Hello readers. This is the editor of Consett Magazine, Ivan Laidler.
As you may have heard through the pipeline, the printed edition of the magazine has come to an end. Our May publication was the last one to go to print. Just to clear things up before you read any further, we are continuing as an online publication for the foreseeable future and will continue to bring local stories to the public.
We built up quite the following over the 22 months Consett Magazine ran for and I’m sure many of you will be disappointed at its discontinuation. There were a number of factors that lead up to this point, but at the end of the day it was a business decision for us here at Firefly New Media.
First of all I’d like to personally thank each and every one of the businesses, writers and professional individuals who helped make Consett Magazine what it is today. We’d never had gotten past issue 1 without the input of all the great people who have made their mark on our pages.
Back in early 2012, Consett Magazine was simply an idea that we had been sitting on while our company was still young. We wanted to create a publication for and by the people of Consett to both inform and entertain our potential readership. The main thing stopping us from going forward was funding as, at the time, our company was still in its infancy. Gradually we were able to bring together the resources to bring out our first edition and it received a surprisingly strong response, spurring us on to continue bringing it to the local public.
Consett Magazine started out as a 16-page booklet and quickly upgraded to 24, then 32 pages due to the sheer amount of content we had to squeeze in there every month. Unfortunately we’ve had to end things just short of the 2 year mark, which would have been a more appropriate send-off.
However, all is not doom and gloom, as we will still be bringing you the same engaging stories week by week at regular intervals. Our group of authors will now be writing directly for consettmagazine.com. The site is very mobile friendly, so please bookmark us to keep up to date with local news, events and stories. Additionally, we share all of our content through our Facebook and Twitter accounts, so you can always catch up with us there.
The team here hopes that you will stay with us and would like to thank you, the readers, for all of your support and feedback from beginning to end.
Kind regards,
Ivan
This is sad sad news!
Unlike the other free magazines this one actually had some really good stories and news from Consett.
Is there anyway you could get funding to continue? The magazine is really needed in Consett.
We tried for that in the beginning and there was nothing available to us, so we just went for it. Unfortunately it has met this end, but we have had a good run!
Would you not be able to get help from County Durham Council?
The consett magazine did the council;s job for them, telling the public like me whats going on in Consett area.
I doubt the magazine would be able to stay the way it was if we sought help from the DCC, as I’m sure they would like to have a say in the content and how things are run.
I thought the magazine already got loads of funding to run?
Unfortunately not. Being an independent magazine, we paid for all costs on our own, purely funded by advertising. We aren’t affiliated with the DCC in any way, contrary to popular belief.
Are you looking for anymore writers for the website
Writers are always welcome here. If you have anything to submit, please email it to editor@consettmagazine.com .
i thought it was going for more than two years!
The July edition would have been our 2 year anniversary.
Hi Ivan, really disappointed to hear that the Consett magazine won’t be published in print in future. I remember the first issue and I saw the progression over the 22 month period in terms of quality and quantity. I hope that at some point in the near future it will return!