Barring an outside infusion of cash or a buyer, this week's issue of Silicon Valley's Techweek magazine will be its last. First published in February, 1998, Techweek is the property of Sunnyvale-based Metro States Media.

"I wouldn't say print is dead or the Internet killed us, but the onset of so many online destinations to look for work was one of the factors that hurt us," says Tim Graham, Editor-in-Chief of Techweek. "People have become very comfortable searching for job opportunities on the Web and companies themselves are able to post information on their own sites and recruit that way." Almost all the magazine's advertising revenue came from recruitment-related ads.

Techweek covered the Bay Area technology scene from hardware and software, to dotcom startups, and the broader Internet scene. The bi-weekly publication had a circulation of 100,000 with over 80,000 of those "controlled circulation" subscribers (i.e. people who worked in high tech who requested in writing that the magazine be sent to them). Graham says 40 percent of the job titles requesting Techweek were engineers. Ironically, the magazine celebrated the biggest issue in its three-year history earlier this month, 56 pages, helped in part by bonus distribution at Comdex and "unprecedented advertiser interest."

While Techweek had "positive revenue growth" and was "on track" to achieve profitability, Graham says the cost (in excess of a million dollars) of having to re-qualify its controlled circulation base next year forced the publisher to cease operations. Independent audit organizations require controlled circulation publications to periodically re-qualify or confirm recipients want to continue to receive the publication. The audit numbers are used by magazine sales staff to show potential advertisers who they are reaching.

"All the online services are saying, and it's true, that the cost to post an ad is cheaper than print," says Andy Chan, CEO of San Mateo-based eProNet, an online recruitment service. "And they are better in the amount of information you can put into an online medium. Online, you can click on a link and get a full blown job description, and information on the company."

Graham concedes that Techweek's own Web site did not attract enough traffic to be considered a destination site for job seekers. "We got a fair bit of traffic but a lot of it was from out of state from people searching for Silicon Valley and high tech. We got a lot of traffic from India."

Graham says Metro States Media, which also publishes the successful Nurseweek magazine, will be able to absorb most of the Techweek staff. "Right now there are only two people we can't find spots for." In his final Editor's column, Graham states: "Our owners have been looking for a buyer or a partner willing to make the necessary investment for TechWeek to achieve profitability. We remain hopeful that one will emerge."

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