Entertainment Weekly Becomes Entertainment Weakly

Entertainment Weekly is now a monthly magazine.  I don't think they're going to change their name.  It's another sign of the apocalypse. 

Laugh at me if you want, but I have been a charter subscriber to Entertainment Weekly.  That's right.  I've had a subscription since Day One, way back in February 1990.

Why, you might ask?  Well, first, anyone who knows me, either personally or through this blog, knows that I am a devout performer and consumer of stories.  Entertainment Weekly was a great way to let me know what's available and what's coming - in books, TV, movie, music and comic books.

Also fundamental to me was the rich statistical nature of the magazine. It was steeped in lists and rankings and what were the bestselling books, the box office of the most recent movies, the TV shows with the highest Neilsen ratings, the most popular music albums by genre.  It was a statistical feast, AND I LOVED IT.

Iy would give letter grades to the newest entertainments.  Sometimes I was not matched closely with their critics, but oftentimes I was, particularly in television.

Over time, they moved more and more away from the emphasis on a statistical bent, doing more and more fluff pieces, the kind you find in People magazine.  I'm sure that one of the factors behind this was the increasing availability of statistics on the internet.  You can get detailed movie box office information through Box Office Mojo, or The TV Rating Guide, or similar websites.

Yeah, great.  Stats on the Net.  To me, it's not the same.  I loved getting the base data every week in my favorite magazine. 

An example outside of the world that used to be covered by Entertainment Weekly is what's happened to me in regards to baseball,  I loved to follow baseball but I did it almost entirely by statistics I found in the newspaper, especially USA Today.  Now, I don't have access to those (and when I have found them, I see that they seem to have moved away from statistics as well), and I find my contact with baseball reduced to zero.  I see it so little, I'm still shocked every time I see that the Houston Astros are now in the American League.  When the hell did that happen?

Looking through the new monthly Entertainment Weekly, I find it almost entirely worthless.  No stats, tons of fluff pieces (do I really want to read twenty-some pages about any show, particularly those I don't even watch?).  There are a few grades of upcoming things, but they're not very complete, and how can you be timely if you only come out once a month?

The decline of magazines has been a hard thing to watch.  Almost all the weeklies are having a tough time (except maybe the lurid like the National Enquirer, blasting pro-Trump headlines and celebrity dirt).  Most of the magazine sections at grocery stores and drug stores and even booksellers are becoming smaller and smaller.  And even in that small space the number of weeklies and even monthlies are becoming fewer and fewer, with what little space there is being taken over by specialty one-shots that are glossier but cost upwards of $20!

Yes, we have come a long way from the days of Life, Look, Newsweek, Time, Saturday Evening Post, and so many more.  Yes, I know.  Time marches on, even for Time magazine.

I, for one, will miss them.


P.S.

For those concerned about the expense of a weekly magazine, I always found ways to get EW at a heavily discounted rate.  Most of the time, I got a "professional rate," you know - being a CPA and supposedly using it in the lobby of my successful, prominent practice.  Please don't tell them anything different.