SA Surf Mag Closes

In a post on his website, McCarthy said "the truth is it is no longer viable to produce a publication of that quality within the surfing niche in South Africa".

Spike from Wavescape said the decision bore painful testimony to the size of the surfing market in South Africa

"Competition is healthy, and the demise of such a strong creative addition to the surfing sub-culture in our country once again lessens the genetic variety that we, as the surf media and us as surfers, so sorely need to remain relevent," said Spike.

According to McCarthy, former publisher of Zigzag, TheBOMBSurf "printed 16 incredible issues and would prefer to bow out of print gracefully than to devalue that legacy by cheapening the product simply to keep it going."

However, all was not completely lost for the brand, with McCarthy saying that the digital realm was where "publishing and commerce" lay, and "that is precisely where we need to focus our attention at this point in time".

He thanked his subscribers and the advertisers who supported them:

"To our loyal subscribers who kept supporting us even when we had to start charging for the magazine, thank you! We couldn’t have kept going for as long as we did without your support and we appreciated every bit of it. There is no way we’ll intentionally burn you so if you’d like to be refunded for the remaining portion of your subscriptions please email me (john@thebombsurf.com) and I’ll happily refund you. On that note I’d appreciate it if you could be patient as it may take me a while to work through the admin, but you have my undertaking I’ll get back to you all.

"To all our advertisers who supported us over the years in print, thank you. Without your support we would never have been able to put out the quality of publication that we did. I truly believe that we set a new standard in print. Your brand messages will live on in these now collectors items.

"To our contributors from all over the world, thank you for your world class contributions and for sharing your amazing work with us. Moving forward we are excited to explore the publishing opportunities in the digital realm together.

"To our printers, Hirt & Carter thank you, you guys did an amazing job of printing our magazines."

Thank you all and look forward to seeing you on the www.

John McCarthy
Durban
9/05/2013