The Australian version of the well regarded print magazine PC World is to cease publication in an offline form as off January.
PC World Australia is printed under license by IDG Communications, the same company that prints the antipodean versions of Computer World and GoodGearGuide, amongst other titles.
IDG Communications managing director Don Kennedy said that there would be no immediate editorial downsizing as the publication would continue online. Editor Amanda Conroy did not respond to a request to comment from TechCrunch. A source close to the company said that reader numbers of the print edition of PC World Australia had declined by over 50% in the last two years.
PC World Australia first hit the news stands in 1983, and joins Business 2.0 among the field of print publications that have been shut as a direct consequence of the growing supremacy of the internet as the number one choice for news.
Anecdotal reports would suggest that many US magazines, particularly in tech related fields are experiencing similar readership drops to that of PC World Australia. Whilst there will always be a place (for the foreseeable future anyway) for glossy gossip magazines in Doctor surgeries and hairdressers, the market outside of gossip looks grim. And so it should: where exactly is the appeal, particularly in tech, of reading a magazine that reports on news that is 6-8 weeks old, or sometimes even older than that? The internet does provide an alternative outlet for print magazines, as it has for PC World Australia, however I’m betting that 2008 may well turn out to be the year of the dying print magazine. Greenies should be pleased though: imagine all the trees this will save.