The Demise of Print

RIP: Playgirl

Sorry ladies and gays, Playgirl magazine will cease publishing in print and move online-only in 2009. The final glossy issue will be available November 18. The revamped Playgirl.com will feature more videos and pictorials and less editorial content.

More information can be found here.

Sorry ladies and gays, Playgirl magazine will cease publishing in print and move online-only in 2009. The final glossy issue will be available November 18. The revamped Playgirl.com will feature more videos and pictorials and less editorial content.

More information can be found here.

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: 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 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: PC World Australia

TechCrunch reports that PC World Australia will discontinue print distribution while still publishing the same content online.

IDG Communications managing director Don Kennedy said that there would be no immediate editorial downsizing as the publication would continue online. A source close to the company said that reader numbers of the print edition of PC World Australia had declined by over 50% in the last two years.

The shift starts in January 2008.

RIP: Commercial Aviation Report and Commercial Aviation Value Report

Immediately after acquiring two print publications, Commercial Aviation Report and Commercial Aviation Value Report, from Commercial Aviation Media (CAM), Reed Business Information (RBI) ends the print run while transitioning the content  online.

From the InfoCommerce Group blog,

RBI plans to cease publishing CAM's magazines in print and will transition the publications online to complement Flight's ATI news and data service. The publications will be rebranded as Flight Commercial Aviation Online and will cover the latest aircraft deal transactions, new aircraft and airline financings, analysis of airline financials, expert industry comment and financial gossip from the aviation market.

***

It's interesting that RBI is abandoning the print products so quickly, but company officials must feel strongly that this market would be better served (and perhaps prefer) to access its content through the online ATI service. If anything, it's a smart cost-saving move.

RIP: Saltwater Fly Fishing

From an announcement on MidCurrent, a fly fishing  resource web site,

Morris Communications, which publishes both American Angler and Saltwater Fly Fishing magazines, announced yesterday that they will cease publication of their bi-monthly saltwater print magazine and reintroduce that content in new forms. Plans are in the works for an annual publication for saltwater fly fishers, along with an entirely new Web site under the domain SaltwaterFlyFishing.com.
---
“The increasing importance of Internet research to saltwater anglers dictates that we place more emphasis on electronic delivery of our content,” said Morris Sporting Group general manager Steve Walburn. “In addition to creating deep online archives of material from all our titles, the merger will allow us to produce more original content for our Web sites, such as instructional videos, destination reports, and development of community groups.”