Window Media failed due to Unger’s buying spree, overleveraging, and the economic downturn hit to finish it off. No other reason.

If I want serious news, I can read it on the internet…when I walk into a gay club to pick up a glossy, I want ENTERTAINMENT, FASHION, and SEX TIPS. So Window Media had that right. They just overleveraged themselves.

Read the linked articles above, it’s all been covered: debt burdens all along killed the company, along with too many VPs and senior managers (at local newspapers, you either write, or you sell ads, or you’re a luxury that payroll cannot afford).

Wasn’t Kitchens there from the earliest days of Window’s ownership of SoVo?

He’s an apparatchik and enabler, not a virgin who woke up recently. Being spineless does not excuse you from what you’ve helped create (or destroy) every step of the way.

Here’s a news inquiry for Queerty: were Window Media’s employees even treated in accord with the local laws in the cities where they were treated like used up pack mules instead of like human beings who’d given more late nights to the company than anyone could count?

I always think of the Tootsie line – can you pull the camera back – how far? – cleveland.

Just more of his own back-slapping dribble, because there’s no one better at kissing his own fat ass than him. For those who don’t live in Philadelphia – you’re lucky you’ve never met this horrid individual.

For decades, and up until Monday, the Blade was at all of them. For those same decades, there were only four LGBT bookstores max in their DC distribution area, one or two today, and friendly bookstores were always a very small % of their dist. So, local bookstores were never the foundation of their distribution.

Yes, the ‘Net is more expansive. But when it comes to eating at their P&L statements, the ‘Net was nothing compared to the debt load they incurred at inception, increased with subsequent ill-advised acquisitions, and blew on a revolving door of senior managers. I won’t even repeat the editorial follies: Jeff Gannon as columnist says it all. If that’s how they treated their readers en masse, you should ask around town how they treated employees, business and community leaders face to face.

You’re right about the ‘Net being the future of media, but dead wrong about what’s to blame for Window’s past, in the tragedy of this week. An avalanche of reports, expert commentary, and court documents display a company built like a house of cards. A house that hubris built.

And I’m glad you focused on local stores, because Window Media’s own managers didn’t. On this very blog and elsewhere, you can find David Unger quotes where he blames the company’s demise on supposedly “homophobic” major national advertisers for not buying space. He mentions Target as an example.

Anyone with a shred of experience in local community publishing will tell you, as PGN’s owner does above, that national ads are just extra revenue icing. The real nutrition is to be found in countless local independent advertisers. They pay more per square inch for their space than do larger ad purchasers, they’re more likely to sign contracts, and they’re more likely to keep extending their contracts. They get you through the lean times. Again, look at the papers that are surviving, some thriving, despite the economy and the ‘Net.

You have to do a couple things, though: focus on local content, treat local business leaders and community leaders with respect, and go to work every day telling yourself you run local newspapers, instead of seeing the word “mogul” or “chain” when you look in the mirror, and dreaming of national advertising baubles and other bragging rights.

You can still buy a book on Amazon, of course, but not the Southern Voice. The ecosystem is not on our side right now. It just isn’t.

I wish it were true that if just people we like were running the show, everything would turn out better, but that is magical thinking. Times are changing, and the future of publishing is the web, simple as that.

Fact is, most advertisers don’t care about the political bent of the content, as long as there’s nothing offensive in the accompanying art.

http://65.79.227.222/display.php?id=23570

Their treatment of the Blade’s founder, Don Michaels, and other legal and fiscal woes is recalled in the 2nd item here, an archived story from LGNY (now Gay City News):

http://tinyurl.com/ydu2dnq

Choice excerpt:

Both Crain and Waybourn say time will show that Window Media is a strong company with plans to improve the access to and coverage of gay and lesbian news across the nation.

“Time will prove our detractors wrong,” Waybourn added.

So whither the web… the strategy for WIndow Media was on its face not a bad one: leverage a content management system (one content management system) and ad server across all the properties.

Benefit from scale by pooling reports from regional or local pubs — acquired by the parent.

Borrow money to do that.

Anyone who thinks this sort of approach doesn’t happen every day in the media business (and every other kind of business) doesn’t know anything about business.

The problem is that in order for such “leveraging” to succeed, the winds have to be behind your back, and in this case they weren’t.

No doubt management (ugh. Management.) played a significant role in terms of hitting the gas pedal without the skill to make the curves, but that isn’t the only reason.

These guys didn’t buy a cruise line and blow $5 million on the QE2 (like PlanetOut), they didn’t hang out in lavish offices that drained revenue off the top. They didn’t appear to be weighted down by too many Vice Presidents and other “executives” (Ugh. Executives).

And still it all blew up.

Back in the day there was the Club Bath’s chain. It was a national chain of gay bath houses in major cities. It thrived until AIDS did it in.

Those regional and local pubs that still exist by remaining small, nimble and frugal are rightfully entitled to be proud of hanging in there. But many of their sister pubs have not. Its not over yet.

Everything is always due yesterday.