The Demise of Print

RIP: Publishing News

The book trade weekly, Publishing News, will cease publication Friday, July 25th. The publication was founded in 1979 and has been hit with the same issues that newspapers and magazines face, including dwindling advertising.

'This has been a sad and difficult decision to make, but the nature of the book trade which today offers a multiplicity of ways for publishers to sell books both to booksellers and to consumers has changed dramatically. For the biggest book publishers, the trade press is now only one of many options for the promotion and sale of their titles.' -- Publishing News' founder and Chairman, Fred Newman

More here:
PN Online

RIP: Little Blue World

The Tori Amos fanzine, Little Blue World, will cease print publication in Winter 2009. After 8 years and 32 issues, the production costs have made it impossible to continue in print. Little Blue World is considering alternatives to print but no decisions have been made. In the meantime, Toriphiles can take advantage of discounted back issues and pro-rated subscriptions for the remaining issues.

More links here:

• Undented
• Little Blue World

RIP: College Yearbook

Three major universities will cease yearbook publication. Virginia Wesleyan, Purdue, and Mississippi State University cite declining sales and lack of interest as the key factors in this decision. MSU stated that there were only 300 orders for this year's yearbook from approximately 17,000 students. The popularity of Facebook as well as other social networking sites is blamed for the lack of student enthusiasm.

The Daily Mississippian has the full story here.

RIP: The Capital Times

The Madison, Wisconsin daily newspaper The Capital Times will publish its final print edition on Saturday, May 3rd, 2008. The 90-year-old newspaper will continue online.

Editor Paul Fanlund said that it was tough move, but a move that made sense for an industry that's struggling nationwide. The Capital Times is down to a daily circulation of only 17,000, WISC-TV reported.

More links

• The Capital Times
• Capital Times Stops the Presses

RIP: Games for Windows (nee Computer Gaming World)

Ziff Davis will cease print publication of Games for Windows after the April/May 2008 issue. The magazine will continue online at 1UP.com. The move was carefully considered to help focus efforts where PC gamers spend most of their time: on their PCs.

Games for Windows/Computer Gaming World is one of the longest running magazines about PC games (27 years).

More information can be found here.

RIP: Bluegrass Now

One of the leading bluegrass magazines, Bluegrass Now, will cease its print publication and move online only after the April issue. The magazine started in 1990.

Consistent with other publications who made a similar decision, publisher Wayne Bledsoe lamented that declining ad sales and decreased print subscriptions were the primary reasons for his difficult decision:

"Bledsoe said the peak number of subscribers was 30,000 about 5 or 6 years ago. Since then, the magazine decreased to about 8,000 subscribers."

However, Bledsoe did acknowledge a positive aspect of the decision and he looks forward to continue the jam online:

"Although this decision was initially quite difficult for a retired academic who has lived by the printed word for more than half a century, I am truly excited about being in the vanguard of multimedia publishing in the bluegrass community," Bledsoe wrote.

More links

• Country Standard Time
• BluegrassJournal.com

RIP: No Depression

Whether you call the music it covered alt-country, Americana, or American roots (or all three), the magazine, No Depression, is stopping print publication, but promises to continue on via its web site.

The publishers included a note to readers in the March-April issue.  The note, citing the usual decline in advertising revenue as well as other factors in the music industry, also had these sad words,

"Barring the intercession of unknown angels, you hold in your hands the next-to-last edition of No Depression we will publish.  It is difficult even to type those words, so please know that we have not come lightly to this decision."

More links:

• Seattle-Post Intelligencer
• Print is Dead
• Bluegrass Blog

RIP: CCM Magazine

CCM Magazine, a near 30 year old magazine  covering Christian music, has decided to fold its print format in favor of focusing its coverage online.

Jim Cumbee, President of Non-Broadcast Media for Salem Communications and Publisher of CCM Magazine said, CCM Magazine readers tell us they want more information and want it faster than can be delivered in a monthly printed magazine. Accordingly, we will discontinue the printed version of CCM Magazine to put increased energies toward the continued growth and enhancement of our comprehensive Christian music and entertainment online network featuring CCMMagazine.com, ChristianMusicPlanet.com, CMCentral.com and MyCCM.org.”

See the full press release here.

On Life Support: Adweek

This story from Poynter Online raises a new angle on the demise of print meme (I never thought I'd use that word; I hope I am doing so correctly).   Nielsen Business Media is not stopping the print publication of Adweek, but it is decreasing the frequency of physical printing.

Nielsen Business Media has announced that it is cutting Adweek magazine from 49 issues a year to 36, while expanding its Web site... "We've seen our audience move online in terms of where they get their information," Portfolio quoted Nielsen senior vice president for the media and marketing group Sabrina Crow as saying.

Portfolio, the source for the Poynter story and the above quote, has some stats:

In 2006, Adweek had an average of 15 advertising pages per standalone issue, according to the company. In 2007, the average number of ad pages has dropped to 13, a decline of about 13 percent.

Circulation has also slipped. In 2005, its average circulation was 24,067 and was down to 21,271 for the six months ending in June 2007, a 12 percent decrease, according to BPA Worldwide, its circulation auditor.

Meanwhile, its website has nearly 5 times as many unique visitors as the magazine has subscribers. Adweek.com has seen an average of 103,500 unique visitors per month since January 2007, according to comScore Media Metrix.

RIP: Taloussanomat

Taloussanomat, the Finnish business daily, will shut down its print version and focus on online-only delivery of its content by the end of 2007.   

The Editor's Weblog reports:

The closing down of the print edition was solely a business decision, based on several trends and realities:

• Contrarily to the overall ad market (growth 6% per year), the Finnish business ad market has been declining, down by nearly 9% a year.
• Readership to the online edition of the paper has boomed, growing 70% this year, up to about 280,000 weekly unique (whereas print readership has remained stable).
• By nature, business news is more adapted to be consumed online, due to the speed and reactivity of the Web, but also due its increased functionality and interactive graphic capacity.

More Links:

• Two articles from www.editorsweblog.com, here and here.