Magazine Death Pool

Rumor: Spin closing?

Is Spin going to follow right behind Blender and Vibe doing the Posthumous Polka?

The Reaper has heard one rumor, but it's just that. One piece of hearsay.

However, it's not far fetched considering how close Spin has come to a permanent visit down here. Spin's ads are already down 28% this year.

After all the crying and long goodbyes for Vibe and Blender, Spin would bring out the handkerchiefs once more from all the ink-stained attendees of last night's Wilco concert. What do they say about bad things coming in threes?

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.

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Nielsen shut a completely outdated trade rag Radio & Records, while its sister Billboard may not be too far behind, a prime candidate for web presence only.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

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.

URB magazine knocking on the Reaper's door?

One of the Reaper's correspondents says that after 16 years, URB magazine is about to run out of batteries.

"It has laid off its entire staff except its lone editor and a few pro-bono scribes," says this person. "It has defected from its office space on Wilshire (the ed. now works from home), and is focusing all of its resources on its flash-burdened website. Forthcoming print issues are expected but a future is realistically uncertain."

Is the world going to be less one more music magazine soon? The Reaper has a feeling that a few are on the hit list now... with a bullet!

Country Weekly giving up subscriptions. It may as well give up life too.

We've noted the death watch position of Country Weekly before. However, a new twist in the tale from owner American Media as this e-mail from a faithful reader arrived.

I just got my latest subscription of country weekly and on it was a notice that this edition (March 2, 2009) will be the last edition mailed and no subscription service offered after this issue. It said it was due to marketplace conditions and a new weekly format will be available for purchase at my local retailer. I was given options to fulfill my remaining subscription with either Star, National Enquirer or Shape, if I did not return the postage paid card, it would automatically be Star magazine.

With newsstand sales dying for all magazines, American Media seems to be practically delivering Country Weekly to my doorstep. The Reaper just might take it in!

Metal Edge and Metal Maniacs: RIP February 2009

The world is a little quieter today as two heavy metal magazines shut off their amplifiers for good.

Metal Edge and Metal Maniacs were not popular magazines with advertisers like Gilette and Irish Spring.

However, if you loved your metal, you loved these magazines, which featured groups with names that sound like a day out with the Reaper: Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation,  Disturbed, Shrinebuilder, and The Faceless.

So please dress in black tomorrow for my heavy metal friends.

Blender now officially on deathwatch

With parent company Alpha Media Group nearly in the hands of creditors after a mere 15 months after buying Maxim and Blender, it's not hard to see the scrawl on the wall.

I'm sure Rolling Stone or Spin will be picking over the subscription bones to this one.

Blender has been on my watch list earlier, but now it's teetering close to the edge. With ad pages disappearing faster than Elton John's hairline, watered-down editorial, and being a music magazine with no workable web strategy, Blender is the prime candidate to go to join Jimi, Jim, The Big Bopper, Stevie Ray, Richie Valens, Dimebag and Janis in Rock and Roll Heaven. At least there'll be a hell of a band.

RIP: Remix magazine

If you are looking for that late Friday magazine death notice today to slip out, well, here it is!

Remix magazine, Penton Media's monthly devoted to urban and electric music production, has programmed its last beat.