Vibe Magazine, once thought to be the official magazine of urban culture died this past spring a victim of the struggling economy and digital information shift.  A few months earlier, Chris Brown, a would-be music legend committed career suicide when he allegedly assaulted his then girlfriend, Rihanna.

Now with a new lease on life, both parties are looking to make a comeback…together.   The recently restructured Vibe, its new owners and editor have chosen the provocative Brown to cover the new incarnation’s first cover.  The risky move by the once Quincy Jones run publication is intended to generate extraordinary buzz and get people talking again about Vibe.

But to their own admission its going to take a lot more than a controversial cover for the magazine to win their very uphill battle.  The print format as a whole has virtually completely given way to digital platform. Finally recognizing this shift the new owners completely scraped the old model and will relaunch under the  Vibe Lifestyle Network.

“Here, Vibe.com is really the hub,” said Jermaine Hall, editor in chief of the new Vibe and Vibe.com. “That’s where everything needs to go back to. Whether it’s the magazine, or we decide to do some kind of TV programming down the line, everything needs to come back to Vibe.com.”

Additionally Vibe will subscribe to a wider array of editorial topics expanding beyond music to fashion, politics, culture, arts and sports.

“It’s always been a very broad book that’s covered the culture of hip-hop, not just hip-hop music,” Hall continued. “It needs to get back to that.”

Two months after their announcement that they were closing up shop, Vibe’s brand assets were acquired by InterMedia Partners, a private equity fund.  And while the print edition may be coming back it will have a much reduced frequency releasing only quarterly and will only guarantee advertisers a circulation of 300,000 copies instead of the 600,000 planned at shutdown.

“We have a smaller cost basis and a lot of emphasis on digital,” said Leonard Burnett Jr., co-CEO and group publisher of the Vibe Lifestyle Network. “Instead of having a website supporting a magazine, we are a digital-influenced business, where the magazine is supporting that.”

Via: Advertising Age

They say in business if you fail to plan you plan to fail.  The economic boom prior to the current economic recession made many businesses and in this case entire industry’s far to comfortable.  Its important to always forecast certain shifts in consumer behavior regardless of how old and established your business model may be.  The problem was never that consumers suddenly wanted their information on-demand and online but rather that the print industry didn’t for cast, anticipate the trending change and adjust their model accordingly. 

It now seems that Vibe has reorganized under (if executed correctly) a killer business model.  But despite how many Chris Brown type covers, Vibe attempts to publish they’ll be playing the catch up game for some time.  Complacency although understandable played a key roll in their downfall.  Lesson learned.