Magazine Death Pool

Purpose Driven Connection magazine: RIP November 2009

No longer showing any faith in the project, Readers Digest beckoned the Reaper to take its Rick Warren magazine to its just fate after a mere four issues.

After moderating a Presidential debate, Warren was ready to step it up to religious superstar levels. Readers Digest, a nice sweet bankrupt publishing company that knows what middle America wants, snagged a deal with the minister for a magazine and web site. You know how things go when you preach against the Reaper and its wicked ways... the web site lives and the magazine dies.

The Advocate and Fortune Small Business: RIP November 2009

The smaller ones shall be taken. Sounds biblical, but true.

At the end of last week, The Advocate was reduced to an insert in Out magazine.

Today, Time Inc., which inspired this blog to come into being, folded Fortune Small Business, which was just waiting to happen for a long time.

The Reaper has been tossing this title in the garbage ever since it received its first small business American Express card. What, you didn't see the TV commercial featuring me and my name on the bottom of the card? You think it was all Marty Scorcese ads?

The incredible shrinking magazine: Fortune

Yes, I missed on Cookie closing, but this is one I didn't.

The Reaper said at the beginning of the year that one of the big business magazines would reduce their frequency. There was no way that the current weekly and bi-weekly frequencies were going to be sustained.

Fortune, clearly wanting to go the "green route," as exemplified on this cover, will be cutting back from 25 to 18 issues a year beginning in 2010.

The Reaper is now waiting for the other shoe to drop at Forbes.

Slo-o-o-o-o-owwwww death.....

Marked for Death: Entertainment Weekly

Time Inc. employees should just take a look at their late-to-the-show neighbors at Conde Nast and what it took them to finally cut down to a normal size. Bloated Conde Nast had to hire McKinsey & Co. to tell them what anybody with common sense could have told them for free over the past five years.

Entertainment Weekly has been losing as much traction as Jennifer Aniston's career. For years, the Reaper circles the building on Avenue of the Americas, taking Cottage Living and Southern Accents, wondering when they'll let go of EW and turn it into the web property it cries out to be.

It's like Kubler-Ross' stages of death, except Time Inc. refuses to move out of the denial phase. Ad pages are plummeting faster than Jon Gosselin's popularity with women. It's thinner than the last photos of I saw of Mischa Barton. Like its Premiere predecessor, it's quickly becoming old news. At least Hachette knew when to call it a wrap. 

What will it take Time Inc. to come to their senses? A knock on the old noggin from the Reaper? Paying out fees to companies like McKinsey?

The Reaper predicts that when EW folds, it will be announced that it will become part of People magazine and its web site.

WWD says that it has "renewed energy under new managing editor Jess Cagle." I'm sure Jess Cagle is a very nice person, but even the well-loved good-looking Leonardo DiCaprio couldn't make the Titanic float again.

For your consideration: Ebony magazine

As the iconic magazines keep falling, another one has moved into the bullseye range of the Reaper.

Ebony magazine is up on the chopping block, apparently, and it's questionable whether anybody wants to divvy up for an outdated media platform with a well-known name. Conde Nast didn't hesitate for one Rachael Ray minute to toss the 60-year-old Gourmet in the dustbin, so you have to wonder if Ebony has the clout to stay alive.

The Reaper has already made off with Giant and King, to no surprise. Ebony is like the doddering old grandmother who is around, you know she's there, but you ignore her.

ODDS OF SURVIVAL: 15%

Gourmet, Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride: RIP October 2009

 

The McKinsey consultants, with the aid of the Reaper, have made their recommendations. Conde Nast will experience the kind of shrinkage in 2009 that George Costanza could not replicate.

In one fell swoop, there's going to be a lot of extra office space at 4 Times Square.

In three cases, it was the absurd redundancy of trying to corner the market, and ending up cannibalizing itself in the new era of magazine mortality. These were not exactly decisions on the level of Sophie's Choice. No need to have both Gourmet and Bon Appetit, so dump the one staggering the most. Out goes Gourmet with last night's fish dinner!

Are three bridal magazines necessary under one roof? Conde Nast already owned Brides for years when it bought rivals Modern Bride and Elegant Bride. This was a no-brainer. Modern Bride has been around for centuries and Elegant Bride took advantage of the wedding spending boom of the 90's. Both are now mortis.

Cookie is another in a long line of cursed "Best Launch" titles (if you get one of those awards, send out your resume immediately!). Joining the Child and Wondertime conga lines of dead "upscale" parenting magazines, there just weren't enough affluent advertisers to hold this baby in its rickety crib.

It's an empty tower in Times Square, my friends. The lines in the cafeteria are about to get much shorter.

URB: RIP October 2009

URB was a dead hip-hop/urban/whatchamacallit duck as soon as Vibe folded. It's just another music rag torched by by the big bad download revolution.

People don't want to pay for their music, and most of the time, they're reading the screen of their iPods, not magazines.

Marked for death: The Hollywood Reporter

 All the young pishers of Hollywood carry BlackBerrys and iPhones, so who needs to read an old fashioned print magazine?

Nielsen is quickly discovering that if going all-digital could work for Adweek, it could certainly pay off for the venerable Hollywood Reporter.

