Print Magazine Failures Slow Down!

Happy Tuesday to all readers! Hope all are healthy and happy as possible today.

Well, the number of dead tree print magazines that have failed (or "shuttered" in industry talk) in 2009 has fallen off by approximately 200 per year over 2008 and 2007...Going down from 640 to 420 or so.

Could be that print mags have reached some sort of bottom and found new business models and niches that have spurred some success in their survival rates.

Vanessa Voltolina of Folio magazine has the following statistics:

The year that was 2009 is drawing to a close and data from online magazine database MediaFinder.com reports that 428 titles have ceased publication in 2009, through December 14.

While any magazine going out of business isn’t good news, the silver lining is the total number of foldings this year (although anything could technically happen between now and December 31) is down significantly from 2008 (613) and 2007 (643).

But while the number of ceased titles may be fewer than years past, there have also been fewer launches. There were only 275 startups this year versus 335 in 2008. Regional magazines topped the list with 21 launches, including Maine Magazine and B-metro Birmingham.

Regionals, however, also topped the list of shutdowns (34), with titles such Atlanta Life and Denver Living going under. Business magazine shutdowns came in second (16), with casualties including BusinessWeek Small Biz, Condé Nast Portfolio and Fortune Small Business.

The Health category had the second highest number of launches (15), including Scottsdale Health and Natural Awakenings. Food titles came next with 14 new magazines such as Food Network Magazine, Edible Queens, and Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade.

Magazines that ceased publishing early in the year and have since relaunched were not counted as closed, said a MediaFinder spokesperson. But titles like Vibe, which shuttered in June, but has already relaunched, is still counted as shuttered.