Magazine Death Pool

The Reaper is having fun, fun, fun til they take all the magazines away

The Reaper is going to have some added john reading soon. 

Today brought a boatload of bad news about magazines on both the advertising and circulation fronts, ironically on the day that Apple revealed its second generation iPhone.

Advertising pages dropped in the first half by 7.4%, with the second quarter being particularly devastating. According to Jack Hanrahan's CircMatters newsletter, a number of large magazines barely made their rate base.

It's getting a bit lonely down here and Golf For Women is just not going to hold my interest for long. The Reaper needs the extra supply of combustible paper because you know how high gas prices are going to be this winter.

Where do we start?

• US Weekly is 4.1% below its 2008 rate base, missing it in 11 out of 19 issues. That should get Jann Wenner to the negotiating table, if he's ever around from his lo-o-o-ong vacations. The publisher says they'll make the rate base for the first half of 2008, which can be possible with those deep Wenner pockets.
• In the state closest to Hell, New Jersey, Bauer Publishing is having a rough time at the newsstand with In Touch Weekly and Life & Style Weekly. Heck, they should just merge them into In Touch with Life & Style Weekly!
• Some of the Reaper's odds-on favorites continue to lose double digit ad pages: Entertainment Weekly (-16.8%), Kiplingers Personal Finance (-15.3%), US News & World Report (-30.3%), Home (-30.9%), and Scientific American (-20.3%). Entertainment Weekly Publisher Scott Donaton had better be doing something about those ad pages after Folio bestowed him as a "Director-Level Do-er" in its Folio 40 2008.
• With a 35.8% ad pages loss in this year's first half, PC Magazine has emerged as a leading candidate for the Reaper's prediction of a computer magazine going under this year.
• Even some of Advertising Age's and Mediaweek's pet magazines are taking big ad page hits: Lucky (-12.2%),  The New Yorker (-20.1%), and ESPN The Magazine (-14.8%).
• Speaking of Kiplingers and senior citizens, even poor old AARP Magazine took a 20.5% hit.
• Radar is still not audited by either ABC or PIB, so we'll have to take Maer Roshan's word that the ads are up 5%, right?

Which magazines will Time Inc. say goodbye to in 2008?

Time Inc.'s Ann Moore says their magazine portfolio will be "trimmed" in 2008. The Reaper says come on down for the "The Price Is Right!" A company this messed up shouldn't take long to "execute" (cough) their strategy.

Which are the likeliest Time Inc. magazines to say bye bye before the end of this year? Vote for your favorites below in the comments section (and we do accept write-ins!):

>> This Old House
>> Coastal Living
>> Sunset
>> Sports Illustrated KIDS
>> Entertainment Weekly
>> Fortune Small Business

The National Magazine Awards is not a lifeline

Sorry to be the party pooper, but otherwise The Reaper would not be doing its job.

Congratulations to Radar magazine and its editor Maer Roshan for being nominated for General Excellence in the 100,000 - 250,000 circulation category of the National Magazine Awards. He's got a nice little celebratory interview today on FishbowlNY.

While it is exciting to get a nomination and possibly an award for editorial excellence, I hate to remind Maer and the other nominees about Lingua Franca magazine.

You see, I have a special area down here for National Magazine Award nominees and winners.

Here's what the New York Times wrote about Lingua Franca in October 2001.

"Lingua Franca won a National Magazine Award for general excellence for magazines with low circulations in 1993. It was nominated again in 1994, 1996, 1998, and 1999."

It closed in mid-October 2001.

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.

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!

Two more magazines take a dirtnap

I'm starting to sound like the Jim Cramer of Magazine Death.

I'm still putting my money on Hachette's Sound & Vision kicking the bucket, but another high-end audio publication as beaten them to the punch. The Perfect Vision, devoted to all the hi-def stuff you have been splurging on the past couple of years at Christmas, has published its last print edition.

