Magazine Death Pool

Anime Insider: RIP March 2009

Wizard Entertainment has pulled the plug on this robot after 67 issues.

Blender: RIP March 2009

My life would suck without you. Well, it's too late now.

Blender was a heavy bet from the Reaper for a long time and officially put on death watch last November. Today, the Reaper decided it was time to go the way of most vinyl.

Blender is the poster child of how to take a perfectly good magazine and destroy it. Perhaps he was on a clandestine mission for Jann Wenner, but CEO-for-a-year Kent Brownridge spent a fortune mysteriously raising Blender's rate base to one million, luring Joe Levy away from Rolling Stone to edit it, and then hiring the new publisher from rock rag Reader's Digest.

Now Blender is running with the devil. Amen.

Genre: RIP March 2009

Late Friday, the Reaper visited the Genre magazine in a category which was waiting some shrinkage (although from the look of this cover, that may not be the case).

Even Neil Boulton, the self-proclaimed king of pansexuals who rolled over from Wenner Media to bring some spark, could not save this 16-year-old title from staying afloat.

Between category consolidation, rampant web content, and advertising dollars funneled off into other gay media, Genre was a sitting duck.

Magazines... what's their secret for getting thinner?

The New York Post reports that the new issue of Newhouse and Carey's folly, Portfolio, is the thinnest ever for a Conde Nast monthly.

One of the Reaper's readers said that the current April issue of one of my favorite marked for death magazines, Boating, is "thin, thin, thin."

Blender, Kent Brownridge's pet disaster, is now sharing its publisher with Maxim, who must feel cursed now.

Blender has done the equivalent of the grocery shrinkage ray. They have reduced the size of their fonts to microscopic size, squeezing two page articles into one, then slapping them next to whatever ads they can muster. If you read Blender, while it's still alive, bring your own magnifying glass.

URB co-founder and publisher Roker says "put the sickle away for a minute"

Dear Reaper,

I know we all have a job to do, but your intrepid reporters could at least do their homework properly. URB should get credit for all 18 of our years (we launched in December of 1990).

Also, despite your findings, we still have a paid staff (less two people) and that includes two paid editors. We also have three people handling marketing projects, promotions and sales. Beyond this, we have a number of partnerships, and alliances that help us spearhead additional activities. And we have a commissioned agency handling our digital sales.

And the battery life of most magazines will be questionable in 2009. Dramatic changes are afoot, you know this. However, regardless of the prospects of the printed URB — something neither you nor I can predict — the brand and its multimedia and experiential activities will continue. This isn't 2005 when the death of a magazine meant the death of the company. Strong brands (we believe we qualify) have made credible inroads into platforms well beyond print. We have and will continue.

Stay positive and put the sickle away for a minute. Our next issue is out in two weeks.

Thanks.

RAYMOND LEON ROKER
co-founder and publisher

Tennis Week: RIP March 2009

A bad week for sports.

The Reaper, who can certainly be a couch potato between visits, decided that if golf was going to go, tennis should take a hit too.

IMG shut down Tennis Week magazine "to focus on its online web site."

That "new" Tennis Week cover sure does look like something out of GQ or Maxim. Perhaps they would have survived by changing the magazine's title to "Tennis Babe" and focusing just on Ana Ivanovic and her fellow eastern European pin-up players.

Wichita magazine: RIP March 2009

If you ever wonder to yourself, "What's going on in Kansas," the answer is: not reading magazines.

Best Life: RIP 2004 - March 2009

Best Life has no more life.

Rodale pulled the life support for this once hot title. Two days in a row, a large publisher killed a hit magazine offshoot. Yesterday, Travel + Leisure Golf ran its course <cough> and today, the spin-off of Men's Health.

Business must have fallen off the cliff quickly because the staff memo says "In 2008, advertising revenues and pages for the magazine increased 22.8% and 6.6%, respectively." Best Life was on Adweek's Hot List for 2007 and 2008.

When the man sitting next to you at the dinner party wipes his mouth on his sleeve, you can blame the Reaper for putting a halt to Best Life.

The pot calls the kettle black

Does anybody out there find it ironic that Time magazine would run the story from 24/7WallStreet about "The 10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America?"

If the Reaper was making a list of "The 10 Most Endangered Magazines in America," Time would be a no-brainer.

Travel + Leisure Golf: RIP March 2009

The Reaper is playing through on American Express Publishing's course today. Unfortunately, there's nobody else here... they've been laid off!

Less frequent jaunts to Myrtle Beach weekends or in the case of plush Travel + Leisure, Scotland and the likes are what killed this one.

We are in the age of austerity, so it's back to miniature golf and bowling.