RIP Entertainment Weekly Print Edition April 2022

[Greg]

I'm that guy still reading magazines. And EW was one of my favorites. I was sad when they went from weekly to monthly. Now I'm even more sad they are going digital only. I read a couple pages every morning at breakfast as part of my routine.

[Drunk Monk]

Another nail in the coffin for print mags.

When publishing KFTC, I was privy to industry reports and assiduously followed the newsstand trends in some flailing hope that I could stave off the inevitable (and we should’ve gone done a decade ago when the great purge happened and hundreds of print newsstand mags folded, so I’ll take some credit for that). 

Celeb mags like EW were consistently doing well. Why? They transcended newsstands to the checkout racks. Those were the strongest genre of periodicals. It’s very telling to see EW go down.

The most vulnerable was porn. Web porn crushed that industry. 

I imagine the pandemic played a part. KFTC went down because the newsstands shuttered. Publishing periodicals are deadline driven and the supply chain disruption moved all publishers that were printing abroad (books mostly - mags need domestic printers to make deadline) to shift here and overload the system. All YMAA’s 2021 titles - books & DVDs - were delayed due to this. Mag deadlines couldn’t take it - those delay distribution - it’d like dominos when that happens and a publisher can lose a ton of money very quickly.

Sad to see EW go down too but somewhat relieved I’m not alone as a former mag publisher.

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Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, EatingWell, Health, Parents and People en Español are all under the same umbrella. All going down due to an owner transfer (just looked it up). I’m sure my aforementioned issues played a part in that.

[King Bob]

Christina was bummed too. And there's time left on her subscription. The same thing happened to us with Sunset.

All my favorite music magazines are dead now: Spin, Revolution (short-lived), and Q (English mag with tons of reviews that were often snarky). Rolling Stone is worthless for music now, but good for long-form political and social articles.

I'm still getting The New Yorker and The Atlantic on paper. It's just not as good on screen. The former is just short of 100 years old, and the latter over 150, so I hope they'll last as long as I do. Like Greg, I read a bit at breakfast, but now that I'm back to full days at work I may switch to reading them at lunch since I need to eat and get going in the morning.

[Greg]

I still get Rolling Stone although they doubled the subscription price with the new ownership. I also receive Empire Magazine out of England. It's a really good Film magazine. I'd like to get a daily newspaper but I'm not in a zone where newspapers are delivered.

[King Bob]

I did go digital for my newspapers (SJ Merc and NY Times). Cheaper that way.

[Drunk Monk]

We used to subscribe to the NYT but we let go of that years ago. I get all my news off the web now, or through the Good Times, which is bad.

No mags now unless you count Den of Geek, and they rolled over their free subscription to a paid one but you can still get it for free at select comic stores. That was a bizarre twist of the pandemic. They used to give it away free at SDCC and NYCC, but started the free subs and free at supporting comic shops program when the mega-cons stopped. They got bank from advertisers and pay me 3x my standard rate for those. 

Which reminds me, the new issue is out. I'll have to swing by Atlantis tomorrow. 

My mom still subscribes to the Merc (which is more like a pamphlet now) as well as several print mags. She isn't on the web at all.

[King Bob]

I probably wouldn't pay full price to subscribe to the NYT, but there's an academic discount so it's only about $20 a month. But then I have to pay more for the crossword.

[Drunk Monk]

I think Stacy is still subscribed to the online version of NYT.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I used to subscribe to The Economist, but had so much trouble keeping up, combined with increasing anxiety, that I let it lapse. My treat is getting the Christmass Double Issue because they have such offbeat articles in that issue. They let the brainiacs off the leash and it gets interesting.

Motorcycle Consumer News was my other print mag, but it folded at the beginning of Covid.

[cranefly]

I probably wouldn't pay full price to subscribe to the NYT, but there's an academic discount so it's only about $20 a month. But then I have to pay more for the crossword.

The Metro, in the South Bay, now carries the NYT crossword.  I'm kept busy with it these days, though LCF finds it annoying.

[Drunk Monk]

Motorcycle Consumer News was my other print mag, but it folded at the beginning of Covid.

bummer

i can relate

[King Bob]

FYI for CF - you can do two crosswords a week (old ones) on the NYT site. I subscribed so I could do it every day.

Christina still gets several mags: Vogue, Vanity Fair (I read that too, IMO it's gone downhill: more celebrity stuff and fewer good articles), Martha Stewart and Real Simple. Thanks to the last two I have enjoyed some tasty food.

[Greg]

Can't you just check out the digital NYT from the library and do the crosswords for free?

[King Bob]

Well I never thought of that. Oh well. I'll count my money as contributing to preserving the news media.