Oprah's 'O' Magazine Calling It Quits on Print in Wake of Sexual Harassment Claim Against Exec

AP featured image — FILE – In this Sunday, Jan. 7, 2018 file photo, Oprah Winfrey poses in the press room with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 75th annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif. On Friday, Jan. 19, 2018, The Associated Press has found that stories circulating on the internet about Winfrey saying that old white people need to die are untrue. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Things aren’t looking so hot at Oprah, Inc., as the new week rolls in, according to reports over the weekend from publishing world insiders.

Several publications, including the Hollywood Reporter, cited a publishing industry source with the scoop on O: The Oprah Magazine stopping a print edition:

Oprah Winfrey’s monthly magazine will cease printing after its December 2020 issue, according to a report by Business of Fashion.

[…]

Said Winfrey in a statement: “I’m proud of this team and what we have delivered to our readers over the past 20 years. I look forward to the next step in our evolution.”

The staff of O: The Oprah Magazine, which was founded by Winfrey and Hearst Communications, was informed of the decision on Friday.

Hidden under a bunch of p.r. gobbledygook about changing over to a “more digitally centric” product was what might be the primary reason for the change:

News of the famed women’s magazine coming to an end follows criticism for the Hearst Magazines division, which publishes Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle, among others. A recent report by the New York Times included employees describing its toxic environment as well as sexually offensive remarks by former president Troy Young, who resigned Thursday.

#OprahWinfrey’s monthly magazine will no longer print after its December 2020 issue. Instead, it will focus on digital. A rep for Hearst Magazines confirmed the news in a statement stating: “As the brand celebrates twenty years of O, The #Oprah Magazine,… https://t.co/dltzFWhqTe pic.twitter.com/A8LLi61rGK

— theJasmineBRAND (@thejasminebrand) July 27, 2020

The NY Daily News, meanwhile, did better, managing to get to the good stuff around the third and fourth paragraphs:

That’s what Oprah Winfrey’s monthly publication told its staff on Friday: After 20 years, the magazine “O” will end its print run following its December 2020 issue.

[…]

Last week, The New York Times reported that company president Troy Young had faced complaints for his “lewd, sexist remarks at work.” Young, despite calling the allegations “either untrue, greatly exaggerated or taken out of context,” resigned from his position on Thursday.

But THR does drop the hard truth on the bad times in print media these days:

“O: The Oprah Magazine” had a paid circulation of 2.2 million as of 2020, with a print audience of 10 million. Those numbers, if accurate, would make the publication relatively successful but wouldn’t put it in competition with the country’s top magazines.

One of my neighbors adores this kind of magazine: at the pool just a few days ago, she gushed over Rachael Ray’s eponymous magazine. The lifestyle category, if I can make a guess, seems to have replaced the Good Housekeepings and Redbooks among single ladies, suburban homemakers, and soccer moms looking for that cinch recipe for busy school nights.

You’ve got to hand it to the Daily News, known for its headlines — it’s spot-on with this subheadline (which it rightly made its lede):

You don’t get a magazine! You don’t get a magazine! Nobody gets a magazine!

And as you may know, the lede’s a reference to — possibly — the most famous and memed moment to ever happen on daytime t.v., on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”: