PC Magazine goes online-only

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ After 27 years as a print publication, PC Magazine is ditching its print edition and going online-only in February.

The move, announced Wednesday, highlights the pressure on newspapers and magazines to protect their profit margins as more advertising dollars flow to the Web.

Publications are increasingly betting on Internet-only business models. Last month, The Christian Science Monitor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning international newspaper, announced its plans to give up its daily print editions in April and focus on posting news online instead to cut costs.

PC Magazine's publisher, Ziff Davis Media, said the magazine's last print edition would be the January 2009 issue. The magazine's Web site and related sites draw more than seven million unique visitors a month, more than 10 times the print circulation, Ziff Davis said. The publication is well known for its product reviews.

Lance Ulanoff, editor in chief of the PCMag Digital Network, wrote in a note on the magazine's site that the "ever-growing expense of print and delivery was turning the creation of a physical product into an untenable business proposition."

He added that "as with any technology-related enterprise, this is not the end, but the beginning of something exciting and new."

The magazine will be delivered via e-mail to subscribers.

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