Our flop is not part of our particularization

Beleaguered TV Guide in the U.S. has closed its barely-six-month-old Inside TV magazine. That's actually not news, since this has been widely speculated about recently. Inside TV’s last issue will be on newsstands Nov. 17. Gemstar-TV Guide expects it will cost from $2 million to $5 million just to shut it down.

Thanks to a friend in the business for pointing out this example of the kinds of blowhard management mumbo-jumbo that is afflicting magazine publishing in some quarters. The statement was issued by Rich Battista, the CEO of Gemstar-TV Guide: (boldface added)

“We are now pursuing a more focused strategy of building upon our company’s considerable core assets, including the TV Guide brand, to achieve the goal of being the leading consumer brand for video guidance and enabling transactions across multiple platforms....Inside TV is not central to this strategy, and it has not been performing as well as we had initially expected.”