Launched in 1991, CHART magazine has been a voice for Canadian artists admidst the many music publications like Rolling Stone and Spin that focus more on the music to the south of us. Started by two York University students, Edward Skira and Nada Laskovski as an airplay chart for campus radio stations in Canada, it eventually grew into a monthly magazine featuring interviews, reviews, etc.
Now, almost two decades later, CHART’s current issue will be their physical print edition. They will now be providing readers with Canadian music news via their website only (www.chartattack.com). In comment, Skira noted that “considering the state of the music industry and considering the state of the advertising industry, 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.” Essentially there is a lack of advertising money which is the life-blood of such physical press.
He further stated that “the record companies don’t have the kind of money they had even a couple years ago. 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.”
Given the situation, CHARTattack has been given a full makeover in order to meet the standards set by its physical publications. Will these industry changes affect the content? Skira answered “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. We definitely want to look at ourselves as tastemakers in terms of what we’re covering.”
While many may be sorry to see the magazine disappear off store shelves, there are features to be found on the website that will hopefully make up for the loss. For one thing, readers no longer have to wait a month for the latest edition as the website will be a constantly publishing source of music news. There is certainly more flexibility in the amount of information they can offer since the costs and limits of physical pages are gone. Not to mention, for those of you new to CHART’s site, there are features like “Pumping On Our Stereo” (what the staff are currently listening to) and the “Daily Poll”.
Today’s poll: “You can only save one… Morrissey or a baby seal”. Head over to the website to weigh in on the vote.
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