Another magazine announced today that they will cease publication of a print edition. In an interview with the website PaidContent.org, the CEO of Ziff Davis Jason Young, announced that PC Magazine will cease distribution of their print edition in January.
PC Magazine is just one of several mass-market publications that are moving to online only distribution. Earlier this week, Reuters reported that a judge has approved the reorganization of Ziff Davis, which is currently under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. There was some speculation about the future of Ziff Davis’ assets.
From the story:
The last issue will be dated January 2009; the closure will claim the jobs of about seven employees, all from the print production side. None of the editorial employees, who are now writing for the online sites anyway, will be affected.
Only a few weeks ago, the Christian Science Monitor announced that it would be ending print distribution. The costs of producing and distributing paper has always been a significant expense for publishers and in a period of decreasing advertising revenues, lower circulation, and higher production costs, we can expect that more publications will head in this direction.
Within the scholarly world, in particular, I expect that the economics will drive print distribution to print-on-demand for those who want to pay extra, but overall print journals will quickly become a thing of the past. I know a lot of people have projected this for a long time. ARL produced an interesting report written by Rick Johnson last fall on this topic, but it appears we’re nearing the tipping point Rick described in that report.
This transition makes all the more critical the ongoing work on preservation, authenticity, reuse, and rights particularly as they relate to the differences between print and online distribution.
