You know the end of the year is approaching when you start seeing lists of trends from the previous year. In keeping with the glum economic attitude out there, let’s take a look at the print magazines that kicked the bucket this year. (Mind you, some of them retain online offerings of varying quality.) Much more detail from AdAge here.

1.    PC Magazine – OK, this was a planned jump to online only, where it should retain readership, but will it turn a profit?
2.    Sports Illustrated Latino – It’s hard to imagine that the fastest growing segment of the American population couldn’t support a sports magazine that actually covered soccer in proper fashion, but maybe this one will return when the economy picks up.
3.    Play – This New York Times insert was as cool as any offering from Dead Trees Walking, but it didn’t pull the ad dollars.
4.    Radar – Too much. Too soon. Too late. Bad timing all around.
5.    Future snowboarding – I lived in snow country for a decade. Snowboarders don’t read magazines that don’t come in brown paper wrappers.
6.    Cottage Living – There may be copies of this holding down the coffee table at home, but I’ve never opened one.
7.    O at Home – Oh my, I wasn’t even aware that there was O the magazine, let alone a publishing empire solely dedicated to the queen of daytime TV.
8.    Cosmo Girl – What could tweens learn from this that they’re not already picking up from Gossip Girl?
9.    Home – Published since 1951, Home isn’t going to be the first venerable publication to disappear from the newsstands in the next year.
10.    Quick and Simple – More like short and pointless.
11.    Men’s Vogue – Advertisers loved the idea, but there weren’t enough metrosexuals to keep readership going.
12.    02138. If you don’t know what Zip code that is, you didn’t bother.
13.    Playgirl – Considering what’s available online, it’s amazing that any porn makes it to the printed page these days.
14.    Golf for Women – Seemed like a good idea at the time.
15.    Games for Windows – Again, who picks up a magazine to read about computers?
16.    Luxury Spa Finder – If you can afford a luxury spa day/week/month, you probably aren’t booking the trip now, are you?

The underlying reality is that old media was in a serious funk before the economy veered off a cliff. This week’s announcement that newspapers lost $2 billion in the third quarter means the bloodbath is only accelerating. It’s not going to be pretty, but it should certainly make everyone consider how they are allocating their marketing dollars.

But the primary reality that print magazines all have to face is they no longer deliver content in a desirable and flexible format.

And finally, the big question is: what blue chip magazine is going to be the first to fold? We should have our answer to that question in 2009, but feel free to make your predictions in the comments section.

-Jonathan

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 11:53 am and is filed under Content, Editorial, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.