#music biz The Death of Music Magazines
The digital internet revolution has not only changed the music and the newspaper industries.. the magazine business is also changing radically.
Case in point: On March 26, 2009, Blender magazine stopped printing magazines and moved to an online-only format, eliminating 30 jobs along the way. I knew the magazine was in trouble since i had a free magazine subscription for almost two years!
Why would Blender send their magazines for free? because the magazine had to boost in any way they could their circulation numbers to keep their advertisers rates from going down.
Even mailing the magazine for free couldn’t keep the magazine alive!
Now, the online version of Blender has to compete with quite a few other music portals that are vastly superior in every way possible.
Other magazines are also having similar problems. The Fader Magazine is using a different model to stop its slow decline: it is giving its issues digitally for free online on PDF format (with all advertisements included of course).
You can grab The Fader issues from 31 to the most recent edition (61) by changing the issue number on this link:
http://thefader.cachefly.net/thefader_issue61.pdf
Overseas magazines are also having the same issues. Ireland’s most important music magazine, State, stopped printing magazines and moved to a digital PDF format. Fortunately for State magazine, they have a great net portal and i believe their chances of survival are a lot bigger than Blenders’
You can grab State magazine issues 10 & 11 here:
http://www.state.ie/issues/State10.pdf
http://www.state.ie/issues/State11.pdf
Other print music magazines that have folded and / or are moving to an digital online format in 2009 include Skyscraper magazine, UK’s Hiphop Connection, Metal Maniacs magazine
The surviving rap and other music magazines are on death watch.
Paper music magazines are dead. The method of publishing news and commentary on paper is too slow and expensive compared to the internet. Paper music magazines will become a relic of a gone-by era.
Here is the last Blender magazine issue, featuring the musically groundbreaking Kelly Clarkson in its cover.
6 Responses to “#music biz The Death of Music Magazines”
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Here is another article that confirms the fact that print media is dying: It’s demografic is getting older, and young people are not reading magazines / newspapers anymore
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=136843
XLR8R is also offering free downloads of their magazine here:
http://www.xlr8r.com/magazine
Amother magazine bites the Dust:
http://www.performingsongwriter.com/
UK’s Indie magazine Plan-B has joined the Pantheon.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/jun/04/plan-b-magazine-remembered
Jazztimes magazine ceases circulation
http://jazztimes.com/articles/24917-an-important-message-from-jazztimes-management
Vibe magazine is no more:
http://gawker.com/5304647/vibe-folds