Not waving, but drowning.

One I missed earlier…

Disappearing beneath the waves is the print version of Dive magazine, which is now digital only.

Last August the publisher said “We will continue to promote and sell our traditional printed magazine on the newsstand and through our extensive subscription base.”

And I do love how their sales graph takes the first couple of months sales figures and extrapolates that growth for a whole year in a straight line. Print or digital, there’ll always be someone with a graph that shows things are doing fantastically well.

Self-confessed Lawyers

There is one fewer lawyer in the world (the magazine publishing world that is) as The European Lawyer has ‘joined forces’ with The Global Legal Post.

Before: two magazines; after: one; so I would, suggest, your honour, that that’s ‘joined forces’ in the sense of ‘closed’.

Loss of Vitality

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone to hear that Vitality Publishing called in the administrators on Friday.

As soon as Private Frazer heard that Attitude had been spun off to form a separate company, leaving Vitality with Loaded and Superbike, it was pretty obvious that something was up. The (ex) directors of Vitality have a certain amount of form in this regard.

And so it proves. The questions asked over the fitness of the company that IPC were in such a hurry to sell to remain unanswered. As does the fate of the magazines and of the employees.

For some reason the word ‘bastards’ springs to mind.

Off their food

Like the very best baci di dama, Anthem Publishing’s Taste Italia magazine has delighted us momentarily, but leaves not a trace behind as it has now ‘merged’ with Italia magazine.

Ciao? Arrivederci? No, goodbye.

Vital Statistics

What are we to make of the news that Vitality Publishing has sold Attitude to a spin-off company to leave itself with just Loaded and Superbike magazine.

In 2010 Vitality bought four titles from the IPC bargain rail, Loaded, Superbike, Prediction and Hair. At the time, some eyebrows were raised at the opaque ownership structure of Vitality.  Prediction seems to have been immediately floated off as some form of MBO, Hair was part of the portfolio of titles sold to Haversham in July 2011. With Attitude gone, Vitality is left with two magazines both of which suffered ABC falls of more than 25% in the last returns. Further to this, back in January Vitality itself became the subject of a management buyout.

Final Movement

Private Frazer has commissioned a special version of Haydn’s symphony no. 45 (the ‘Farewell Symphony’) to mark the closing of Classic FM magazine.

The piece will be played entirely on bagpipes, which should ensure an audience almost as small as that for the magazine itself.

There will be no encores.

Ancient History

Is it a futher sign of continuing decline and ultimate fall of the mighty empire of print that History Today have pulled the plug on History Review, their monthly journal for history students and teachers?

As JFK said “History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.”

And how many magazines do we know that are trying to hold fast?

Leeders’ Swansong

According to the Grauniad, The Leeds Guide – the city’s ‘what’s on’ magazine – has folded after 15 years.

Leeds Guide Ltd also produced Plush, for ‘affluent, sophisticated and stylish, high spending individuals’ in Harrogate. Either nowt much goes on in Harrogate, or this too has been terminated as the last ‘editor’s letter’ on the website is dated 17 November.

 

Glass half empty

Time gentlemen please!  After 140 years the Brewers Guardian is abandoning its print edition to go online-only.

 

We’re saved! (correction)

A small aside: last month Future made a big song and dance about having generated 75,000 subscriptions from the Apple newsstand.

The current ABC figures show a net drop of over 100,000 on their print editions in the past year. That’s 100,000 per issue, so call that in excess of 1 million single copies over a full year’s distribution.