After 37 years of covering and celebrating the music and culture of New Orleans, OffBeat magazine is shutting down.

Barring a last-minute buyer stepping in, the December issue will be OffBeat’s last, says founder and publisher Jan Ramsey. The shifting media landscape was a factor in her decision, Ramsey said. Since the pandemic, she’s published only online editions of OffBeat, with the exception of the popular annual “Jazz Fest Bible” festival guide. Keeping an independent entertainment magazine afloat, while never easy, has only grown more challenging. But personal considerations also played a role. Ramsey and her husband and business partner, Joseph Irrera, are both 74 and are dealing with various health issues. Ramsey, whose mobility has been limited for decades after she was badly injured in a car crash, has had both knees replaced in recent years. She’s also battling lung cancer. “It’s time to let it go,” she said of the magazine that has been her passion project for nearly four decades. “Joseph and I are getting older. We’re to the point where we can’t work like we used to work. We just can’t do it anymore. It’s a lot more stressful than it used to be.”

An offbeat history
A New Orleans native, Ramsey produced and distributed the first issue of OffBeat during the Republican National Convention in New Orleans in 1988, hoping to introduce delegates and visiting members of the media to New Orleans music. Three months later, she printed a new issue. Starting in February 1989, OffBeat became a monthly magazine. It covered essentially every New Orleans musician of note along with up-and-coming artists. In-depth profiles, long question-and-answer interviews, album reviews and columns on specific genres filled each issue. 

In her “Mojo Mouth” column, Ramsey advocated for musicians and for a local music industry infrastructure to support them. She thought of the magazine more as a “community support service.” “The New Orleans music community needs a voice,” she said. “OffBeat tried to be that voice of the music community.” Eventually, OffBeat upgraded from newsprint covers to glossy covers, and then to printing the entire issue on glossy, full-color pages. It had more than 5,000 national and international print subscribers and was distributed for free at 600 locations in southeast Louisiana, including hotels.

Ramsey founded the annual Best of the Beat Awards, a sort of local Grammy Awards, to honor local musicians, as well as a separate award ceremony for music-related businesses. For 15 years, OffBeat also published the Louisiana Music Directory, a comprehensive guide to the state's musicians and music-related businesses. “I was a determined little twit and did everything I needed to do to keep it going,” Ramsey said. “We’ve worked our butts off the past 37 years. Sometimes I can’t believe I did all that. It’s been a long time.” The disruption and upheaval of Hurricane Katrina caused OffBeat to pause publication for two months in 2005. When the magazine returned, it benefited from increased national and international attention toward a music community that was nearly lost.

The decline in print revenue that has decimated daily newspapers also hit OffBeat hard. Never an especially lucrative endeavor, in recent years income barely covered rent, printing costs and paying writers and photographers. For the past few years, Ramsey and Irrera have not drawn a salary. The pandemic shutdown dealt OffBeat another blow, as it did the entire local music community. With printing costs soaring, Ramsey and Irrera converted OffBeat to an online-only publication, except for the massive “Jazz Fest Bible” issue each spring. Following the pandemic, OffBeat instituted a paywall on its website. The office downsized, moving from its longtime home above the Louisiana Music Factory on Frenchmen Street to a smaller space at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. Still, cash flow was a problem. Revenue was so bad this summer and the previous summer that Ramsey had to borrow money just to produce the magazine. “I can’t do that anymore,” she said. 'It's worth something'


Beyond the financial challenges, creating a magazine, even an online-only edition, is exhausting; 14-hour workdays were not uncommon for Ramsey and Irrera. In their 70s, they are no longer able to keep up that pace. “If somebody wanted to take it over, that would be great,” Ramsey said. “Something like OffBeat is needed in this city. OffBeat has been standing up for musicians and the music community for 37 years. Musicians need to be respected and music is just too important to the city’s economy and culture.” She’s talked to several interested buyers, but no deal has emerged. In addition to the magazine itself and its website, the OffBeat brand includes the “Weekly Beat” subscriber newsletter, the Best of the Beat Awards and a physical archive of thousands of photographs and back issues of the magazine. “I can’t afford to just give it to anybody, because it’s worth something,” Ramsey said. “You’d think one of the museums would want the archive. But so far nobody has come forward.” In addition to the digital edition of each month’s magazine, the website encompasses daily news content and a digital archive of thousands of old articles. After December, the website and its vast trove of New Orleans music history “may go into oblivion,” Ramsey said. “To keep a website current costs money.” In addition to boosting the careers of countless local musicians, OffBeat also served as a proving ground for dozens of writers, some of whom went on to work for daily newspapers or other magazines and to write books. “I’m proud that I’ve had people writing for us that were so talented,” Ramsey said. “I’m proud we lasted so long (even though) we’ve gone through a bunch of stuff. “But it’s time for Jan and Joseph to pack up the instruments.”

Article by Nola.com

BY KEITH SPERA | Nola.com Staff writer Nov 7, 2024 Updated Nov 7, 2024