Ziff Davis Media announced Wednesday that it was ending print publication of its 27-year-old flagship, PC Magazine, and would take the title online only.
It is the latest of several magazine publishers to drop a print edition, as advertising plummets and the cost of printing a paper version rises.
“The viability for us to continue to publish in print just isn’t there anymore,” Jason Young, chief executive of Ziff Davis, said in an interview.
While most magazines make their money mainly from print advertising, PC Magazine derives most of its profit from its Web site. More than 80 percent of the profit and about 70 percent of the revenue come from the digital business, Mr. Young said, and all of the writers and editors have been counted as part of the digital budget for two years.
The print magazine has been the ailing relative for some time no
On the one hand, this is sad, as it leaves PC World as the only major player in this market–and it’s also sad because PC Magazine was for many years The Authority, particularly back in its 500-page fortnightly days.
On the other, PC Magazine hasn’t amounted to much for quite a while now–for a while, they simply omitted specs from reviews; the big group reviews shrank to 2 or 3 pages; it became pretty obviously the ailing cousin of the online sites. (Worst case: The period when “high-tech” cars and big photos of products took over a shrinking print area.) Note that this is one of those odd cases where editorial was already entirely part of the online operation.
I’d say I’ll miss it, but that’s probably wrong. I surely won’t miss John Dvorak.