Oh Martha!
We bagged ourselves the first game of hunting season, and it's another shelter magazine.
Just not enough ad juice to keep it going, and when you are right in the crosshairs of the whole housing marketing tanking, well, you're in trouble.
The Reaper can always use tips on how to stuff and mount magazine publisher heads over the fireplace, so this will come in handy.
One less pricey, slick "Point of Passion" ad Conde Nast has to pay for in Advertising Age magazine.
All I can say is that the Reaper had a hunch in Media Life Magazine, and the hunch proved right. A shelter magazine would meet its maker by the end of this year.
A mere week after Better Homes and Gardens took Advertising Age's 2007 Magazine of the Year (ironically with a back page ad in this week's issue), House & Garden folds for a second time.
Conde Nast decided that rather than replace the publisher who just left for the digital realm, it made better business sense to close it. It seems the magazine had a merry-go-round of publishers in a short span, and that was reason enough to kill it.
But House and Garden was not floundering, by any means. Besides, since when do changes in publishers kill a magazine at a company as overpowering as Conde Nast? It happens at Rolling Stone all the time, a much, much smaller company, and they made it to their 40th anniversary this month. Then again, this is approaching the time when publishers look ahead to 2008, and if they don't like what they're seeing in ad orders and circulation trends, then it's a candidate for the Reaper's chopping block.
The Reaper knew this category was in trouble, with a shrinking housing market, some titles losing traction, and hipper competitors entering the fray.
House and Garden was demolished the first time in 1993, then it was brought back with its tail between its green legs. The publisher for that re-launch? David Carey, currently piloting Portfolio's own shaky course.
So we take this old biddy down the dark river, where we will use our most beautiful stainless steel trowel to bury it, plant some beautiful flowers and shrubbery... under the violet light, of course.
Hearst quietly pulled the plug on two House Beautiful spin-offs: House Beautiful Home Remodeling & Decorating, and House Beautiful Kitchens & Baths. Their current issues will be their last.
Shame as the shelter category has been experiencing its bumps the last several months and now this, which may be a reflection of the housing market turnaround.
While I'm paddling them across the River Styx, I'm inviting them to re-decorate my kitchen -- you know that the Grim Reaper is a big fan of Sub-Zero products.
