I guess they were bitten by the "Web" monster. People have turned to the Internet for their information. PC Magazine is usually several months behind in the information it publishes because of the time needed to prepare the articles for print. I think people are not interested in purchasing and reading material that is 3 months old. The article stated that PC Magazine had a subscriber base of 1.23 million subscribers. I wonder what the count was 7 or 8 years ago before the Web blossomed? I would imagine that the number would have been higher. I used to enjoy PC Magazine 8 years ago when I was a subscriber. However, the "old news" that they printed during recent times along with the suspicion that they would rate a vendor's product according to how much advertising the vendor had purchased from them has left a sour taste in my mouth. It's actually been about a year and half since I purchased a single issue of PC Magazine from the shelf at a newsstand. At the time, I couldn't believe how badly the publication had gone downhill.
It really looks like the families that owned the Ziff-Davis publications sold off their ownership just in time - which occurred 5 or 6 years back.