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Vibe Magazine hits the recycle bin
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Vibe cover June 2009
Hip-hop’s answer to Rolling Stone, Vibe magazine went under this week after nearly sixteen years but their might be life after print. This past Tuesday editor-in-chief Danyel Smith announced Vibe would be closing its doors. Although the magazine was strong in the second half of 2008 with over 800,000 copies in circulation, advertising revenue has been way off, with high-end clients pulling ads leaving fifty staff members out of work. Vibe joins Blender, which shut down its printing press in March, as another music magazine causality of the recession. This leaves only two other hip-hop magazines to duke it out at the news stand: XXL and The Source, which has seen its far share of trouble, coming under new ownership in 2007. The light at the end of his tunnel for Vibe could be Quincy Jones, the man who helped birth the magazine in 1993. The Wick Group acquired Vibe in 2006, and Jones would like to buy his baby back and relaunch the name as an online magazine. Jones declares, “Print and all that stuff is over” pointing out the buckling newspaper industry as an example. At the time of the announcement, the Vibe staff was working on an issue dedicated to Michael Jackson. That issue is not planned for publication.
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