Dear Print, This is Just the Beginning of the End.

It's said every day in the mass communication world - "Print is dead." There are those who have accepted this idea and there are those that believe print will rise above technology.

Unfortunately for those optimistic about the situation, Condé Nast announced the termination of "almost biblical status in the food world" magazine, Gourmet, on Monday. Gourmet has been published for 68 years and has seen many transformations in design and topics.

Oh yea, may I also let you know, Gourmet is the oldest running magazine in our history!

According to an internal company memo, Condé Nast is also shutting down magazines Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride. That is four magazines total thus far from Condé Nast alone.

Gourmet editor, Ruth Reichl, is a powerful woman in the food world and created a magazine that had higher quality and was more popular than Bon Appétit. The magazine suffered from a decline in advertising pages, but the terminations still came as a shock due to its history.

While this news may throw a curve to some, Condé Nast also owns the bigger Bride magazines. Modern Bride and Elegant Bride are offshoots of their bigger Brides magazine.
On the other hand, Cookie is a 2005 introduction that was not able to grab a large amount of readers.

This termination conclusion came from a three-month study by McKinsey & Company, which analyzed the companies costs and suggested several magazines to cut 25 percent from their annual budgets.

The publisher has never been so quick to close titles, which makes this decision significant to the print world. In the last year, Condé Nast closed new titles such as Men's Vogue and Condé Nast Portfolio and Domino.

This decision is even more blinding because just last February in an interview with in-house rival Bon Appétit pulisher, Paul Jowdy, he stated that closing Gourmet was "unlikely."

Since then the economy continues to suffer, crashing hard. Condé Nast magazines have lost more than 8,000 advertisement pages, excluding its bridal titles, so far this year. That is a lot of lost advertisments... aka, that is a lot of lost money!!

With the economic crisis stalling to a halt in progression, will the print industry be able to overcome tough times? Or is this just the beginning, to the end of print?