• by Ray Schultz , November 25, 2024

Connection Publishing, the one-time publisher of six community magazines, is shutting down, owners Ryan and Melissa Spelts have announced.

“Unfortunately today, we announce the closure of the magazines,” Ryan Spelts writes. “Over the last 2 years the financial success of the magazines has been greatly diminished by increased prices and a decrease in advertiser demand. We have previously closed all of the magazines except North Ogden and Roy and today we announce the closure of all of them.” 

The Spelts family started in North Ogden, Utah with the North Ogden Connection, and later expanded to run magazines in “Syracuse, Roy, Ogden, Clearfield, and Weber County West,” they state.

Spelts continues: “We have loved the recipes, students of the month, feature articles, calendar of events, city news, and in general content that we hope enriched your lives, because it did ours. If you are a fan of the recipes, you can still get access to them at whattoeat4dinner.com."

He adds: “The websites for each magazine will continue until their annual plans are expired which is varied dates.”

Ad revenues have dropped by “68% over about a nine-month period,” Spelts told KSL TV. “And, it was a low margin business anyway, it wasn’t super high.”