Harris Publications shutting down

[SuperSet]

With newspapers on life support, this shouldn't surprise anyone.
No one is paying for content anymore.

http://www.foliomag.com/2016/harris-publications-is-shutting-down/

"In one fell swoop, magazine media's ongoing digital disruption claims another victim.

New York-based enthusiast publisher Harris Publications notified employees today that the company is shutting down, effective immediately, after nearly four decades."

Ballistic
Combat Handguns
Guns & Weapons
Survivor's Edge
Tactical Weapons
Special Weapons

[Lucky Scott]

It is over for printed media. Time marches on and things change. The Internet has killed many magazines and newspapers.

[BigPimping]

The internet is changing the way we do everything. Receive information, shop, learn and conduct business.

[GW]

Pity
Sitting on the john with a tablet just doesn't feel right.

[sealocan]

It's one of those things that will miss once they're gone.


But I can think of one that made the jump in the gun related media business.

"Gun test" it was the only media back in the day they gave unbiased results of testing, kind of like consumer reports for guns.

If you've never seen the old magazines that were kind of thing because there was no advertising allowed and the only covered a few guns per issue You really owe it to yourself to check them out online.

[Mayor McRifle]

Ballistic
Combat Handguns
Guns & Weapons
Survivor's Edge
Tactical Weapons
Special Weapons

I've never heard of any of these magazines. What were their circulation numbers?

[Dezrat]

Pity
Sitting on the john with a tablet just doesn't feel right.

This. And the fact that the magazine isle has always been the spot I head to when on the shopping trips with the better half....

[SuperSet]

I've never heard of any of these magazines. What were their circulation numbers?

If you're the least bit interested in modern guns (<10 years old), you would know the magazines and easily pick them out on the magazine rack. You would also see them often hanging on the rack by the Guns/Ammo sections of your local Wal Mart.

http://www.harris-pub.com/brands/tactical/

[Mayor McRifle]

If you're the least bit interested in modern guns (<10 years old), you would know the magazines and easily pick them out on the magazine rack. You would also see them often hanging on the rack by the Guns/Ammo sections of your local Wal Mart.

http://www.harris-pub.com/brands/tactical/

Well, I'm more than a little interested in modern guns, but I don't shop at WalMart. Any idea on the circulation numbers?

[Pally]

I use to occasionally purchase Combat Handguns & Special Weapons (at Walmart when I went looking for 22lr). I'd peruse them and then send them off to the nephews for their enjoyment. Sad to see them going away.

[Monster]

Does this mean Tacticool will go away too?

[CandG]

Wait wait wait...

Wait.

What's this internet thing?

[SuperSet]

Well, I'm more than a little interested in modern guns, but I don't shop at WalMart. Any idea on the circulation numbers?

No clue. The article says they have over 75 magazines, a lot of them non-gun related

[CandG]

I don't know what I'm going to do without my monthly issue of Juicy.

[elSquid]

http://www.thegunzone.com/software/armchair-pistolero.html

One of the genuine "fun" parts of my mercurial career as a "gun writer" was a feature I created for Combat Handguns' Editor Harry Kane, which I dubbed "The Armchair Pistolero: Software for Hard Types." It was actually the ideal transitional vehicle for me, for at the time I published by first gunzine feature in 1986, I had been critiquing movies and the occasional book or stage production for a dozen years. And no one was doing anything like that on a regular basis anywhere in the firearms press... book or video reviews were traditionally relegated to "filler" material, and as one of Publisher Stanley Harris' more telling epigrams was:

"Articles? Aren't those what we squeeze in between the advertisements?!"

The true customers of the magazines are the advertisers, and consumers have traditionally been poorly served.

Back in the day magazines were the only place to get info about new products, "reviews", etc. Twenty+ years ago I used to read Guns, American Handgunner, Handguns, G&A, Combat Handguns, etc...where else could I go? rec.guns only went so far.

Now we can get info online faster and more accurately...and more truthfully. Anyone remember MAC's review of the KSG? When was the last time a print article in a gun rag had something critical to say about any product?

The only print magazine I trust is Motorcycle Consumer News. They don't accept advertising, so they are fully reader funded.

Print media only has themselves to blame.

-- Michael