Sad to say that Gourmet magazine may be a victim of the economy this year. I will miss it.

C

curious1

Well-known member
Gourmet will probably not see the end of the year. Its parent company, Conde Nast, can no longer rely on the huge profits of the newspaper portion of the Newhouse family business. The magazine operation needs to go on a diet. Conde Nast reaches the "food" market several ways. It owns Gourmet, Bon Appetite, and epicurious.com. Conde Nast simply owns too many titles in this category. From 2004 to 2008, Gourmet’s ad pages have dropped from 1,364 to 955, with a 24% drop last year. January’s ad pages were down another 32% according to MIN. Gourmet can survive since it has a competitive audience of web visitors to its food site, but it will have to migrate totally to its website.http://www.247wallst.com/2009/01/twelve-major-me.html

 
wow, thanks, I guess? I have many, many Gourmet, BA, Food and Wine and several other

food publications. I know I need to pare down, but just really love having a book or magazine in my hands.The internet is an amazing tool, but I still want my morning paper?

Did you notice the newspapers that are in trouble too?

I haven't subscribed to magazines for a while, mail box gets too stuffed when I am gone. Pick them up at the market once in a while.

Gourmet has so many memories for me. Was pretty young when I spotted the first one and have enjoyed it ever since.

I took a huge stack of Conde Nast Traveler magazines to recycle yesterday, that was a big step--

sorry, rambled a bit,
Nan

 
Sad, yes, but after having looked at my Grandmother's Gourmets through childhood and

then subscribing all my adult life myself I cancelled my subscription two years ago and then also dropped BA last year because of the direction the magazines had taken. I hesitated for a couple of years hoping things would improve but they did not. I think that has a lot more to do with their failure than the economy. The magazines had just become a constant disappointment.

 
I get Yoga, Cuisine at Home, Organic Gardening, Food & Wine, & Frommer's Budget Travel...

The only one I'm renewing is YogaJournal. I like to scan/read them, but if I don't get anything out of it, there's no sense in killing more trees.

And now solicitors are calling the house, offering 78% off the cover price to renew. I told the last phone solicitor: "I didn't read the last 3 issues of your magazine when they were sitting right here. So it's not worth paying 22% to just recycle an unread magazine at the library."

Most were subscribed to help nieces/nephews with school fundraisers. May have to find something else to order now.

 
I agree, Melissa -- way too much advertising that mimics the articles.

BA especially became annoying to read. The old Gourmets are a treasure!

 
I was at the library and found this 5x7 format paper insert with food stories from Gourmet.

Nothing but words: from Calvin Trillian, international writers, etc...across all ethnic areas and topics.

I read it from beginning to end right there and then...and remembered WHY I had originally subscribed to Gourmet. It was wonderful!

 
Yes, indeed, I have issues pretty much from the mid 60s thru the early 2000s when

I finally axed it. Towards the end you couldn't tell the ads from the articles. And I blame it on Ruth Reischel (sp?). From the very first Thanksgiving day issue when she published the fuzzy photos of people more than food and the simplistic recipes just turned me off. I kept it a few more years but then dumped it. The other irritating concept was the special issues devoted to hotels, restaurants and spas, especially since I could never, in this life, have afforded to patronize any of them. I began to think Gourmet was for these industries, not for me. My advice, try to get hold of some of the early issues and see what REAL food writing is all about. RIP Gourmet, and long overdue.

 
I know what you mean Nan, I subscribed to Gourmet back when I had little chance of finding

the ingredients are attempting the recipes.

I do think it's somewhat a generational thing about the hard copy vs reading on line. We subscribe to 4 news magazines and 3 newspapers, along with our special interests publications. My daughter, who is in her 30's, never reads a magazine or newspaper. However, she is very well read in politics and national news, just gets it all on line and TV. I think she's in the majority, which isn't a good sign for our magazines and newspapers.

 
Just thought of something, I sure hope the old Gourmet recipes will still be available on Epi. I

have a lot clipped, but still use the site to search for and find some.

Assuming they do fold, that is. Perhaps they won't.

 
Or the extensive articles on some precious little farm or dairy half way across the country

from me that I would never be able to patronize. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's great, but what does it have to do with me? Certain whole sections of the U.S.A. might as well not even EXIST as far as they are concerned. Do you know that Dallas has more restaurants per capita than New York City, including many critically acclaimed and very highly rated ones? You certainly never would from the magazine. It's not all country and Tex-Mex down here.

 
One nice thing is they LISTEN to readers. Reichl has tried a number of changes, and quickly

back-pedals when readers complain. (Frozen chopped onions appeared once. What an uproar! Never again.) I'm also glad to see that trend of photographing people's elbows and ankles seems to have tapered, and now the food is the focus (and IN focus) in the photos. The articles are far more about the politics of food than fancy hotels and tourist destinations.

I'll be sorry to see it go. I do not sit at the computer reading magazines for pleasure. The Gourmet site will become a place where people jump in, find the recipe they need, print it, and get out. Like most websites. I'm no dinosaur, but maybe the young'uns, when they're tired of watching Rachael Ray on YouTube on their iPods, will rediscover the pleasures of books, magazines, and newspapers. Or not.

 
Doesn't matter how far away it is from you. What matters is the knowledge that

such places exist, that farmers around the continent, and around the world, are interested in more than profits from big agri-business. It's the same thinking that lies behind Slow Food's Presidia and the Ark of Taste. It's helping to preserve something important in the face of corporate homogeneity.

 
They'll keep the Gourmet content on Epi because online content costs very little...

...makes ad revenue, and draws traffic to the site as a whole. I can't think of any reason why they would remove it.

 
I know, but I lived in farm country and KNOW such places exist. I lived twelve miles from a store

and still had no option but party line phone in the late eighties, but that is still not what I bought the magazine for.

 
That's good. I'm remembering the Eating Well mag that went and along with it, the website. It's now

reincarnated, but those old recipes are gone.

 
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