Video magazine tries to keep finger on fast-forward button.

LAUNCHED when the VHS and Betamax video cassette formats were duking it out for supremacy and mum-and-pop rental stores ruled, Video Business magazine is fighting to stay relevant in an age in which technology seems to be passing it by.

Reed Business Information's 25-year-old Los Angeles-based trade weekly, heavy with Top 10 lists and reviews of upcoming releases, has expanded its technology coverage and now provides more breaking news on its companion Web site. But Kevin Davis, the new home entertainment group publisher who arrived two years ago to overhaul Reed's online offerings, insists there's still a place for the print edition.

"As the video business faces challenges, so do we, and there's three options - pack up and go home, squabble with advertisers over market share, or innovate," said Davis, who became publisher in September. "It's basically innovate or die for us."

As a controlled-circulation publication mailed free to a select demographic, Video Business doesn't necessarily have to increase circulation as much as demonstrate to advertisers it's reaching the right audience, including key decision makers in the stocking of products for rental stores or general retailers such Wal-Mart and Circuit City. The publication, which doesn't release circulation numbers or breakdowns, also is read by Wall Street analysts and entertainment industry professionals.

As independent retailers close or merge, the magazine has reached out to more mass retailers who sell rather than rent videos, often in conjunction with their home electronics products. It also is targeting more industry executives who are involved in developing their company's video products.

And to appeal to advertisers hemmed in by today's smaller marketing budgets, the Sept. 9 print edition launched a less expensive advertorial section to appeal to those who can't invest in a full-page display ad for their latest release.

The video industry challenges causing the magazine to lose many of its core readers are numerous. The magazine's Jan. 2 edition reported that consumers in 2005 spent 3.2 percent less on combined DVD and VHS rentals, down to $7.8 billion. DVD rentals grew more than 16 percent to $6.69 billion, but that's significantly off the 40 percent growth seen a year earlier.

Sales of inexpensive DVD box sets of popular TV series have resulted in fewer trips to the video rental store for the latest film release. As a result, independent retailers have fallen to chains that are losing market share to Internet mail order services, which are looking over their shoulder at video-on-demand. With high-definition DVD and wireless video on the rise, and more films than games now available on the Sony Portable Play Station platform, both studios and retailers face a confusing array of video formats to produce or stock.

"Technology is both an enabling and disrupting factor," Davis said. "We're going to best serve our retail-centric reader by helping them understand the implications of what is happening so they can make better decisions about where to take their business."

Reed Business Information is a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

Staff reporter Deborah Crowe can be reached at [phone], ext. 232, or at [e-mail]. Stqff reporter Anne Riley-Katz contributed to this column.