Maddux: Digital pub wasn't solution

A combination of dwindling advertising revenue and decreasing demand for print magazines forced the ultimate decision to fold the Maddux Business Report after 26 years, according to its founder. The St. Petersburg-based magazine's final issue goes out to subscribers in June.

Carlen Maddux, who launched the magazine in 1984 as the definitive commercial real estate publication for the Tampa Bay market, says conversion to digital form had been considered before the May 6 announcement. However, he has yet to find one with a proven, profitable business model.

“It's just a real squeeze play with the economy as it is,” Maddux, who is also the magazine's president and editor, tells Coffee Talk. “Everybody seems to think digital is the answer. We just weren't able to hang around long enough to find out.”

The magazine will continue its online news release service, MadduxPress.com, which he says has received good response and could be a potential revenue source going forward. He cautions, though, that any news service requires financing to survive, and that comes primarily from ad sales.

“They have got to be supported,” says Maddux, whose monthly circulation reached up to 15,000 copies. “Somebody has to pick up the overhead for the journalists.”

Now 64, Maddux says he isn't particularly interested in starting a new career but nevertheless looks back fondly at what Maddux Business Report achieved over the last three decades. Given current uncertainty in the Tampa Bay media market, he says, “we were very fortunate to have an opening back when we did.”