UKs Television Magazine has ceased publication

I wrote for them for many years, and things were never the same after they brought the editing in-house, and sacked John and Tessa, who had been the editor and assistant editor, for more years than they ( and I ) care to remember. The guy that they brought in to edit it came from an electrical industry paper, and it immediately showed. I, and many of the other regular contributors rapidly came to blows with him, and many of the best writers were lost to the magazine for ever. Most of us went over to the new magazine that a few of the old stalwarts valiantly tried to set up in competition. Sadly, that one hasn't made it either, and has left those brave souls rather out of pocket. I kept taking TeleMag right up to the end, and the latest editor that they had installed a few months back, seemed to be at least steering it back in the right general sort of direction, but it was never going to be the "community project" that it formerly was - written by engineers, for engineers, edited by two people that really understood the industry, and treated all of the contributors as friends. I still stay in touch with Tessa over the net, and John rang me a couple of weeks back to tell me about the demise of TeleMag. You might be interested to know that they are both well. Still, as you say, a sad day all round. There are now no trade mags this side of the pond, at all ...

Arfa

Me too, shame but then it looks like I'll get some subscription money back ...

The next letter I opened this morning gave me news of a lifetime license to use radio transmitting equipment. I was happy until I found the last to fall on the door mat - the gas bill :-(

-- Adrian C

Sad news indeed. When I was involved in TV servicing 20 years ago Television Magazine was essential reading to keep current with what was happening in the trade. There was a really useful write up of faults encountered, we used to have a filing cabinet full of them all indexed. Manys the time I was saved hours of fault finding just by remembering that someone had had the same fault and written it up. Les Lawry Johns was always a good read as well, made you feel like you were part of a community. Happy days? not really, the rewards were more satisfaction than financial. I could see the writing on the wall for TV servicing back then. The price of a TV had hardly changed in 15 years and people were starting to regard them as a throwaway item even then. These days I suppose people turn to the internet for any info they require. End of an era.

All of the US ones have died. The one that served Australia and New Zealand died a few years back. Now it's just Circuit Cellar in the USA and Silicon Chip in Australia. I assume Everyday Electronics and Elektor are still going OK in Europe.

Elektor goes from strength to strength. In my opinion, it is now the best electronics mag on the market for amateur dabbler and professionals alike. Full of cutting edge info and things to build.

Arfa

there's a load of stuff on the recent events relating to this mag here:

-B.