Magazine Death Pool

Today's Depressing Magazine News Link

Reuters: "Time Inc. Plans More Job Cuts in The First Quarter"

Today's Depressing Magazine News Link

Guardian UK: "Reed Elsevier to sell trade mags" [Variety, Multichannel News, Publishers Weekly, etc.]

Is YRB R.I.P.?

Is YRB still open for business? Just for the name alone, which stands for Yellow Rat Bastard.

A tipster tells the Reaper that people are not receiving their issues, e-mails are bouncing back, and nobody answers the hotline for ordering merchandise. But somebody is maintaining the magazine's MySpace page?

Anybody out there know if YRB should have stuck to being a store and not a magazine?

RIP No Depression and Resonance

It's the end of Side Two for two music magazines, alt-country No Depression and indie rock Resonance.

Industry ads are drying up because record companies are merging and throwing their marketing dollars onto the web. Record stores have been closing down everywhere. When you've got Pitchfork, Idolator, and Stereogum with instant news and reviews, who wants to support an outdated communication vehicle called a "magazine?"

The Reaper plays Ryan Adams' "Love Is Hell" on the way down the river tonight.

Depressing Magazine News Link of The Day

Valleywag: "Magazine hemorrhage begins in earnest."

Today's Depressing Magazine News Link

REUTERS: "Playboy expects first quarter magazine advertising revenue to be down 30%."

Think the circulation numbers are bad?

It's not even safe to be a weekly gossip magazine any more.

The FAS-FAX circ numbers are out for second half 2007 and I won't review what's been out already. There's a lot of ugliness growing.

A look at Jack Hanrahan's CircMatters newsletter shows two giants missing their rate base (guaranteed issue sales), Reader's Digest and Playboy. People down, Bauer's Life & Style down.

If you think these numbers are bad, wait until the first quarter PIB ad numbers hit the street. We're talking some magazines down in the double digits. Publishers taking in a lot less money than the year before and you know that things were bad last year.

There will be a time of reckoning, the Reaper says. If there is no upside ahead, the Reaper will have a busy spring cleaning this year.

It was Groundhog's Day not long ago and I saw the little feller get up and see his shadow. Six more weeks of winter.  My kind of weather to contemplate who goes next.

Evaluating Gawker readers' choices for 2008 dead magazine candidates

After Gawker ripped off yours truly from the concept right down to the artwork (some e-mails arrived saying I shouldn't be surprised), the Reaper is taking a good look at what their readers are nominating for prime dirt nap candidates in 2008.

The problem with this onslaught is that you have to separate the magazines that these posters personally want to see die from the ones which are in real trouble.

NOT GOING ANYWHERE: Cookie? Everyday With Rachael Ray? They both have some degree of success and despite some people leaving at the latter, it does not make one bit of difference. Parenting still makes a bundle of cash in a stalwart category. 

MAKE OR BREAK THIS YEAR: Radar. Despite raising its rate base and frequency slightly, it has to pick up more advertising since every issue has been as thin as a rail. You can definitely put Portfolio in this category too. All the advertisers in the world won't mean a thing if there are not enough readers by the end of this year.  TV Guide is becoming more and more irrelevant as its longtime hardcore readers get older and older with no new audience coming in. TV listings are the golden goose, but once you can find them online and in the newspapers, that goose is going, going, gone.

SHOW ME THE MONEY: Spin is still hanging in there with barely decent ad numbers, but who is buying it? The new owners bought is for the same price as a Big Mac, but how much more money will they invest? It has to be in the red.

LONG TERM PROSPECTS ARE QUESTIONABLE: Money is the personal finance category granddaddy. Although it shifted to a more "feminine" touchy-feely approach a few years ago, they are right in the web's crosshairs. Personal finance information proliferates the Internet like out of control weeds. The stock market moves at such ups and downs, that a monthly title couldn't possibly be on top of it (that's why there's the backup CNNMoney.com). I can definitely see the day when Money folds into CNNMoney.com. Not in 2008, but certainly down the line.

However, the very first personal finance magazine in line for a likely Reaper visit is Kiplinger's Personal Finance. No formidable digital strategy, which is practically a death sentence owning a personal finance magazine in this day and age. They are number three in the category, which always makes them vulnerable.

Without a "Trace?"

A tipster writes in to say that 10-year-old "transcultural styles and idea magazine" Trace closed. They said nobody is picking up the phone, and that is true.

However, their blog is alive and well, and up to date, whereas the founder posts: "Doing research and collecting shots for an upcoming TRACE feature, photographer Lauren Silberman and I traveled from Harlem down through Manhattan and into Brooklyn to talk to voters during New York’s primary contribution to 'Super Tuesday.'”

Perhaps their answering machine broke?

Dead Gawker Stalker

Today, when Gawker suddenly asked its readers what magazines they thought were going to go under in 2008, it rang a familiar chord in my non-beating heart. Even the artwork for the story looks remarkably similar to my Museum of Dead Magazines.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I guess when you've got a whole new compensation system there at Gawker Media, you may as well steal to make a few extra shekels.

Give credit where credit is due!