Photo District News (PDN), a 40-year-old photo publication and staple of the industry, is shutting down. The magazine’s owner Emerald Expositions has confirmed that they will be shuttering both the print and digital sides of PDN in order to focus more of their efforts on PhotoPlus, WPPI, and Rangefinder.
PetaPixel was told of PDN’s coming shutdown by multiple industry sources over the past couple of weeks, but we’ve held off covering the news in order to allow PDN and its owner Emerald to share it in their own time. However, earlier today, AI-AP officially published the news alongside a statement from Emerald confirming PDN’s shutdown and discussing their future plans.
“[We wanted] to deliver what our most active and engaged market was looking for, and that was more content and information around Rangefinder and WPPI. We also wanted to create a content platform that supported the PhotoPlus community,” an Emerald spokesperson tells AI-AP. “That meant evolving our portfolio to no longer include PDN.”
The spokesperson also confirmed that emerald’s other major properties—Rangefinder Magazine, as well as the PhotoPlus and WPPI trade shows—will live on, but couldn’t yet say what would happen to popular special edition publications like PDN Annual and PDN’s 30.
Current PDN subscribers can expect an official update about their ongoing subscriptions “in a few days,” but much remains to be decided.
Not only the fate and future of PDN Annual and PDN’s 30—both important industry publications in their own right—but also what might happen to the archive of PDN’s online content (they’re “looking for ways to ensure that what content there is will continue to be easily accessible”), and what Emerald is planning with that “content platform” dedicated to the PhotoPlus community.
What we do know is that yet another industry icon is closing its doors—the latest in a series of high-profile shutdowns and partial shutdowns that include names like Popular Photography and, more recently, Imaging Resource. Whatever the economic and editorial realities of the situation, PDN will be missed.
