Utah biz magazine shutters

Grace Leong, a reporter for the Provo Daily Herald in Utah, reports Wednesday that Business Connect magazine, a local business publication with more than 15,000 subscribers statewide, has closed its doors.

Leong writes, “He said the company has been mulling discontinuing Business Connect because of the industrywide slump in advertising revenues in the third and fourth quarter of 2008.

“‘We were best known in Utah for Business Connect, but it accounts for only one-third of our total revenue and ad sales are in a decline now,’ Hill said. ‘We anticipated we were going to have a 25 percent drop in ad revenue for 2009 as we tried to renew advertisers for the year. Had this not happened, we would have continued with Business Connect for some time.’

“Founded in 2003, Lumin, which now has five workers and up to 20 freelance writers, laid off two employees in advertising and production in the past year, as it prepared for the change in its business model.”

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