The publisher announced they merging The Perfect Vision with their "music and audio digital publication" Playback. This is a sign of things to come, so take it from the Reaper, don't take out any long-term subscriptions to Sound & Vision because they'll end up sending you issues of Car & Driver after it folds.

Then in the beautiful state of Arizona, Item magazine was sent to a much less sunnier environment. The bi-monthly magazine that focused on the "good life" in Scottsdale, LA and Las Vegas was shut down by the parent company, now get this name, Media That Deelivers. No, that was not a typo. That's three e's in that word. If you type in www.itemmagazine.net, you get sent directly to the flagship title Arizona Foothills magazine web site.

Do you get a feeling there's a glut in the luxury city-focused magazine field? Whatever happened to Ocean Drive's Chicago magazine that was supposed to launch in December? Was there a reason they merged with Jason Binn's Niche Media? Perhaps the writing is on the wall for this category? The Reaper will be watching.

Holiday wishes from your friendly Grim Reaper!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know.
When I had a bonus,
And the boss wouldn't phone us,
To tell us the party had to go.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas,
And with every resume I send,
Does Facebook want a researcher who writes?
Before they close down my magazine tonight.

Rumors flying about Hollywood Life and Filter magazines -- but Filter clears the record!

It's cold and nasty in the depth of December. I'm out there hunting for fresh ink-on-paper meat. Hark! What's that? Filthy anonymous rumors with absolutely no way to tell if they are credible or not! It's terrible when I receive this kind of unsubstantiated dribble.

Ahhhhh, well that took about two seconds. The Reaper smells a bit of blood, so I will share them with you, as you may know more.

Our first rumor is devoted to our readers' favorite magazine, Movieline Hollywood Life. Every time I mention them, it's like throwing bread to the pigeons. In a note with the subject line "Hollywood Life, er, Death," this reader shares the following: "Hollywood Life is scaling back to quarterly publication, changing its name to 'HL', going through yet another redesign, and completely cutting out anything movie related to focus solely on fashion and luxury."

Looks like Movieline Hollywood Life, or whatever it is today, is going the deadly route of Tango (may it rest in peace) by cutting back to quarterly frequency.

Our second rumor comes flying in from the left coast about music rag Filter, and it's always sad when it involves music rags since they are a small and perhaps endangered species: "We hear Filter Magazine, the bimonthly music mag based in LA, will not make it to Christmas. Their ME left earlier this year and has yet to be replaced. Their AD just left to be replaced by a cheaper, greener one. The current issue is smaller than previous holiday issues - they even had to give away a substantial portion of the back book in the end.

Word is the editors' obstinance on issues of print quality and paper stock are keeping the publishing arm of the Filter media group in the red and with enough local competition (let alone the Pitchfork and Stereogum heat) the mag will likely be transitioned into a quarterly give-away music guide for placement in retail outlets."

UPDATE: You get one anonymous disgruntled ex-employee e-mail and the Filter people come roaring back. "Just about everything you mentioned about FILTER is completely untrue. Every issue for the past 5 years has been the exact same page count and paper quality. We are thrilled with the creative staff we have  and look forward to a very promising '08." There you go - so there, rumormongers! I told you not to pick on music rags!

It's officially winter magazine hunting season!

We are heading into the darkest three months in the publishing world, when the Reaper has no time to wrap gifts or spit out the egg nog.

Hot damn, it's magazine hunting season!

Over the next 60 to 90 days, a few of the magazines you get delivered to your doorstep or see at the airport will be extinct.

Take a good look. Many ads? Can you get the same stuff easily on the web? Does the content seem pointless? It may be time to start saving back issues as souvenirs of the "good old magazine days."

Fellow death merchant R.J. Reynolds just announced that there would be no print advertising in 2008. That's got to be giving second thoughts to a few publishing executives.

Who won't make it through winter hibernation? Will it be US News & World Report, Sound & Vision, or TV Guide? Or perhaps another shelter title? Will Teen Vogue avoid the fate of the rest of its category?

I'm oiling my equipment, sharpening my scythe, packing the binoculars, and hunting for bear!