A Rant on SciFi Magazine
I have been a loyal subscriber to the SciFi Magazine, the official magazine of the SciFi Channel, for many years. And I’ve noticed a trend in the “TV in Focus” section getting months behind for quite a while. But this latest issue (February of ’09) was the most disappointing of any issue they’ve ever put out. Because of content? No. I would have loved to have read this issue LAST FALL. Instead, this “February” issue gave us old TV and movie news on almost every single article. Stargate Atlantis is over. I would have loved to have read the behind-the-scenes look before the actual finale. The article mentions that it’s still weeks away. Articles on movies that have already come and gone are a waste. How about actual previews? Who wants to read old news?
I literally skimmed the entire magazine and threw it away. What a waste. I’m not sure who it is that’s so behind – The writers? The editors? The printers?
All I can say is that if the next issue is more of the same, I’ll be cancelling my subscription and sticking to online new sources.
January 27th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Consider yourself lucky that you get them when published. Mine show up in my mailbox 2 months after I see the same issue at the bookstore.
January 27th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Agreed, Angela… there is no excuse in this day and age for any information outlet to be outdated… but…. let me come at it a different way..
How can they compete with what’s available on the Internet?.. frankly… what’s available on the internet is there in almost real time, and a print magazine just won’t cut it for the ‘news’ portion.. what they have to do is add value that is NOT on the Internet, and keep what they have forward thinking enough so that when it arrives in our mailboxes, its as fresh as what arrives in our inbox…….
just my two…
January 28th, 2009 at 3:16 am
Hi, Angela.
I’ve had a subscription to this magazine for years as well and wrote to the editor, Scott Edelman, about my discontent with its content back in Feb ’08 on his blog at this link:
http://scottedelman.livejournal.com/23952.html?thread=156560
January 29th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Even with the 3 month lead in magazines use to publish news, it’s almost impossible anymore for any media related magazine to compete with online news sources. Tvguide shifted most of their focus to online and Wizard magazine just can’t compete with Newsarama and Comicbookresources….