Bluegrass Now Is Online Only Now

3/14/2008 Staff On Thursday, leading bluegress publication Bluegrass Now announced that it will no longer offer a printed magazine after its April issue.  The Missouri-based bluegrass organization will instead focus on its online and multi-media presence.  As a result, Bluegrass Unlimited will remain the lone leading magazine in the Bluegrass music genre. "It was a hard decision to make," said Wayne Bledsoe, publisher of Bluegrass Now. "We've worked on this literally for two years. I've had (talks with) a group of publishers for the past two years literally from coast to coast. They're experiencing many of the same kind of concerns that I was." Subscribers to the printed Bluegrass Now magazine have dropped tremendously over the last 5-6 years, from its peak of 30,000 subscribers to only 8,000 now.  Advertising revenue has also decreased, notably with some long-time advertisers who either discontinued buying ads or sharply reduced how many times they ran an ad in the magazine.  "The advertising is down across the country," he said. "We reached the point over a year ago, our on line subscribers had passed our print subscribers."  Bledsoe estimated that the web version of Bluegrass Now, which was initially launched to service the needs of foreign subscribers, now has roughly 8,000 online members. "Although this decision was initially quite difficult for a retired academic who has lived by the printed word for more than half a century, I am truly excited about being in the vanguard of multimedia publishing in the bluegrass community," Bledsoe wrote. The website of Bluegrass Now could mimic the printed magazine by continuing to offer features, reviews, charts, and columns, but also include audio and video clips.