., Dr Dobb's Journal, but for some reason they never expanded their "portfolio" (terminology?) of advertisers the way that Byte did.
I guess the mainstream magazine publishers considered (probably rightly so at that stage of the industry) personal computers too niche to be worth their while. PC Magazine for example was started by an enthusiast, not a mainstream publisher.