Report: Reader's Digest And Radio Shack Will Disappear Next Year

The psychics at 24/7 Wall Street are back with their latest list of brands that won’t be long for this Earth, and the new selection includes deadpool darlings like Blockbuster and Zale, as well as some less obvious choices, including Kia and Moody’s. How’s their record? Last time around, the list included Palm and Newsweek. One of those has already been purchased by a buyer who may not keep the name alive. The other? 24/7 says that “Newsweek has little chance of staying open.”

Why Reader’s Digest, and why now? 24/7 points out the company’s recent bankruptcy, its circulation cuts, and its reduced publishing calendar, among other things.

It would have been unthinkable just a few years ago that a magazine as old and famous as Reader’s Digest would be shuttered. Iconic titles like House & Garden have been closed, Newsweek is for sale. BusinessWeek might have been closed if Bloomberg had not bought it for next to nothing.

The parent of Reader’s Digest has a number of niche magazines, such as Every Day with Rachael Ray and Taste of Home. The company’s book and music businesses reportedly also do well. Reader’s Digest also has 50 editions of its flagship magazine published around the world. But, if the trends in the US publishing industry have show anything, it is that large, widely circulated magazines like Newsweek, US News, and TV Guide have no future in America in their current form. Reader’s Digest may live on outside the US and its parent company may survive. However, Reader’s Digest as it is known in the US will be gone.

24/7 sees the possibility of Radio Shack being bought by Best Buy, which “would certainly not keep the Radio Shack brand because it is considered downscale.” As for BP, it’s not going away, but it may need to change more than just its name, and could “end up breaking up into pieces for its own sake.”

Ten Brands That Will Disappear in 2011 [24/7 Wall St.]

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