Former Press Gazette editor on why the magazine has so many problems

The news that the Press Gazette is to turn from a weekly to a monthly publication attracts attention in Media Guardian this morning.

Its former editor Ian Reeves asks why has it become such a poisoned chalice and reminds us that

Since 1990, six companies of varying size, shape and ambition have had a stab at owning what in theory should be the industry's pride and joy: a magazine by its journalists for its journalists. Each has either passed the magazine on with unseemly haste or, in the case of Piers Morgan and Matthew Freud, gone spectacularly out of business in a high-speed crash for which I had the privilege of a front seat.

and adding that

no other business-to-business magazine has had such obstacles placed in its way by the very people it tries to serve. Its treatment at the hands of some powerful players, within regional and national newspapers, has been little short of shameful

.

He sees a couple of major reasons

1.

the issue has been about control over a title that often prints uncomfortable truths. With the regionals this took the form of removing the lucrative jobs advertising that had once been Press Gazette's lifeblood

2.

For the nationals, the battleground has always been the British Press Awards - the event that has become the magazine's commercial lifeline. It has been plagued by petulant, childish behaviour, both on the night itself and during the weeks of aftermath as strutting editors summoned PG's editor for a lecture on why the judging system must have been rigged;

It will be a shame if the magazine losses its front line relevance for the press industry by being forced down the monthly route.But then again it won't be the only B2B that comes out monthly?