Ultimately, though, trade magazines are closed because their revenue level does not justify their expenses. I can not for a minute think that some exec at Nielsen concerned themselves with anything other than the P&L statement of the unit.

Magazines need to own their markets, and it is true that from the perspective of a journalist, E&P was no longer the only game in town, or even the most admired and used. But if E&P had hired Jim Romenesko and his blog were on the E&P site how many more ads would Heidelberg run?

Last quarter B2B magazine revenue was down almost 28%. No media did worse — though the closest was (you guessed it) newspapers at -23%.