Magazine Death Pool

Vibe: RIP June 2009

It's been a bad week for Quincy Jones.

First, his musical protege Michael Jackson decided he couldn't stop when he had enough, stopped breathing and ended his recording career.

Then today, the magazine he founded 16 years ago with Time Inc., although he sold it a long time ago, went to join Tupac Shakur, Ol Dirty Bastard, and Notorious B.I.G. in the Reaper's crib. Big ass flat screen TV, stereo system with 5 foot subwoofers, and Sub Zero fridge to store recent arrivals.

I'm trying to book Rev. Al Sharpton for a public memorial but they don't have news crews where the Reaper lives, so he won't come.

Marked for Death: Giant magazine

The Reaper is sorry for taking down the previous post. We needed a little more information, so we're back on the not so jolly and definitely not green Giant.

Giant is like the slogan of Monty Python's Spamalot, "I'm not dead yet."

But it will be. While while they make a fuss that they are working on their September issue, will they be around for the October issue?

* Radio One had never been a magazine publisher until they bought Maxim wannabe Giant and turned it into a Vibe wannabe two years ago.

* In the urban category, King took its big butt to meet the Reaper, Vibe is hanging by a short curly hair, and XXL is shrinking to a S.

JazzTimes put into deep freeze cryogenics capsule

It don't mean a thing if you ain't publishing!

The 38-year old JazzTimes has "temporarily suspended publication" and "furloughed the bulk of its staff" while it "finalizes a sale of its assets."

The Reaper hates to be so downbeat (drum roll!) but if you want to be cool, you can jam down here with the temperatures don't get much above freezing.

Nickelodeon magazine: RIP June 2009

Not a good week for the youth of our country after yesterday's croaking of Children's Digest.

The Reaper had this one pegged over one year ago as a prime death candidate. Losing ad pages as fast as doody jokes on a Rugrats episode, the real question is why did it take Viacom so long to put this one out of its misery? Little brother Nick Jr. got the juice two years ago.

Didn't the Nickelodeon network get it? Kids were too busy drooling over iCarly and her other jailbait friends and getting their first "tentpoles" to read magazines!

Children's Digest: RIP June 2009

The Children's Better Health Institute took the Reaper's advice that kids are too smart for their own good and sent their magazine Children's Digest upstairs without any dinner... permanently.

Known for its hard-hitting investigative pieces on such topics as bananas, understanding your brain, and gravity, Children's Digest will be mourned by 6th graders everywhere.

Radio & Records and Performing Songwriter magazines: RIP June 2009

The beat goes on... the beat goes on... downloads keep pounding magazines into the grave....

Nielsen shut a completely outdated trade rag Radio & Records, while its sister Billboard may not be too far behind, a prime candidate for web presence only.

Aspiring Kara DioGuardi's will have to learn the ropes elsewhere as independent Performing Songwriter heard the fat lady sing and is closing after 16 years.

Letter to the Reaper: Donald Trump's publishing history

Dear Grim:

FYI: The evolution of the Trump branded periodicals is as follows:

Trump Style (publisher unknown. In-room book for three Trump AC hotel & casinos)
Trump World (I) (Lockwood Publications)
Trump World (II) (Premier Publishing Group)
Trump magazine (I) (Premier Publishing Group)
Trump magazine (II) (Ocean Drive Media)

That magazine had more lives than Radar!

Washington's Finest: RIP May 2009

No, it's not about the police department of our nation's capital.

They ran out of subject matter in this city and just had to drop kick it over to the Reaper.

Trump Magazine: RIP May 2009

Does anybody see the sweet irony in Trump magazine going bust the day his interview appears in The Wall Street Journal explaining his wealth?

This is another financial train wreck Niche Media inherited from acquiring Ocean Drive Media. Trump magazine was about to go under after three years when Ocean Drive came in to rescue it in September 2007. It was described in the New York Post as a "five-year $20 million partnership" in the New York Post.

Niche has been quietly folding a number of its Ocean Drive properties, which makes their acquisition probably one of the great magazine deal busts of the last five years.

If you'd really like a stroll down memory lane, allow the Reaper to show you the Donald's other publishing failure, Trump World.

Here's how they described this misguided vanity project:

Trump World magazine takes readers inside Donald Trump's world, travel to exotic locations and fine dining establishments. It gets you up close and personal with the superstars of today & tomorrow and bring you back stage with the contestants of The Apprentice.

Marked for death: OK!, LIfe & Style, Men's Journal

The great shakeout of gossip magazines will begin here. After forking over millions of dollars for exclusive photos and stories about celebrities making nice, owners Northern & Shell realized that this proposition was going to be a money pit akin to dear departed Portfolio.

Retrenching after making the mistake of hiring Kent Brownridge fresh from his botched handling of Alpha Media Group, OK! is playing editorial musical chairs and in one of the surest signs of death being around the corner, they are transforming into a "lifestyle" magazine.

While this may save them from writing big checks to movie stars, this moves them right into the territory of Life & Style, which can not be in worse shape right now.

Life & Style is the albatross around Bauer Publishing's neck. Publishing a weekly is an expensive proposition. Doing a sort of "nice" gossip rag with no news is the kiss of death. Bauer is already a penny-pinching institution, so there is just no point in keep this one around. Pumping up the cover price in record amounts at the worst possible economic time may have been this magazine's death warrant.

Men's Journal just has to see the fate of Rodale's Best Life to know that its days are numbered. All the National Magazine Award nominations in the world can't stop a 41% drop in ad pages through May and cutting back in frequency.