Rake ceases publishing as print ads plummet

The Rake, a local monthly magazine that favored long-form journalism, clever headlines and a wise-cracking tone, has halted publication because of declining print advertising revenue.

The March issue now available will be the last, Publisher Tom Bartel said Monday. The magazine's website will remain, but of the Rake's 16 full-time employees, only one will stay on to manage the online operation.

The Rake isn't the only publication affected by declines in advertising, which also have hit newspapers, TV stations and other magazines around the country. But its relatively small size made it vulnerable.

Advertising revenue had dropped from just more than $2 million in 2005 to a projected $1.6 million to $1.7 million in 2008, Bartel said. He saw no recovery in sight because of a shrinking local print advertising market, more competitors and the probability of a national economic recession.

"Things have changed radically in the last six years, and I think it's going to get worse long before it gets better," Bartel said. "It's too expensive to produce journalism and then have Google come along and take all your advertising."

Others agreed.

"At best, these are challenging times, maybe even recessionary times," said John Rash, a senior vice president at advertising agency Campbell Mithun who follows the media market and writes a monthly column for the Star Tribune. "While there is some tremendous journalism on websites and in smaller publications, it is more difficult to monetize it, both locally and nationally. Newspapers themselves have struggled."

Some local magazines expect to weather the financial storm, which they view as a cyclical downturn in the publishing business.

"We think the next 18 months are going to be tough for advertising in general," said Deborah Hopp, publisher of Mpls.St.Paul magazine, based in Minneapolis. "Our expectation is that, around here, weaker players will fall by the wayside."

Besides the decline in local advertising, there are more publications competing for it, Bartel said. New entrants have included the Onion, Metro, Spaces, Vita.mn and Marq (the last two both published by the Star Tribune), he said. In addition, other information sources are available online, such as Minnesota Monitor and MinnPost.

The Rake competed for a small portion of an estimated $50 million advertising market for monthly local publications, Bartel said. It was not a significant competitor of what he said were the major players in that market, Mpls.St.Paul, Minnesota Monthly and City Pages.

Hopp said she had not done enough market analysis to comment on Bartel's description of the major players in the local advertising market. Mpls.St.Paul does not disclose revenue, she said.

"But we certainly did not find ourselves in very much competition with the Rake, and we don't expect its demise to have too much impact on our business," Hopp said.

The online arm of the Rake will remain at www.rakemag.com, but it will offer mainly event calendars, searchable restaurant databases and blogs.

"What will go away is the long magazine pieces, because they were very expensive to produce and they weren't getting read online to the extent they were in print, based on our analysis of the website," Bartel said.

He and his wife, associate publisher Kristin Henning, had provided all financing for the Rake, published by Rake Publishing Inc. of Minneapolis, but he declined to disclose the amount. The two began the publication in 2002 after selling another local publication, City Pages, to Village Voice Media.

The Rake was profitable in only one year, 2005, Bartel said. Employment peaked that year at 22 full-time workers, but by this year had declined to 16.

"It's gone," he said of their investment. "We made money a couple of years ago, but everything we made went back into the magazine."

Steve Alexander • 612-673-4553