Ten Magazine Casualties Of New Media

Jul 1st, 2009 | By | Category: General

PaidContent has an interesting list of 10 magazines that have bit the dust in the last six months.

The list includes some heavy hitters:

  1. Alpha Media Group: Blender—March (Online only)—Down 30.6
  2. Hearst: CosmoGirl—December-January (Online only)—Down 10.9 percent
  3. Condé Nast: Domino—January (Shuttered)—Down 4.1 percent
  4. Hallmark Cards: Hallmark Magazine—February-March (Shuttered)—Up 11 percent
  5. Condé Nast: Portfolio—May (Online only)—Up 2 percent
  6. Hearst: Oprah At Home—January (Shuttered)—Ad page numbers not available
  7. Ziff Davis: PC Magazine—January (Online only)—0
  8. Billboard: Radio & Records—June (Shuttered)—Ad page numbers not available
  9. American Express: Travel + Leisure Golf—March-April (Website still live, but inactive)—Down 13.9 percent
  10. Wicks Media Group: Vibe—June —Down 17.7 percent

While many attribute this magazine parade of death to the global recession, it’s more likely that this is just the coup de grâce, and that the real culprit is the fact that people’s attention is moving to new media.

If you’re involved in traditional publishing, at least you can sing about the situation:

Morbid Major Magazine Song

A musical list of the names of defunct magazines.

(To the tune of I Am a Very Model of A Modern Major General by Gilbert & Sullivan)

By Bill Dyszel

The many paper publications writers once were writing for
Have mostly disappeared and left a handful all are fighting for
They went by names like Mirabella, Cosmo Girl, and Living Well
Amazing Stories, Omni, and Organic Style and Mademoiselle
And Spirit of Aloha, which you may perchance have read in flight
And also Windows Sources, HomePC, Musician, Cue and Byte
And 7 Days and Audio, and Quick and Simple and Cachet
And, PC Magazine, but no understood that anyway.
When Budget Living says they’re broke, you know conditions aren’t so nice.
And don’t forget Success, whose claim to fame is that they failed twice.
McCalls, Industry Standard, House & Garden all have gone away
And Rosie sank as fast and deep as Underwater USA.

When Country Journal, Harper’s, Jewish Woman, Coronet and Mode
Have followed New Age Journal as they all were flushed down some commode
When Blueprints future plans have all been relegated to the past
And National Lampoon will surely not be who is laughing last.
When Women’s Sports and Fitness, Golf for Women, Gusto, Sync and Spy
Are only sold along with Lifetime at that newsstand in the sky
All writers start to fear that their careers are headed for the drain
A lot like Talk and Child and Life and Look and Lear’s and George and Jane.
The experts all are telling us that in our brave new century
There’ll be new opportunities exciting and adventur-y
But to a freelance writer none of this may seem too funny,
Cause you know the next to go will close up shop and owe you money.

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No Responses to “Ten Magazine Casualties Of New Media”

  1. msbpodcast says:

    Well, if we look at the industry trade journals and tech journals, the slaughter is even worse.

    I don’t think that many people mourned “The Hotline on Object-Oriented Technology” (except me 🙁 Nobody gave a HOOT. 🙂

  2. […] for the benefit of those who have not already read them on Concurring Opinions or ContractsProf Ten Magazine Casualties Of New Media – podcasting-news.com 07/01/2009 PaidContent has an interesting list of 10 magazines that have […]

  3. James Lewin says:

    msbpodcast –

    The Hotline On Object-Oriented Technology does sound pretty juicy!

    Do you think it’s the economy that’s killing all these magazines off, though, or the trend to new media?

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