CEO: Vibe magazine closing after 16 years

By Khadijah Rentas
CNN

(CNN) - Vibe magazine, one of the best selling hip-hop magazines in the country, shut down Tuesday due to financial constraints, according to the publication's chief executive officer.

The magazine has a debt of "several millions of dollars" and also faced a declining market and decreased advertising revenue, said CEO Steve Aaron.

Executives at Vibe tried a few months ago to work against the downward financial slide by enhancing the magazine's Web presence, Aaron said.

"We did very well on the digital side of the business, we had a lot of growth," Aaron said. "[But] the challenges of the publication industry and the losses from the print advertising were happening faster than we could do the growth on the digital side, and at the end of the day we kind of ran out of time."

In a letter to employees, Aaron cited the magazine's significant loss of automobile advertising, which especially hurt revenues.

Employees learned of the fate of their company Tuesday, some while working on what they thought was an upcoming Michael Jackson tribute issue, Vibe Editor in Chief Danyel Smith said in a statement.

"It's a tragic week in overall, but as the doors of VIBE Media Group close, on the eve of the magazine's sixteenth anniversary, it's a sad day for music, for hip hop in particular, and for the millions of readers and users who have loved and who continue to love the VIBE brand," Smith said.

The closure eliminates jobs for all 48 staff members, Aaron said.

The issue currently on newsstands will be Vibe's last, Aaron said.

The magazine was established 16 years ago by musician Quincy Jones and had a circulation of about 600,000, according to Aaron. The loss of Vibe magazine could widen the market for its two biggest competitors in the hip-hop magazine niche: The Source and XXL Magazine. King magazine, a hip-hop magazine geared toward a male audience, folded earlier this year.