DC Style magazine will cease publication of its print magazine and focus exclusively on Web-based content, FishbowlDC has learned.

Dana Spain-Smith, chief operating officer for DLG Media Holdings, LLC, told FishbowlDC over the phone that the decision wasn't made because the magazine was doing poorly ("the print magazine was actually breaking even") but she did concede that Washington's "market is saturated."

Print "is not where the future lies, at least in our opinion," said Spain-Smith.

In a separate email to FishbowlDC, Spain-Smith said:

Since our growing DC readership is so Web savvy (42 to 47% of our demographic uses the Internet as their primary source of news and information) and since we are the only regional lifestyle resource offering what we do online (actually we are the only ones doing anything interactive on a regional Web site in our markets), we decided to pull away from the saturated print arena and concentrate our energies online to serve our readers' lifestyles on a daily basis.

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The DCstylemag.com site was launched with the print publication in May 2005 and has enjoyed a surprisingly large audience of both new and return unique visitors.

Spain-Smith's full email when you click below...

From Spain-Smith:

Briefly, we are changing our format in DC to be exclusively Web-based and adding both printed and online products in Philly under the STYLE brand.

As you probably know from press releases, we recently hired former Philly Mag Circulation Director, Lori Birney, to be our new (and first ever) Circ Director. Lori also worked for Washingtonian before Philadelphia Mag. Lori is revamping and solidifying our circulation and distribution plan in Philadelphia so we not only get more copies into more qualified readers’ hands but also to introduce new magazine concepts and to re-launch our much loved City Guide. Unlike in DC, our readership in Philadelphia was introduced to STYLE through print over 7 years ago and just recently started to know us online. The DCstylemag.com site was launched with the print publication in May 2005 and has enjoyed a surprisingly large audience of both new and return unique visitors.

We also recently hired our first Web Editor, Sarah Schmalbach, to keep up with the new technology and daily updates on all three of our Web sites Philly, DC and ACConfidential.com). The traffic to the sites has increased almost 80% since the re-launch of phillystylemag.com in late August and the DC site continues to gain momentum with celebrity blogger Kelly Ann Collins and our Sound Check feature about the local music scene.

Since our growing DC readership is so Web savvy (42 to 47% of our demographic uses the Internet as their primary source of news and information) and since we are the only regional lifestyle resource offering what we do online (actually we are the only ones doing anything interactive on a regional Web site in our markets), we decided to pull away from the saturated print arena and concentrate our energies online to serve our readers' lifestyles on a daily basis.

In addition, we are about to introduce our new Webisode component in partnership with Banyan productions (of Trading Spaces and A Wedding Story fame) and we will also host Webinars on wine, food, fashion and dating on both DC and Philly sites.