When, a month ago, the magazine L’Avenç announced that it would stop publishing after issue 500 – corresponding to April, but which is already being distributed -, there was an outcry. That it couldn’t be, etcetera. Núria Iceta, co-owner of the newspaper – with its director, Josep M. Muñoz -, remembers that the decision is firm despite the series of calls, meetings and conversations held these weeks, and that what could come out of it would rather have with the initial plan of a renewed digital around the memory. In the editorial of this last issue, they also leave the door open to having a third life: “With another format, with another periodicity?”.
This Monday, Barcelona City Council awarded them the Gold Medal for Cultural Merit in an event at Saló de Cent. In addition to the representation of the Consistory, headed by the mayor, Ada Colau, there were up to three councilors – Culture, Natàlia Garriga; Research and Universities, Joaquim Nadal, and Justice, Rights and Memory, Gemma Ubasart–, shows the institutional interest, yes, but as Muñoz said: “When he died, the people gathered”. At the event, with the vindictive participation of Ovidi4 and Toti Soler, there were many representatives of publishing, both from books – Patrixi Tixis, Rosa Rey, Daniel Fernández, Laura Huerga and Josep Lluch – and from magazines – Francesc-Marc Álvaro, from Serra d’Or, or Jordi Marrugat, from Els Marges–, in addition to writers and collaborators such as Enric Sòria, Joan Todó, Xènia Dyakonova, Adrià Pujol, Cristina Massanés or Toni Puntí, or the artist and photographer Joan Casellas, as well as the historian Joan B. Culla, the director of the CCCB, Judit Carreras, or the businessman Jaume Roures.
Not so long ago, the vitality of a culture could be measured by that of its cultural magazines, but galloping digitization, with flagging acceleration, has changed the paradigm, and L’Avenç’s farewell is one of them show more Now, Catalan culture has room for more publications, some in a similar vein and others more specific, among the breath of Serra d’Or – the oldest, founded in 1955, this very Thursday gives its awards and presents renewed design and content – ??and the poetic specificity of Reduccions.
Josep M. Muñoz, director of L’Avenç, explains that right now they want to maintain an attitude of prudence, because “putting a patch on it now is not worth it”. From the current 1,200 subscribers, he says, they would need to more than double, a fact that as the situation is, he does not see it as feasible in the short term. The publication also shows a double paradox: on the one hand, books began to be published from the magazine until it became a publishing house, with which it will remain; on the other hand, it is the case that the digital Núvol, which was welcomed in the editorial office at the beginning, is now a solvent company that is occasionally published in paper – the last issue, with 22,000 copies. According to the editor of Núvol, Bernat Puigtobella, it is a reference, but “the new generations do not read newspapers in paper or have the habit of going to the newsstand”, and it is a matter of scale. He himself is convinced that if in 2012 instead of doing a general cultural digital he had focused only on literature – the world he came from, as editor of Grup 62 – he would not have come out of it.
Muñoz assures that there is an identified audience, but that a magazine that “doesn’t cease to be unique but is also not aimed at a narrow audience” has not yet become its own. Publications that “fight against the immediacy and gratuity to which we are so accustomed: well-done things have a cost”. And he illustrates the situation with an anecdote: an acquaintance – from the world of culture – saw that an interview was coming out that he was very interested in and instead of going to the newsstand he asked for the link, which effectively existed
The editor-in-chief of Serra d’Or, Francesc-Marc Álvaro, believes that the time of magazines has not passed, but that a renewal is needed to maintain or expand readers – in his case, around 3,000 subscribers plus half a thousand on newsstands -. They face the future with new sections, including comics as a genre for adults and talking about current topics such as science or artificial intelligence, to which they dedicate the next dossier in the April issue. But since its publication it must be done “with a look at tradition and anchoring in the present”. “The problems that a magazine like ours has are the same as any European publication, it is not a Catalan rarity”, and in order to survive it will be necessary to try “to add new values ??to what is published on paper, to make it attractive and at the same time have correlation on the web, with more transversal and multidisciplinary topics, to be closer to the new audiences”. “In the 21st century you need to be on all platforms”, he says, and explains a collaboration agreement with Núvol. Álvaro regrets “the loss of L’Avenç, which did very good work and will lose wealth and plurality”. “There is ground for everyone, and the competition does not decrease but multiplies”, he adds.
There is variety on both sides, as demonstrated by the coexistence in the same group – Abacus Media, formerly Som – of magazines such as Sàpiens, Arrels or El Món d’Ahir. The first is the most read and sold in Catalan, with almost 12,000 subscribers and around 4,000 copies sold at the kiosk. Its director, Clàudia Pujol, assures that they are betting on subscription, but this means that in addition to “looking for historical topics that reach today” it is necessary to create a community of readers: “We have found a niche and we take care of it by diversifying content and formats “. The community is also the basis claimed by the director of Arrels, Josep Sucarrats, who starts from food and the rural world to talk about culture, with around 3,500 members who “are looking for an experience of stopping, a moment of disconnection without screens”. The case of El Món d’Ahir is quite different. Its director, Toni Soler, explains that they were guided by “Stefan Zweig’s model, writing about history with a personal and literary style”, for a reader who “in such a digital moment would like to read with a good paper, good il illustrations, an author’s model that started as a whim, without pretending to have a massive but loyal audience”.
And you can still count on it, in addition to the profusion of digital ones like Catorze, La Mira or La Lectora, hybrid models, like the weekly El Temps -with the digital Els Temps de les Arts-, or others like the Revista de Catalunya – founded in 1924, and refounded in 1986 – as well as magazines linked to the university world, such as Compàs d’Amalgama (UB), Caràcters or L’Espill (both from the UV). There are some to shuffle and to sell. And to buy, too, and to subscribe.
