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From: WMartin@SIMTEL20.ARPA (William G. Martin)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: The demise of Ziff-Davis
Message-ID: <9416@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 21-Mar-85 17:03:44 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.9416
Posted: Thu Mar 21 17:03:44 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Mar-85 03:26:13 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
Lines: 67

Hi!

This is not a flame at you; however, since you have posted that you do
have a channel to the inner workings of what was once Ziff-Davis, I'd
appreciate it if you could pass this on to them, in addition to whatever
else of the online discussion regarding the magazine business you felt
they might find to be of interest.

What I (and I believe at least some others, judging by the contents
of postings) find to be Ziff-Davis's most unforgiveable behavior
was what they did to the magazine that ended up as "Computers and
Electronics". This may not have been truly the fault of the corporate
heirarchy; it could have been incredibly poor decisions by the
people in charge of that particular magazine. However, if that was the
case, the corporate offices are still at fault for allowing their
underlings to do the damage.

They took a viable and worthwhile magazine, one which had a long and
honorable history of providing service to both readers and advertisers,
in the general electronics arena, and forced it to become just another
"computer magazine". They did this at a time when "computer magazines" 
were destined to fail, due to the inevitable reduction in the
artificially-supported home-computer marketplace. By thus destroying
their own magazine, they did not do damage to themselves alone, but
to the entire community of electronic hobbyists and the businesses which
supply them and depend upon them.

The old "Popular Electronics" magazine had a useful and worthwhile mix
of professional and amateur level projects and information. It proved
its worth and value by absorbing the old "Electronics World" magazine
some years ago, becoming stronger and of more use to the readership
in that process. It started the home computer boom, yet did not become
overwhelmed by computers, keeping a viable assortment of electronics-related
topics alive in features and columns. Only when the decision was made
to give up this mix, change the name to "Computers and Electronics",
and insult the readership by eliminating the features they valued, did
it suffer a blow from which it could not recover, and thus slid into
a state where even loyal former readers had no interest in it.

This is why we find the behavior of Ziff-Davis unforgiveable. It really
is of little consequence that this or that microcomputer magazine
sprang up, flickered, and died. As fashions in the machines change, so
will the viability of publications tied to them. But what Z-D did was
to take one of the few GENERAL electronics magazines, of interest
to non-computer-fanatics and computer hobbyists alike, turn it into
a worthless computer magazine when there was no need or market for yet
another one, and then watch it die.

There are not enough general electronic magazines left. "Radio-Electronics"
is about the only major one; new publications, like "Modern Electronics",
are trying to fill the vacuum left by the demise of "Popular Electronics",
but are not likely to do so. There is a synergistic effect between the 
readership and the magazines in such a field; if the magazines are there,
they stimulate interests in the readers' minds. If the readers are eager,
they stimulate the growth of the magazines. When a company unilaterally
cuts off a major magazine in the field, it can actually hurt the field
itself -- because of "Popular Electronics"' demise, there are fewer
electronic hobbyists in America today and in future years. Those that
might have read a copy and become stimulated to enter the hobby will find some
other outlet for their energies.

Given this situation, as we perceive it, is there any wonder that we
regard Ziff-Davis with hostility? They didn't just terminate a publication --
they actively acted to damage an area of one of our strongest enthusiasms!

William Martin
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