Magazine Death Pool

Tango vs. Hollywood Life -- A Race To The Death

Two magazines with so much in common, and that's not a good thing either.

They both have truly no reason to exist in this environment.

Neither are must reads and seem to have most of their circulation at nail salons.

Both have huge turnovers in staff.

Both run by a crazed woman founder.

Both quietly cut back their frequency to quarterly.

It seems like a race to the death! Which one is going to go first?

Now I know there's real sentiment for Hollywood Life out there, judging from all the "fan" posts and e-mails we get every time we mention them. But on the other hand, really, do you honestly see Tango having a shot making a dime?

RIP: Vibe Vixen July 2007

I thought Fridays were supposed to be bad news days, but it looks like Monday is the new Friday.

Like cover girl Janet Jackson's career, Vibe Vixen was not going anywhere.

A spin-off of the venerable Vibe, Vixen was described as "is the first magazine exclusively for trendsetting women whose love for urban music and culture inspires her choices in beauty, fashion, and lifestyle."

You knew there was trouble where there were no magazine reviews at all at Amazon.com's magazine store. Even Rolling Stone got two stars. Nobody posted anything for Vibe Vixen!

Weekly World News: RIP July 2007

This hurts the Reaper in a few ways.

First of all, it isn't every publication that features the Reaper itself as a character visiting in many different forms.

Second, forget about most of the garbage sold to you on newsstands. This was always one of the most genuinely entertaining magazines the Reaper read, more than Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair and many others.

Third, we're seeing the shoe drop on the tabloid world. The cultural paradigm is shifting and people can read about exaggerated and questionable things on most blogs. This is why David Pecker is in the hot seat, and the National Enquirer and The Star are losing circulation faster than Paris Hilton goes through dogs.

So down the River Styx goes the Bat Boy, where I have a nice dark cave he can hang and watch "The Maury Povich Show" and "Judge Judy."   

Dear Reaper, please don't shut Business 2.0

Dear Reaper:

Please don't come and swing that sharp thing in your hands at Business 2.0. Yes, I know you predicted it would be a goner soon because the ads are not coming in and Time Inc. is on the ropes these days.

We've even formed a Facebook group so we can pretend we're the fans of that show "Jericho" and  save our beloved magazine from the ax. 

Search me why readers love this magazine and are so passionate about it and circulation is very respectable and unusually steady, but advertisers are smitten with web campaigns. Reaper, if you have the loyal readers in big numbers, why don't the advertisers just wake up when you've got this kind of committed audience?

So I know you've been looming outside the Time-Life Building lately, but do you think you can take your swing at something else here, like Entertainment Tonight, those guys don't have many ads either, or maybe Cottage Living (who wants to read a magazine about living in a cottage anyway?).

Some magazines didn't have a chance -- Rockstar magazine

There are some magazines that you know were never going to have a chance and should have aborted early on.

Read "Rockstar" magazine's sales pitch to readers on the web and you can see why the Reaper didn't even have to get up out of its chair to cut this one down:

Rockstar Magazine may be the newest and fastest-growing magazine for men. Each new monthly issue features the most beautiful nude models on the newsstands. ROCKSTAR even has models that can't be seen nude anywhere else! Along with cutting-edge coverage of sports, entertainment, cultural and political issues, ROCKSTAR features provocative cartoon humor...and, of course, the naked ROCKSTAR HOTTIE of the month!

Jane: RIP July 2007

One year ago, practically to the day, I gave Jane a 20% chance of survival. We knew this was coming and sadly, but totally not expectedly, Conde Nast ended Jane today.

This was what I call a no brainer. The founder, Jane Pratt, left two years ago and now it's in the hands of Brandon Holley, whose name, you may notice, is not Jane. The readers dug Jane and her quirkiness and personality. So when Pratt had her baby and seemed to be pushed out, it was the first time that a namesake magazine was without the namesake.

So first Jane tried for the "millenials," which I guess has has been the recent ad sales lingo for what used to be called "Gen X." Advertisers didn't buy it -- in the first half of 2006, they lost 41% of their ads from the year before.

Well, you can read my previous post, but let's mourn Jane, coming of age as the complement in the lad mag era, offering young women an edgy, funny and personal magazine that really was ripe for the online world, something that never really took off as it should have.

That leaves just O as the only namesake magazine around these days, and the Hearst people must be looking at this development with great interest.

I know as Jane crosses the great River Styx today, we'll be thinking about the many Drew Barrymore covers all going up in flames. This magazine was definitely Conde Nast's potential ticket to hipness in the young women's category and now... well.... they can use all that saved money to help save Portfolio, which has a zero hip quotient.