As suggested in the recent post on the ’shelter’ category, BBC Worldwide is to close Good Homes magazine after 11 years.
The title will close next month, making the July 2009 edition the last issue.
With interiors and property still suffering, it’s likely that this won’t be the last closure we’ll see this year.
The Liberal, the magazine “dedicated to a renaissance in liberal politics and the liberal arts” has taken the radical step of axing its print edition to focus on its website.
Latest from across the pond, courtesy of folio:
Slide Continues: B-to-B Ad Pages Fall 28.6% in February. Down nearly 30% year-to-date; worst since Great Depression
Great quote from American Business Media’s President, Gordon Hughes
“We will come through this period as a stronger industry, a more creative industry, and maybe even a more dedicated industry.”
But certainly as a smaller industry, a poorer industry and an industry with fewer titles and fewer employees.
Hot on the heels of grim news for US B2B publishers comes this news from the consumer side:
Consumer Mag Ad Pages Plunge 25.9%. This equates to 20.2% drop in revenue. There’s no comparable survey done in the UK of actual ad pages, but anecdotal evidence would seem to suggest that the situation for some titles over here is approaching this figure.
For those of you who struggle with percentages, this piece of analysis in Folio shows the scale of the disaster we’re currently going through: Magazines Lose $10 Billion in Revenue
Free weekly magazine Sport has ceased publication following the collapse of its French parent company, Sport Media & Strategie reports the Guardian.
Spectator Business cuts schedule from monthly to quarterly
Another storming success from Wee Andy Neil, a little over a year since the closure of The Business magazine, which was a little over a year since the closure of The Business newspaper. And isn’t it funny how this piece of news slips out just before a four day holiday?
More predictable news from the world of free local magazines, with these two articles from Media Bulletin:
- Rise, the leisure and lifestyle magazine for south London, has closed.
- Archant Life has suspended publication of Staffordshire County until further notice.
It’s because there are two in one day that I’ve done the cut ‘n’ paste here – there’s been a steady drip of closures of these things this year all across the country. And why not? – no one would ever pay for these redundant bits of dead tree and no one ever actually read them, ergo they’re not going to be missed.
The Ecologist magazine is to axe its print edition after 39 years and relaunch online, according to The Guardian. (more…)
More great news from our American cousins (via Folio)
According to ABM’s monthly Business Information Network numbers [B2B] ad pages for January were down 27% compared to the same period last year. Revenues were down 21%. … business publishers …have seen 29 straight months of page declines and 27 months of revenue declines
Wilmington have announced that the print edition of Press Gazette is to close. Bought as a weekly, they’d relaunched it as a monthly magazine, but, even with a full time staff of only three reporters, couldn’t make it viable. Coming hot on the heels of the closure of Printing World it goes to show that making money out of writing about any bits of old media is becoming increasingly difficult.
