Published
Mon, Oct 15, 2018, 13:40
- It's the second major German publication this month to announce the end of physical copies.
Spex will stop publishing its print magazine in December.
The announcement came via editor-in-chief Daniel Gerhardt's editorial in the penultimate issue of the veteran German publication, which has published 384 issues since emerging in Cologne in 1980. Gerhadt mentions declining sales, subscriptions and advertising revenue, along with changing reader habits, as reasons for the cancellation. The final issue comes out on December 27th.
Spex is owned by Piranha Media GmbH, which also published Groove, another long-running German magazine that announced its final print edition earlier this month. Piranha purchased Spex when it went bankrupt in 1999 and relocated the editorial staff to Berlin in 2006. The magazine emerged as a major voice in music criticism in the '80s, gaining a reputation for high quality editorial and opinion columns, covering everything from Neue Deutsche Welle to Madonna, jungle and techno.
Though Gerhadt's editorial didn't mention the Spex website, the magazine appears to be continuing online.