N.Y. Times Officials Elect To Shut Down "Play" Magazine

N.Y. Times officials yesterday said that they have shut down "Play," the paper's quarterly sports magazine, according to Richard Perez-Pena of the N.Y. TIMES. The magazine, which was first published in February '06, "represented part of The Times's strategy to draw luxury goods advertising with a set of new high-end magazines inserted into its Sunday editions." Such advertising has "fared better than that for mass-market products in recent years, but even the luxury market has dropped steeply." Play Editor Mark Bryant: "It was a nice run and we enjoyed it, but given the reports almost daily of magazines cutting back and shutting down, I have to be philosophical about it" (N.Y. TIMES, 11/18). N.Y. Times Assistant Managing Editor Gerald Marzorati indicated that the publication "didn't attract the business from advertisers it expected and needed to become profitable." The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Russell Adams noted "Play" was a "general-interest magazine that relied on six or seven ad categories, including U.S. auto makers, to make it work." The paper "explored several options to keep the magazine afloat, including cutting editorial staff, publishing it only online and signing a single advertiser for each issue as it did when Nielsen sponsored its Olympic issue, published in August" (WSJ.com, 11/17).