Sad news for paying the bills this past weekend, as it was announced that Spin would be laying off a number of employees, including editor-in-chief Steve Kandell. The news of the layoffs, reported by Billboard on Friday, comes mere weeks after BuzzMedia purchased the nearly 30-year-old magazine.
“We believe there is a unique role for print and see it as another outlet for people to access content about their passion topics,” said BuzzMedia CEO Tyler Goldman when asked about Spin’s future in print after the purchase, “In the longer term, we’re still defining how print fits in from a platform perspective.” Another BuzzMedia rep issued a statement this morning, adding that they “will build upon this core staff by doubling the editorial team. This investment will enable us to continue enhancing Spin’s offerings, which includes making the SPIN archive, an incredibly important part of music history, much more accessible.”
In other news: naysayers and internet-fans are adding these layoffs, and the possible lack of a future for such an established magazine (the November/December issue has been scrapped), as one of the final gasps of the already dead medium of print. However, we here at TMT believe that the print medium died the moment TMT started publishing reviews on an Angelfire site 10 years ago.
• Spin: http://www.spin.com