I'm not sure how I missed this, but several days ago the SF magazine 'Starlog' announced that it was ceasing publication as a magazine and instead would focus on its website as a portal to the world of SF. The update, along with reactions, on the Starlog website says the cessation is 'temporary' but without an ETA for a return to print.
I've read Starlog off and on over the years, but I haven't picked it up in a long time. Mostly because I never bothered to look for it, and those times that I did, I couldn't find it at Barnes and Noble. I do remember the very first one I picked up. Probably like many people, my first issue was #7, the one about Star Wars (you can see it in the picture). As a budding SF reader and fan, Starlog promised a look at the world of SF on film and TV that you wouldn't get anywhere else. However, I never made it a staple of my reading, nor did where any other SF magazines. So it's not with sadness that I see Starlog exit the print field, but more a sense of inevitability.
The rise of the Internet and the shortened news cycle is something that traditional print magazines just can't compete with. Most magazine issues are laid out months in advance with the stories and information being obsolete when the issue hits the stands. Blogs and other websites beat magazines easily when it comes to immediacy. When I'm looking for information in a SF TV show or movie, I turn to Google. Starlog never even entered my head. Now collector's editions of magazines are something entirely different, but I don't think you can make a successful magazine around that.
Given the demand for 'gotta have it now news' coupled with the slow decline in readership, I wouldn't be surprised to see the few remaining SF magazines turn more toward the web to try to keep their costs down and increase their readership. However, the SF space of the internet is rapidly becoming crowded. Starlog will have to bring something different to the table to help it compete. How about a respect for the SF fan? That should help it take on SyFy's web presence as a destination for 'all things Sci Fi'.
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Posted by JP Frantz at Sunday April 12, 2009 at 12:22 AM
© 2009 SF Signal
The UK magazine syndicate, Visimag, which publishes a variety of magazines, including Starburst, TV Zone, Cult Times, and more (http://www.visimag.com/) went to publishing their magazines online as .pdf formats back on August '08. It doesn't appear that they have published a print magazine in some time.
SciFi Channel's print magazine, SciFi Magazine (http://www.scifi.com/scifimag/) publishes more about mainstream scifi than it does about the scifi programming the SciFi Channel provides (probably because they are providing less and less scifi programming lately). I noticed that their magazine couldn't (or wouldn't) provide any current articles and/or advertisments for Stargate Atlantis prior to it's series finale, but did provide current articles and advertisements for the series finale of Battlestar Galactica.
Posted by Anonymous on Sunday April 12, 2009 at 1:05 AM
Wow. Bummer. I may even have Issue #1 floating around somewhere in the Sarlac pit which is my computer room. For sure I have that aforementioned Issue #7. I always assumed that it had ceased publication years ago.
Posted by Ray Radlein on Sunday April 12, 2009 at 1:23 AM
Hi there
Dave here, editor of SFX magazine. It's a great shame to hear about the closure of a classic title like Starlog. But I'm not sure that the death of magazines is as inevitable as some might think.
Assuming it's just the immediacy of the web that's responsible for the decline of magazines (because of the problem with delivering timely news) is overlooking the fact that monthly mags were rarely able to compete as a primary news source - we were being beaten by daily newspapers centuries ago. TV, radio, newspapers, the web… these are all media that have faster turnarounds, and we're used to co-existing with them.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not sticking my head in the sand regarding the importance of the internet. Naturally it's great for interacting with the SF community (SFX's own website www.sfx.co.uk has grown vastly over the last two years) and it is perfect for breaking news. But paper magazines still have a place. Most people don't read mags to find out what's just been announced - they're read for in-depth multi-page interviews, high res pictures, analysis of events, exposure to alternative opinions, the delivery of physical objects (like commemorative posters), after-the-fact reviews and commentary and so on. And with good contacts and a bit of forward planning, much of that can still be exclusive.
Interestingly, SFX magazine currently has its highest number of subscribers in its 14-year history, and remains a market-leading publication. Sounds like I'm being self-aggrandising, and that's not my intention: I just think it's important to note that news-stand titles still have a place and can deliver a valuable (if differently paced) service.
Cheers,
Dave
Posted by Dave Bradley on Sunday April 12, 2009 at 6:36 AM
Starlog, in those first 2-3 years, was a unique animal. It's sister mag Future even moreso (the Boris Vallejo Reaching For The Stars poster they sold through Future hangs on my wall as I type this)
The two things I remember about Starlog were its ability to tell me about movies and TV shows before they apeared on the radar, and the attention it paid to "B" movies. The pages they spent on things like Battle Beyong the Stars and Starship Invasions was alluring. I remember the stills from Ralph Bakshi's Wizards and Jason of Star Command, and just staring at them for hours. Starlog was pivotal to my teen years.
Posted by Jeff P on Sunday April 12, 2009 at 8:56 AM
I remember when issue 1 came out. I followed it for years, and had a stack around for a while. But lately I find out most things through the internet. I've gotten a few issues here and there, but usually when I was going to board a plane or take a long trip. Not on a regular basis. Such is the way of modern periodicals I guess. Newspapers and magazines are going to have to find an electronic offline non-paper based medium soon or face extinction.
Posted by CentralNexus on Sunday April 12, 2009 at 11:58 AM
Dave,
You bring up some interesting points that I hadn't considered, especially the monthly vs. daily angle. But what I think is more in play here is the U.S. market's antipathy, if not outright disdain, for SF that isn't a movie. I'm wondering what it is about the U.K. that is more sympathetic to SF in general.
Oh, and where can I find SFX here in the States?
Posted by jp on Sunday April 12, 2009 at 1:13 PM
Hi JP. That's an interesting point. Certainly it seems it's big movies that generate the buzz - that's true of the UK too (with the possible exception of Doctor Who, which continues to be a phenomenon.)
The fact that SF has become more mainstream has had an affect on the SF market. Genre magazines are no longer the only place to find out about this stuff - I'm not just talking about the internet either; we're competing with film mags, lifestyle titles and even national newspapers for coverage of the top movies and shows. But I suspect the most practical problem facing magazines is simply that paper costs and transport costs are rising.
The US newsstand trade is different to that in Europe and as a result the best places to pick up SFX are book stores - you can get our mag in Borders and Barnes & Noble. It's slightly cheaper and more convenient to subscribe via our US guys at IMS: http://www.imsnews.com/sfx
Cheers,
Dave
Posted by Dave on Monday April 13, 2009 at 4:50 AM
Dave Bradley makes some good points, especially about print magazines doing what they do best (in-depth, put-your-feet-up-and-read articles instead of breaking news). I also have to wonder about the different economics of staffing, printing, and distribution in the UK vs. the U.S. I've often found that the UK versions of many American titles (GQ, Esquire, even the short-lived UK Starlog) included more pages, more color, heavier stock of paper, and larger staffs than the American mags. I don't know if the tax structure benefits publishers there more than our tax structure does here, or if the economics of distribution largely within a much smaller, more densely populated country plays a part (distribution is horrendously expensive), but the current American SF newsstand is pretty much ruled by UK magazines, everything from SFX to Sci Fi Now and Deathray to a zillion licensed TV titles (is Charmed even still on TV??).
Posted by John Zipperer on Monday April 13, 2009 at 9:33 AM