Just a week after VIBE magazine officially shut down their print edition, XXL magazine follows suit. As you may know, VIBE magazine was bought out by SPIN Meda last year, and although it kept print editions of the magazine alive for most of the year, they finally called it quits the other week.
The latest hip-hop magazine to fold up is XXL. The hip-hop staple has been around seventeen years, making sure fans got their coverage on rap music the old fashioned way, before the internet/blogosphere took over the game. With the Digital Age in full effect, young readers are drawn more to online publications than print ones, and thus, XXL has been bought up by the media mammoth Townsquare.
The October/November edition of XXL, which is currently at the printers, will be the final edition of the magazine according to the NY Post. Ben Harris, the president of Harris Publications, which launched XXL in 1997, stated, "We incubated something digitally, but the Townsquare people can take it to the next level with their digital expertise."
While most buy-outs ultimately lead to lay offs, Bill Wilson, the chief content officer of Townsquare says that "11 XXL editorial and digital ad sales team employees will be offered jobs."
Wilson also stated that it's possible the publication will return to print for rare, special issues. "We think XXL has strong potential in both the digital and live events market," he added.