Barry Diller’s IAC’s Dotdash will cease publishing print versions of six magazines: Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, EatingWell, Health, Parents, and People en Español. They will live on as digital-only brands. The decision triggers about 200 job cuts.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone. I was in Hudson News (an airport newsstand) the other day, and there was one small magazine rack tucked into a wall with fifteen varieties of corn nuts and other salty snacks. If print isn’t already dead, it sure smells funny.
That said, we are not talking about the content; we are talking specifically about form factor. The days of killing trees, mashing them up into paper, slathering them with ink, and delivering old news in gas guzzling trucks are truly numbered.
People will say, “The brands are the assets.” Maybe. This raises the question: Can these brands transcend their original form factors? Asked differently: Are they “print brands” or “brands?”
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it.