US LGBT Publisher Shuts Down

One of the most important US lesbian and gay media publishers - Window Media - shut down today.


Ian Johnson, Out Now
November 16, 2009

Topics: LGBT media. LGBT communications. Lesbian and gay media publishing. Gay and lesbian market. Web 2.0 and traditional media. Washington Blade. Window Media LLC shuts down.

Some sad news out of the US today - one of the country's largest gay and lesbian media publishers - Window Media LLC - has closed its doors.

Publishers of influential gay market media products such as Southern Voice in Atlanta, Houston Voice and South Florida Blade; Window Media LLC had been struggling to maintain advertising sales revenues in a very tough economy.

The company also faced the effects of a continuing increasing shift of corporate advertising budgets to the online media world.

One of the company's media products - the Washington Blade - recently celebrated its 40th anniversary.

Laura Douglas-Brown, editor of Southern Voice, told AP that "there was just no more money to keep these companies running. We were all told that the companies would be sold. The fact that we were shut down was a complete shock."

Just last week I picked up what is now the last issue of the Washington Blade during a visit to DC.

One of the factors working against specialist LGBT media is that mainstream media is increasingly writing about gay and lesbian issues, reducing the consumer 'hunger' for news of gays and lesbians written from a gay and lesbian perspective.

I agree most strongly here with Michael Musto of NYC's Village Voice who said: "Window Media long provided a very special outlet for the gay community to learn about itself way before there were a lot of other places to find that type of thing. This was the gay community writing about itself, and that's a voice we should never lose."
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