Another industry print magazine is switching to the digital-only side.
By David Clucas
After 13 years, Snowboard magazine will cease its regular print run of magazines — which most recently distributed quarterly — to focus on its digital, social and custom-content formats.
“Bolstering Snowboard’s digital and custom-content model is a proactive move to remain at the forefront of a competitive and ever-changing media environment where users demand real-time stories, and rich, digital content, and where advertisers demand metrics and a measurable ROI,” officials said in a release. They claimed the magazine had “the most print subscribers in the snowboarding industry,” but that it dwarfed their online readership reaching more than 6 million enthusiasts every month.
“Snowboard will no longer rely on traditional subscription and newsstand models that have become particularly ineffective and inefficient for all snowboarding magazine titles in North America,” officials said. “As a small, independent company, Snowboard has both the need and the opportunity to be more agile than its corporate competitors. Rather than struggling in a declining print environment, Snowboard is proactively embracing change and positioning itself to thrive in the new media ecosystem.”
The editors of the magazine added they “remain passionate about print,” and will develop future custom-print projects “rooted in quality, not quantity.”
Colorado-based Storm Mountain Media publishes Snowboard along with Freeskier magazine, which as far as we know will continue on its five-time yearly print publication schedule. The publisher acquired Snowboard in 2006, saving it, back then, from going out of print.
Snowboard competes with TransWorld Snowboarding and Snowboarder magazines, published seven and five times a year, respectively, and both owned by The Enthusiast Network.
This isn’t the first time a popular snowsports industry magazine has gone digital. In 2010, Skiing magazine announced it would cease printing in favor of digital, but it came back to print a season later on a reduced quarterly schedule, where it remains today. At the time, Skiing was owned by Bonnier Corp. It is now owned by Active Interest Media.
