• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, June 30, 2009

More bad vibes in the magazine industry this week with reports Tuesday that Vibe magazine is folding. The title, which covered hip-hop and R&B, is the second big music title to close in 2009, and just one of a growing pile of casualties in consumer magazines generally.

The shuttering of the urban music mag, first reported by the DailyFinance Web site, follows a 42% drop in ad pages in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. Those losses follow several previous years of declines.

Per PIB, Vibe's ad pages declined 3.3% in 2006, 19.9% in 2007 and 17.7% in 2008. That means total ad pages fell from 1,242 in 2005 to 792 in 2008, for an overall 36% drop. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, Vibe's newsstand sales fell 11% from 112,407 in the second half of 2007 to 100,318 in the second half of 2008.

The timing couldn't have been worse for the Wicks Group of Companies, which acquired Vibe in 2006. The Wicks Group jettisoned Vibe Vixen, a sister publication with a rate base of 425,000 in September 2007. In February of this year, it cut Vibe's circulation 25%, reduced its frequency from 12 to 10 issues a year, and slashed salaries 10% to 15%, all to no avail.

While it may be cold comfort, Wicks was just one of a number of private-equity investors to buy magazines right before they went into free fall. Quadrangle Capital Partners bought Maxim, Stuff and Blender from Dennis Publishing in June 2007, forming a new publishing company, Alpha Media. Since then, Alpha has shuttered Stuff and Blender, while Maxim's ad pages were down 34.6% in the first quarter, per PIB.

As the demise of Vibe and Blender suggests, music titles have been hit especially hard, with advertisers following their core audience of young male readers to the Internet.

According to MIN, for the year-to-date, ad pages are down 21% at Rolling Stone and 26% at Spin. Enthusiast mag Sound & Vision, recently sold by Hachette Filipacchi to Bonnier, is down 33%. Finally, Radio & Records, a respected trade publication covering the radio and music business, closed earlier this month.