Chart goes paperless

by: Chris Bilton

January 15, 2009 12:00 PM

Comments: (3)

It’s official: the current issue of Chart will be the long-running publication’s final print edition (at least for now). From here on out, the business of covering the Canadian music scene will be an entirely online endeavour handled by the magazine’s website CHARTattack.com. Is this a case of CHARTretreat, or just the latest entry into the Death of Print logbook?

According to Chart’s founder and publisher Edward Skira, it’s that all-too familiar tale of: no advertising = no pages. “Considering the state of the music industry and considering the state of the advertising industry,” he says, “the advertising side of print was just not working very well and we basically had to go with the future and that’s the online side.”

Which is a troubling prospect considering Chart was arguably one of the most successful at balancing coverage of both the corporate and critical darlings of the Canadian music scene — featuring hitmakers like Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan alongside The New Pornographers and Joel Plaskett. But with the record industry flailing its way through full-on Code Red, no amount of Ryan Malcolm cover stories will help float the proverbial print edition boat.

“The record companies don’t have the kind of money they had even a couple years ago,” says Skira. “The Canadian major record companies are not signing the number of Canadian bands that they used to sign and they don’t have as many bands that we spotlight than they used to have. They are focussing on physical sales of CDs and the audience that’s buying those is not necessarily 15 years old; they’re 35, 40 50-year olds. The focus then is on artists that would appeal to people that are still buying CDs, while [the labels] try to figure out their digital strategies.”

For Chart, that means the kinds of bands their readers are interested in are simply not going to get the kind of support that generates full-page ads in glossy mags. But this is the downside to any symbiotic relationship, be it pilot fish or otherwise: when one organism gets sick, the other one feel the ill effects. Only economic Darwinism can determine what happens next.

Consequently, CHARTattack.com has received a full makeover and loads of new features that should make it a worthy alternative to the print edition. Unlike the original site — designed and largely unmodified since 2000! — the new site will be in “perpetual beta,” according to Skira, which will allow their coverage and the way its presented to keep evolving. “We have a base that we’ve built on with the magazine, so I don’t think we’re going to all of a sudden be covering Celine Dion because we’re online. Basically we’re trying to build a community that’s interested in like-minded stuff,” he says, adding, “we definitely want to look at ourselves as tastemakers in terms of what we’re covering.”

As we bid farewell to this nearly 20-year old institution of the Canadian music scene, spare a thought for those who will feel its loss the most.

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Chart goes paperless

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