NYT shutters Play

Says MediaBistro ...

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/magazines/new_york_times_shutters_play_100882.asp

 

I still won't change my avatar.

 

Very unfortunate, as it's just about the only publication I can think of that I would actually read from cover to cover. Never failed to have interesting stuff in it, and it did a great job of making sports accessible on the one hand and providing some real insights on the other.

No surer sign of how screwed up NYT is that it would shed something that "made" money, instead of trying to figure out how to expand the idea and make more money.

 

Read again henry:

"I'm am told that last year we more or less broke even, thanks largely to the Nielsen deal for the Olympic issue," he said. (Nielsen bought out the entire issue. It was, according to Bryant, the "largest single day sale in the history of The New York Times.)


That means every other issue lost money and going forward it would continue to lose money.

 

that is brutal. taken together with the upcoming cuts at SI? we are looking at very real questions about the future of long-form sports journalism. let's crack this open a bit: espn does a great job with e-ticket. is that the future of long stuff? will it crack open vistas of unlimited space and time to write? or will everybody agree that no one reads long on the web, and in-depth profiles, investigations, etc. will go the way of the dodo?

 

Damn, damn, damn.

This was a publication I looked forward to reading more than any other. The stories were interesting, incredibly written and on subjects that were the definition of out-of-the-box.

I get the NY Times and when I'd see PLAY, the rest of the paper would wait.

Damn, damn, damn.

 

I always thought a magazine sort of like that, sort of like SI, used as a national Sunday supplement, like a more literate, sports version of Parade, could make it.

 

Thus my use of the phrase "made" money.

 

hey, playthrough: what'd you think of the piece? i felt bad for the macgregor, because he got no access and that is nightmare-time. it felt like the times just felt it HAD to do a favre piece, NOW, and without any way to move the story forward somehow, the writer was reduced to paragraphs of rif. now, i'm not against a good rif here and there, and few can do it as well as macgregor. but all rif and not much new? high-wire act, without much payoff. you can't help but be impressed by the skill. but at this point i can't remember a word.

 

Terrible news.

 

Inside Sports.
The National.
Play.

Boneyard's filling up, dammit.