So, cleaning my desk today, I ran across the renewal notice for CCM Magazine that I had opened and promptly forgotten a month or so ago. Magazines could clear-cut forests with the number of renewal notices they send out, and I have a tendency to wait until the notice that says something like, "This is your final issue, unless you renew . . . and we won’t be your friend anymore." Anyway, I decided to take care of the subscription online. But when I went to the appropriate page, I got this note:

"Effective April 2008, CCM Magazine will
no longer be published as a printed magazine. Keep checking back for more
information and look for CCMmagazine.com to cover even more of your favorite
Christian music and entertainment!"

Wow! It’s not that I haven’t seen numerous magazines go exclusively online. A guitar publication I used to subscribe to went web-only last year, and I read about several other guitar and bass magazines going exclusively to the Internet. But Guitar Player, one of the flagships, still comes out on paper.

And in contemporary Christian music, CCM, which published its first issue in July 1978, is a flagship — the Rolling Stone of Christian pop. So it bailing out of a tangible, printed product was a sign that the times indeed are a-changin’. Given that this is such a momentous event, I asked CCM editor Jay Swartzendruber  if he’d answer a few questions about the change, and he kindly obliged:

Copious Notes: Tell us about the decision to close the print edition of CCM Magazine.

Jay Swartzendruber: When I joined the magazine in 2003, it was  already
clear CCM was fighting an uphill battle with online trends—trends with
readers and advertisers.  Those trends intensified over the past year and a
half. It seemed increasingly  imminent that the CCM brand would make the
move to go exclusively online,  especially since late
’07.

CN: How has the circulation of the print edition compared to the web traffic in recent years?

JS: For the past seven or eight years, obtaining new
subscribers has been increasingly challenging for CCM’s circulation
efforts. Meanwhile our web traffic has continued to
grow.

CN: Since CCM is the flagship contemporary Christian music magazine, this is a pretty momentous event. Do you see a precedent in publishing with similar magazines that have elected to go exclusively to the web?

JS: Yes, it’s indeed the end of an
era. That said, I don’t see so much a particular precedent as I do the obvious
trend. I’m actually amazed our print version stayed in production so long after
seeing countless magazines move online.

CN: How will CCMmagazine.com be impacted by this change?

JS: Beginning in May, CCMmagazine.com will be the originator
of our editorial content rather than the “beneficiary” of the magazine’s
reprints. Furthermore, the site will have the focus of our marketing efforts
rather than seeing such time split with a print
publication.

CN: Will any content be by subscription only?

JS: Quite possibly. That’s still
being discussed. (Our team has known about this upcoming transition for
literally eight days. That’s when we started
planning.)

CN: As a magazine editor these past several years, how do you feel about this? Will you miss putting together and reading the print edition of CCM?

JS: Absolutely. I mean, I’m old school. I still buy
CDs… The only iPod I own is a Nano—that thing couldn’t even hold my U2
library. And CCM? I’ve been reading it since I first subscribed in 1984,
so you better believe this change is a jolt. I’m going to miss working on the
print version, and I’m going to miss thumbing through it once it’s completed.
Miss it in a big way.