Online-savvy PC Mag says no to print
PC Magazine, the much sought after magazine with wide readership among technology buffs, is disappearing from the stands forever. It will embark on an online avatar, instead.
Publisher Ziff Davis Media has said that it was ending print publication of its 27-year-old flagship publication to go online. The decision makes PC Magazine one among the many magazines that have decided to stop print edition. The reason for many of them to go for such a move is said to be the plummeting trend in of advertising revenues and the zooming cost of printing.
The Internet-only model is in fact catching up in the publications scene of late. Last month, Pulitzer Prize-winning international newspaper The Christian Science Monitor had said that it is ending its daily print editions in April to focus more on news online. The decision, which was taken in a bid to cut costs, is being seen as a new mode by most of the print magazines, some even very popular.
Toeing the same path as The Christian Science Monitor, another small publication which had been in the scene since year 1945, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, also said it would go online beginning January.
The latest in the line is Ziff Davis Media, which has stated that the PC Magazine’s last print edition would come out in January 2009. The closing down of print may not be a major bother for the publisher as the magazine’s web site and related sites currently lure more than seven million unique visitors a month. This is said to be more than 10 times the print circulation. The pubisher has also said that the PCMag Network will be renamed PCMag Digital Network with PCMag.com as its lead property.
Ziff Davis Media had been for almost half-a-decade been seeing online as the focal point where technology buyers get their information and technology marketers direct their money to drive demand and build brands. This realization and research by the magazine’s marketing brains has led to the new decision.
The company believes that the Net could prove to be a powerful marke