Car Audio & Electronics Magazine to Cease Publication

[Rich B 5,000+ posts]

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif

Friday, August 08, 2008 -- ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Consumer-oriented monthly Car Audio & Electronics will cease publication at the end of the year, its publisher has announced in a letter to advertisers.

In an Aug. 7 letter to advertisers, Howard Lim, vice president and group publisher of publisher Source Interlink Media, made the announcement in a letter to advertisers.

That letter was obtained by Mobile Electronics magazine on Friday.

"As you know, the car audio industry has been very challenging over the past few years and Car Audio & Electronics has tried to maintain its viability during these economically challenged times," Lim wrote in the letter. "At this juncture, we regret to inform you that Source Interlink Media has chosen to remove [the magazine] from their portfolio."

The magazine will publish its last issue in November, after two decades of covering the car audio industry. In its heyday, the magazine maintained a list of more than 140,000 paid subscribers.

In recent years, the subscriber list had dwindled to about 40,000.

The closure of the publication should cause manufacturers to reevaluate how they spend advertising dollars, said Keith Lehmann, senior vice president of consumer electronics at Kenwood USA.

"It's a wakeup call to anybody who supports these books to say broaden your message," Lehmann said. "It illustrates how this industry is evolving. Everything that stands still will be left in the dust. And this book stood still."

http://www.me-mag.com/ArticleReader.aspx?NewsId=5389

Click to read more...

 

[~Magick_Man~ 10+ year member]

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

 

[nittanylion64 10+ year member]

That totally blows. I just finally renewed my subscription after letting it lag for about 9 years!!

 

[wu501 10+ year member]

fock...I ordered a subscription a bout a month ago and haven't even received my first issue yet....and now it won't even be in production.

 

[Korn4Life 5,000+ posts]

who cares... nothing in that mag anyways

 

[sonic purity 10+ year member]

Back in the day, I loved that magazine. Havent read for about 5 year now.

 

[rasta4life 10+ year member]

No matter what anybody says about the magazine it was still a great magazine,we all have opinions but the main thing was their was a magazine on car audio and the culture and now it is gone that sucks.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/verymad.gif.3f39c5c2fd57527b671fad3efdfac756.gif:verymad://content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/furious.gif.fc81ca146dbff91fede3ed290dbc4f4c.gif

 

[Phers1er 10+ year member]

who cares... nothing in that mag anyways

I disagree... I am not a subscriber but I pick one up every now and then. There has been alot of how to/build articles that have been pretty good. Also most of the feature vehicles have had build photos which I thought was a nice touch.

 

[bamaboy 5,000+ posts]

PAS is garbage IMO //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

dang i think i renewed to a 2yr subscription also not long ago //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif

any other alternatives?

 

[cycloneman 10+ year member]

Long live the internet. I think we will see this happening with a lot of magazines and newspapers in the next 5-10 years.

Don't get me wrong....I started reading CA&E back in 90-91, but now I can turn on my PC and get all that same info and then some.

They will be missed.

 

[phyphoestilic 5,000+ posts]

Not even halfway through my 2 year subscription //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

 

[Louisiana_CRX 5,000+ posts]

I still have their first issue put away somewhere...I think it was 87 or 88...I have most of their magazines...but I haven't picked up as many lately...I was thinking about re subscribing....

 

[JRock10 10+ year member]

once CA&E started showing nothing but 'glassed installs and retarded expensive equipment in all their features, it went to shit. I lost interest when they dropped the choices section (the budget, usually owner built systems). Then all the installs started looking the same: bunch of fiberglass and paint, how many screens can we flush into a door, motorization, etc etc. ok, i do like motorization.

one of my favorite installs ever was 3 JL 10s in a white 2g eclipse where the enclosure was a triangle and the amps, caps, and subs were all mounted in the box and it would rotate to whatever side you wanted to display.

and the guy with the red caddy that built one of the first carputers. he had a program set up that would activate various parts of the system and motorization during a presentation to show judges. he had this perfectly timed to a vocal explanation of the whole system. it was pretty advanced for the time period.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

The recession is being blamed, but imo the real reason is the magazine lost touch with its subscribers. They tried to awe their audience with one fancy install after another, when in reality they are simply showcasing install types/levels that 99% of their readers will never have.

Im a car/truck guy and even the car/truck mags are doing it these days imo. The multi-hundred thousand dollar show car trailer queens get one ten page full spread article after another while the real world builds get a snapshot and one small paragraph in the 'readers rides' section.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

I still have a bunch of issues from the early 90's. I grab about an issue a year the last couple of years and it just isn't the same magazine that it used to be. It went from being consumer oriented showing cars owned and built by real people to only featuring the over the top demo vehicles that really are only a showcase of how much some installer can cram into a car with no further thought to 1) how it actually sounds and 2) whether or not the car is even usable any more. Basically the mag has just turned to one big ad mostly for Audiobahn and Sony. I definitely won't mourn its passing like I did CSR.