This came up in Google News for Asheville. It’s kind of interesting, if for no other reason than the Asheville connection and the growing LGBT community in the Carolinas.
Despite the faltering state of affairs in LGBT media across the country, the publisher of three LGBT-focused publications in the Carolinas says his company is growing.
OnQ Network’s Jamie Seabolt and Stereotypd’s Lin Orndorf and Porscha Yount announced on Aug. 24 the merger of their companies. Stereotypd, an Asheville-based monthly LGBT newspaper, will now be published by OnQ Network, based in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The company also publishes the glossy nightlife guide OnQ Carolina Edition and the smaller, Charleston, S.C.-based Drag Magazine.
“With our now sister publication, OnQ Carolina Edition, showing the only growth in gay media throughout the Carolinas this year, it only made sense to share that opportunity and growth with Stereotyd’s readers,” Seabolt said in a press release. “The same edgy and thought-provoking content that you have come to know from us in Western North Carolina is now going to be shared with the entire Carolina region — from the mountains to the coast, north & south.”
Seabolt promises growth for the Asheville-based publication. “You will notice many positive changes over the next 3 months as we grow with OnQ Carolina Edition including enhanced directories, a new magazine layout, and a new two-state distribution,” he said in the release.
http://tinyurl.com/n9e6wn (Original URL was blacklisted by our internal software, and although there doesn’t appear to be any malware or anything—and Google thinks it’s fine—visit at your own risk.)
I’ve never seen any of these mags (or at least never noticed them), and both have distributions under 10,000, so I’m not sure how much of a practical impact this will really have on either publication other than cutting overall costs.
Is this really a big deal to the LGBT community? Or just a mildly interesting bit of trivia involving a few niche publications?
