THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 14, 1994 TAG: 9410140526
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 32 lines
Prime magazine, a monthly that targets older readers in Hampton Roads, has published its last issue.
``We could not consistently get enough advertiser support,'' said Becky Smith, publisher of Port Folio Publishing Inc., the Virginia Beach-based company that put out the magazine.
Prime, whose October issue is its last, is at least the second local free-distribution magazine to cease publication in the past two months. City Magazine, formerly known as Ghent Magazine, stopped publishing in August. City Magazine competed unsuccessfully against Port Folio, the best known of local free magazines.
Prime was started in 1990 as Senior Times. It published two editions, with 25,000 copies for South Hampton Roads and 15,000 for the Peninsula.
Smith said the magazine's three employees were absorbed into Port Folio, the 11-year-old weekly that covers arts, dining and lifestyles.
Port Folio, she said, is profitable and has benefited from a slight uptick in ad lineage this year. She credited design improvements and increased sponsorship by Port Folio of local arts events for that magazine's gains.
Port Folio, with 40,000 copies distributed each week, is a unit of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star. by CNB