by The Editors on February 8, 2009
It’s a bummer to see a magazine we actually liked reading stop publishing, but it seems Concussion magazine has taken its own advice and is destroying itself, according to a story on Skate and Annoy.
Publisher Davoud Kermaninejad sent the news out to supporters via email last Friday night. He’s been half-seriously threatening to do it for years, but the harsh transitions of our shitty economy finally sealed the deal. . . He’s throwing in the towel as far as print issues go. He decided to go out with a bang rather than see future issues strangled by the ever-shrinking list of advertisers and the production budget that comes with them. You’ve got to respect his style.
Click the link for the entire letter from the publisher.
[Link: Skate and Annoy]
by The Editors on February 6, 2009
Greg MacGillivray, one half of the famous MacGillivray-Freeman IMAX movie team is reportedly working on a documentary film that will explore 50 years of surfing in Hollywood film with a special focus on all the trouble John Milius had making Big Wednesday, according to a story in Variety.
It’s really about how Hollywood’s superficial view of surfing culture has influenced popular culture and the story of what happened when real surfers tried to change that,” MacGillivray said. . . . The yet-to-be-titled documentary includes Thomas Edison’s 1906 Hawaiian surfing footage and excerpts from numerous other surfing films, plus interviews with Kathy Kohner (the real-life Gidget), surfers such as Greg Noll and Mickey Munoz along with Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Quentin Tarantino.
Sounds like something Ben Marcus was talking about five years ago. . .
[Link: Variety]
by The Editors on February 5, 2009
It’s amazing to us that Arkitip has been able to produce the amazing magazines they’ve been creating for the past three years, however, it looks like the economy is taking its toll on the specialty publishing market as well.
According to an email sent out to advertisers by Tracy Forman, Arkitip, has “made the decision to decrease our magazine publishing frequency from 6 issues to 4 issues a year.”
These changes in the economy have forced us to look at what we are as a brand and focus on further defining it to our customers. We have a groundbreaking publication, a spectacular web property, a thriving online store and thousands of devoted fans of everything Arkitip does. Publishing the magazine 4 times a year does not diminish any of this and will free us up to focus on many other projects that we have had the opportunity to explore before, but never the time.
We always think of cutting print and moving more to the web as a good thing, so congratulations are in order. Follow the jump for the entire email.
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by The Editors on February 5, 2009
As if there aren’t enough sites professing to know what size waves are going to be hitting our favorite breaks tomorrow, it looks like Transworld Surf is jumping in as well.
Bonnier Corp (Transworld Media’s parent company) is currently looking for “a part-time surf forecaster to work remotely to create daily surf reports,” for “an industry leading and established surf media company,” according to a job posting.
Applicants must be familiar with the sport of surfing and its culture. Responsibilities include checking publicly available government information and various other sources, analyzing and interpreting this information and breaking it down into easy-to-understand written surf reports for approximately ten US regions. . . Position is a part-time remote position the will require approximately three hours a day.
Well, they have the guy who built Wave Watch for ASG on the payroll so why not have him build another one? Wonder what they’ll call this one: Transworld Surf Watch?
[Link: The Bonnier Corp]
by The Editors on February 4, 2009
Source Interlink Co.s the parent company of the ASG Group (publishers of Snowboarder, Surfer, Surfing, and Skateboarder magazines) is denying that it is shutting down its magazine distribution business after major publishers pulled their titles from the magazine distributor thanks to the proposed 7 cent per issue fee Source was hoping to charge:
Gillis said the country’s biggest publishers, along with national distributors Curtis and Time Warner Retail, are shutting Source and Anderson out of the magazine supply chain in a bid to wrest pricing control away from retailers. “This is about American Media and Curtis and Bauer and Time Warner trying to control retailer pricing by eliminating magazine wholesalers so they don’t have so many they’ve got to do business with,” he said.
Guess it’s kind of hard to distribute magazines if no one is giving you magazines to distribute.
We’re kind of glad it only took two minutes to distribute this post to the world and that we didn’t have to deal with anyone to make it happen. No wonder print advertising is so expensive. . .
[Link: Foliomag.com]
by The Editors on February 3, 2009
You just never know the truth these days. According to a video posted on Thrasher Magazine’s website, Editor Jake Phelps says he “was fired yesterday” by High Speed Productions. Here’s what he had to say on the video clip:
Well I guess the who’s hated list that caused a lot of shit. But I got fired yesterday, I guess I’m going to have to keep skating more. . . . I don’t hate anybody. And I love everybody. Let’s all just keep skating. . . . If you have some more questions to ask me maybe I’ll tell you, we’ll go in a van on the road somewhere and I’ll tell you some funny stories and that will keep you occupied. . . . I’ll keep my own opinions to myself. I’m not a jock. I’ve done a lot of drugs. I’m just a regular guy and like I said, “The Truth Hurts.”
Though we know a lot of people who would celebrate Jake Phelp’s firing, we’re not going to start putting our party kit on just yet. . .
[Link: Thrasher Magazine]
by The Editors on February 3, 2009
We’re not the biggest fans of the super-extreme RedBull thrill-fests, however, the Snowscrapers event is looking pretty legit, especially since Fuel TV is going to webcast it live and in HD this Thursday afternoon.
On Thursday, February 5th, 17 of the world’s best snowboarders will compete in New York City for their piece of the massive $100,000 prize purse at Red Bull Snowscrapers. Riders will rip against the majestic backdrop of the NYC skyline in the East River Park from 6-9 pm and it’s all being webcast live in HD on FUEL.TV. Don’t miss this one!
Plus, if it’s on the web and in HD, we’ll pretty much watch anything.
[Link: Fuel.TV]
by The Editors on February 2, 2009
X Games Senior Vice President Rick Alessandri, is pretty happy with the “cross-platform” ratings of the Winter X 13. “The continued growth across all our multi-media properties is a testament to the passion, athleticism and drama the X Games athletes deliver each event.”
But according to a story on TVbythenumbers.com the TV ratings really weren’t all that strong, though it’s hard to tell with all this “best ever” lingo:
Television: Winter X Games 13 was ESPN’s highest-rated and most-viewed Winter X Games in history. The eight telecasts averaged 942,000 homes, up nine percent from 2008. Young male and people demos were up double digits from last year. Three of ESPN’s eight Winter X Games telecasts, delivered over a 1.0 rating this year –Friday prime time, Sunday afternoon and Sunday prime time. Sunday night’s 1.3 rating and 1,242,210 homes makes it the highest-rated and most-viewed Winter X Games telecast ever. ABC’s Winter X Games 13 telecast on Saturday averaged a 1.2 household rating and 1,376,481 households.
Just for comparison sake nearly seven times as many people watch Extreme Makeover on ABC TV and 14 times as many people regularly watch American Idol. The Portland Summer Dew Tour event that aired live in August (albeit with the Olympics for a lead-in) got a 2.7 rating.
[Link: TVbythenumbers.com]
by The Editors on January 30, 2009
The Alliance of Action Sports has just announced a three-year deal with Eurosport 2 giving the European sports broadcaster exclusive live coverage of the Winter Dew Tour. And of course, Alli President Wade Martin is excited.
“We are thrilled to offer a live telecast of the Winter Dew Tour in Europe through Eurosport 2,” said Wade Martin, President of Alli, the Alliance of Action Sports. “This is a terrific opportunity for fans throughout Europe to see live coverage of the best action sports athletes in the world.”
Are people still watching TV in Europe?
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by The Editors on January 30, 2009
It’s a bummer to see a magazine we actually liked reading stop publishing, but it seems Concussion magazine has taken its own advice and is destroying itself, according to a story on Skate and Annoy.
