Magazine Death Pool

The official beverage of magazine closings?

From the Reaper's mailbag.

According to a Portfolio staffer, some have taken to toasting the news of the magazine¹s closure with a Stella Artois, the official beverage of magazine closings.

The magazine death scoreboard

For those of you at home keeping score, this just in from MarketingCharts.com:

More than 525 US magazines ceased publication in 2008, and 40 have already folded in 2009 as the downturn in the economy continues to heavily impact most forms of print media, according to MediaFinder.com.

The regional magazines category suffered the largest decline in 2008, losing 33 titles. The travel category lost 18 titles. The next largest category losers were home and automotive, both losing 17 publications each in 2008.

Looking back to 2007, 591 magazines ceased publication. As in 2008, the regional category had the most casualties, with 37 ceased publications. Crossword puzzle and college student press had 22 and 20 now-defunct magazines, respectively.

A little ditty about dead magazines

Credit FishbowlNY for originally posting this YouTube video.

The Reaper announces its Merging Titles Name Contest. Submit now!

The Reaper had so much fun writing the last item about DNR and potential Fairchild mergers, that I have been inspired to launch a contest for everybody to participate in that truly reflects these hard times for the publishing industry.

I am asking all of you, my faithful magazine death followers, to come up with the best potential magazine merger titles!

Way back when, I thought Giant was going to merge with Complex to become Giant Complex magazine!

We all need a good laugh in these hard times, so why not start it here at the Reaper joint?

Please see my DNR post for a few examples, but I know you can top those.

THE RULES:

1. The magazines to do not have to be from the same publishing company, but extra points if they are.
2. You can use as many magazines titles to create your new title name.
3. Explain in one sentence what the magazine is about or who it is for.
4. The magazine titles have to be real ones that are still publishing (at least as of today!).
5. Submit your merger title submissions as comments to this post.
6. You can submit as many times as you want.

The Reaper makes its "get out the vote" plea

Usually the Grim Reaper casts a vote for the next magazine to bite the dust, but today I would like you to follow my example and vote in your Presidential and Congressional elections.

Not that it's going to help magazines like US News & World Report, Nickelodeon or Life & Style.

However, nobody announces layoffs on Election Day so enjoy it while you can by going to your nearest polling station and voting.

I stood on line at the cemetery early this morning before going to work to cast my vote. I had to put down my scythe to pull the lever. Hopefully, you will have an easier time than me.

When did Madison magazine fold?

Thanks to one of our readers, we now have the defunct Madison magazine in our Museum of Dead Magazines (not to be confused with the alive and well Madison magazine up in Wisconsin). Does anybody remember when it folded? My tipster thinks it was 1999.

Grim Reaper T-shirts, yes or no?

What do you think?

Would you buy this t-shirt as a holiday gift for loved ones?

Layoffs keep falling on my head

Time Inc. Conde Nast. American Express Publishing. Playboy. McGraw Hill. All announcing or implying layoffs this week. David Carr says in the New York Times that the "sky is falling."

Will Men's Vogue be folded? It should since they are pirating the ads from GQ and Details, and there are only so many to go around in these dark days.

There will be more layoffs. I am waiting for news to slip out from both Hachette and Hearst like it leaked out of Conde Nast this morning.

The Reaper knows more magazines will be folding in the next two months. Look at such likely victims such as Sound & Vision, Coastal Living, boating and yachting titles, the withering Blender, Nickelodeon, and SI For Kids. Entertainment Weekly should do what Radar should have done and just become a web site. How long is the destitute AMI going to stick with Country Weekly?

Layoffs do not mean magazines are closing. Layoffs mean that in order to keep their heads above water, publishers are forcing employees to be doing double duty to survive. They will be working on both the magazines and the web sites. When you read about Fast Company and Forbes merging their magazine and digital staffs, it's going to be the norm very soon.

So where are my bettors out there? Which magazines will be gone by the time Dick Clark wheelchairs his way through Times Square? Why do you think they will be dust? Post your best guesses and the reasons why.

Layoffs and Mondays always get me down

If you are crazy enough to launch a magazine these days, you can pick the cream of the crop down at the Department Of Labor's unemployment office.

The ground is rattling and all the warning signs of a pending apocalypse are here. Gawker says that that the "Great Magazine Die-Off" had just begun with the closing of CosmoGirl last week, but they must have been asleep for the last couple of years to believe that.

Between the e-mails and the comments the Reaper has been receiving, it's time to look at the big picture of names in the news, shall we?

• NICHE MEDIA: Greenspun Media Group buys Jason Binn's Niche Media which buys rival Ocean Drive Media Group. They now publish 20 edit-lite magazines for the "look at the clothes I'm wearing to this charity event/movie premiere/kissy-kissy crowd. It was merely January 2007 when the New York Times columnist David Carr gave one of those big wet kisses to Jason Binn, saying he was going to be laughing "all the way to the bank." Now that Wall Street is taking 800 point plunges and even the rich are on the dole, Niche is laying off so many people that, get this, there will be one editorial director and one creative director overseeing all 20 magazines. Greenspun/Niche/Ocean Drive, like Conde Nast and Doubledown Media, were riding high on a bubble that finally burst. If you're a luxury advertiser cutting back and resolved to put your money into more of a sure thing, it won't be on the controlled circ ones, but more likely Conde Nast, if anywhere at all. With competition from the Modern Luxury and Haute Living groups of magazines and other local titles, this whole area is going to be hit very hard. Look for the Reaper to be making local stops in this category.

• ALPHA MEDIA GROUP: They laid off 50 to 60 people and sent all their backoffice operations to the much, much less expensive Nashville, Tennessee. Get used to it everybody, because not only has this been done before (but less publically), but it will be done even more in the future to save money from typical New York City publishing salaries. This is the equivalent of tech companies outsourcing their customer service and other functions to India. This does not mean the end of Maxim magazine, but Blender will soon be going the way of Tower Records. Nice legacy you left there, Kent Brownridge.

•  HEARST PUBLISHING: They closed CosmoGirl and one of our commenters wanted to know how they could shut down a 1.5 million circulation magazine. Look, publishers have shut down many magazines with circulation over 1 million. Circulation is expensive to keep up. If it's not there and trending downwards, you bite the bullet and shut it. I give credit to one of the other commenters, jocko, for explaining this as well. We attract a very educated group here and it's nice to see you all get along so well as Rome burns.

• MANSUETO VENTURES: Fast Company was teetering on life support and quickly becoming irrelevant. Ironically, just as they reported third quarter ad page gains of 31% and make Advertising Age's A-List, they lay off 20 employees and merge their digital operations with print. I'm surprised Fast Company actually had 20 employees they could fire after scraping bottom a short while ago.

• TV GUIDE: The magazine, not the web site, is bought from Macrovision by a venture capital firm for a mere $1. Laugh now. They were lucky.

Dead Magazine Conference

Are there any more magazine industry reporters left to cover the American Magazine Conference?

No reports from Mediaweek, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Mediapost and Medialife so far. Perhaps the Reaper can find a couple of short stories filed for tomorrow.

However, if nothing appears in the mainstream newspaper media, the magazine industry can't even rally the sexy coverage it used to enjoy. No silly "Magabrands" themes can save this industry. The Wall Street Journal can still run the crusty "Salt & Pepper" cartoon for an eternity, but as far as the state of the magazine industry? It's very quiet up there.