What a Drag Dept.: Two well-known music mags, FM Fan and Indies Magazine, are calling it quits after their December issues. Falling advertising revenues are why their publishers, Kyodo News and Rittor Music, respectively, have decided to shut them down.

FM Fan started publishing in the 1970s, when commercial FM radio was in its infancy in Japan. As well as offering detailed program information, it also ran feature stories, interviews and selected Billboard charts (of interest to me, since I'm Billboard's Japan correspondent). However, over the last several years, FM Fan lost its raison d'e^tre, as FM radio no longer had a novelty value and music mags with more hip appeal entered the market.

To me, it's much more surprising that Indies Magazine is kaput, as the indies scene here is so incredibly active right now, with a steadily rising share of the overall music market. But the recession is really hitting the publishing industry hard, and niche publications like Indies Magazine are the first to get axed. Besides the amazing amount of info contained in each issue, Indies also came with a full-length CD with tracks by bands profiled in each issue -- for 1,200 yen, it was a fantastic deal.