After over nearly 16 years of serving the public, Vibe magazine officially shut down on Tuesday due to financial limitations.  A downward struggle against a slumping economy and shifting market has finally forced one of the most popular hip hop and R&B publications to hang up the towel.  The sky is not falling.  Is it?

News of the company’s shutdown met its employees on Tuesday while most were still in the middle of work on what most considered to be one of the most significant issue of their careers: a Michael Jackson tribute.  The closing of Vibe is no soft illusion: the jobs of all 48 of its staff members are completely gone.

It’s no secret that the magazine market has been on the decline for awhile, with many companies downsizing their staff and issues–or simply folding.  With the demand for print advertising being completely outclassed by comparably cheap, real-time internet advertising and other sources of funding diminishing, keeping up with the financial demands of running a respectable editorial became increasingly difficult.  Not surprisingly, even ripples from the struggles of the flailing auto industry managed to affect the magazine, CEO Steve Aaron citing the significant loss of automobile advertising as one of the factors leading to the magazine’s demise in his parting letter to Vibe’s employees.  Vibe had tried to adjust to the changing times by increasing its web presence–which was actually growing very well–but unfortunately its financial profits from the internet were not enough to offset the losses the organization was suffering in print, nor could it support the present structure of the company.  The magazine closes the door “several millions of dollars” in debt.

It’s sad that the phrase “on the cover of Vibe” will now only be used in a limited fashion (similarly: “cover of King magazine” – sorry T-Pain!).  The fall of VIBE Media Group continues to manifest the reality that seems to hang like the growing shadow of a ghostly apparition over the editorial industry, seemingly intangible yet undeniable: print is slowly dying and it’s becoming starkly more apparent with the steady collapse of magazine after magazine.  Vibe is not the first and will surely not be the last.  Who will stand and who will fall?  How will existing editorials survive and how will new ones prosper?  What does the future of magazines and newspapers look like?

I don’t think print media will ever completely die out; human nostalgia shouldn’t permit that.  There’s something incredibly special and therapeutic about holding something physical in your hands.  But it’s obvious that old avenues for monetizing/funding editorial material are not adequate to carry organizations into the future.  It will be interesting to see how companies can adapt to yet another economic climate.

via Caleb, 1 July 2009 10:00am | 3 |