Nikki Finke reported the doom and gloom news today on her web site, and she suspects Variety's paid subscriptions will go up as a reaction. The Reaper suspects it won't change a thing for Variety because they've maxed out in a very finite readership.

The Reaper suspects that Billboard is another perfect vehicle for Nielsen's convert-to-digital tactics.

It's their world, those young pishers, and they don't read magazines, baby!

Is Reader's Digest's BestYou magazine already gone?

In its bankruptcy shuffle, it seems Reader's Digest may have stopped the printers on BestYou magazine, which is one of the two titles they launched after closing Backyard Living and Cooking For 2.

The web site claims: "Unfortunately, we are not accepting subscription orders for Best You at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Boo hoo for BestYou.

UPDATE: It lives, and they have changed their minds about taking subscriptions! "We have announced that Best You is launching under Reader's Digest VP/Global Editor-in-Chief Peggy Northrop in March after 2 successful test issues." Straight from the Reader's Digest mouth! They have just  updated the link and are now back in the subscription business at http://www.bestyouhealth.com/.

FALL 2009 PREVIEW OF MAGAZINE DEATHS TO COME

With all the bids due on Business Week today, this is an ideal time to present our Fall 2009 Preview of Magazine Deaths To Come.

And what a day it is. The McKinsey consultants have completed their audit and Conde Nast may actually be cut down in size to a normal publishing company. A Business Week memo leaked out promising 20% staff cuts. Poor Jon Fine (actually, not so poor) may not have a place to return to after he and his wife take off on sabbatical traveling the world in search of the one or two most interesting media personalities in Slobovia. Everybody is running for cover.

So the Reaper has sharpened its blade to look ahead at what magazines are most likely heading for the graveyard this fall. It's a perfect storm of lost ads and sinking newsstand, and the Reaper is waiting to see who goes overboard first.

CONDE NAST: Forget the elimination of petty perks like replenishing the pencil supply. Does the world need two foodie magazines and three bridal magazines, which are all down by huge numbers of ad pages, published by the same company? Gourmet (-42%), Bon Appetit (-31.9%), Brides, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride (-39.2%) are all very likely suspects to join the Reaper. W magazine, a pick-up from Fairchild, is staggering and redundant with a 46% ad page loss. Teen Vogue is the last teen mag standing, but that hasn't helped them either (-35.5%).

KIPLINGER'S PERSONAL FINANCE VS. SMART MONEY: While everybody has been focusing on Business Week's sale, they forgot about the number two and three books in the personal finance/business category. Put in perspective, Business Week averages about 27 to 28 pages a week, and they are losing a ton of money. Kiplinger's and Smart Money carry about the same amount of ad pages every monthly issue. How long can they fight a losing battle on that kind of revenue with personal finance advice being pushed out on the web on a daily basis by every yahoo, like Yahoo's Personal Finance section?

LIFE & STYLE: Most likely victim of the oversaturated gossip market. With newsstand off 7% and ad pages almost down 35%, Bauer could be better off putting all its celebrity eggs in the In Touch basket.

BOATING, POWER & MOTOR YACHT: Vroom! Vroom! Pfffftttttt. Kill the engine. The deadly duo which are primed to sink in an ocean of lost ad pages and readers. Boating magazine has already shed nearly 47% of its ad pages from last year. Brunswick, which owns outboard motor company Mercury Marine, has lost 80% of its sales. According to the trade rag Soundings, "The total fiberglass market for all lengths was down 30.6 percent on 53,210 units for the quarter. Ski boat sales dropped 32.3 percent to 2,807 units. Deckboat sales were down 39.2 percent on sales of 2,277 units."

THE SHELTER CATEGORY: How about playing a game of "... And Then There Were None?" The leading ad pages losers are Architectural Digest (-49.3%), Veranda (-47.3%), and the independent San Francisco-based Dwell (-45%). Sadly, this last one seems like the one to go with no big sugar daddies to provide a multi-title safety net. It's only a matter of time before AD editor-in-chief Paige Rense, who is already in the rumor mill to be pushed out, devotes those beautiful color pages to mansions in foreclosure.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER: High priced travel is out, businesses are ordering employees to go coach, airlines are cutting back flights and hotels are sitting empty. NG Traveler sits behind Conde Nast Traveler and Travel + Leisure, who are both suffering badly (especially the former), making them a likely Reaper victim.

TOWN & COUNTRY: Is flaunting wealth a cultural paradigm of the past? Hearst can easily pull the plug on this old school paean to crazy money (down almost 48%), which seems past its prime.

CREAKY RIGHT WING AND LEFT WING MAGAZINES: The National Review in one corner, and the New Republic in the other. Vanity projects? Absolutely. The New Republic has the distinction of carrying the mighty total of seven -- yes, that is the number 7 -- ad pages in the September 7th issue. That's the sort of reverse karma from the Beatles on 9/9/09. Don't laugh, National Review, you've got 15.

MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Ah, leisure reading for the Mensa crowd. However, stupid people rule in the United States, so the best they could come up with is 21 ad pages for their September/October issue. That's 10.5 ad pages a month. It's time to call in Mr. Peabody and Sherman!

LATE BREAKING NEWS: Magazine overboard! Bonnier has sunk Boating Life magazine and is offering Boating subscriptions in its place. The Reaper thinks this is just the warm up act.