ON Magazine - History

History

The publication was founded as OutNow! in 1992 in a newspaper format. The newspaper stopped publishing due to debt in 1997. The business went through a bankruptcy when publisher Mark Gillard stepped in in July 1998 printing the first issue under his leadership in October 1998. Gillard changed the name removing the exclamation mark believing that the coming out process should be treated as a personal issue and not dictated by outside forces. He also converted the product to a slick magazine and started incorporating his marketing experience into promoting the LGBT business community.

In 1998 OutNow started using its annual anniversary dinner to salute prominent people who support the LGBT community. In 2004 the publication awarded former Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center interim Executive Director Clark Williams, a politician serving as city councilor, and supervisor its 2004 Community Leadership Award. They also honored San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales with the 2004 Best Friend of the LGBT Community award.

In 2005 the publication was criticized by a Catholic reporter for having advertisements for bathhouses and pornographic videos, the publication was available at a national conference, National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries, that met in San Jose.

In 2008 the publication ran into a form of discrimination when a non-gay-owned business refused to let the free publication be placed in their cafe. The incident was reported by the publisher in an editorial for the June Pride issue. It was picked up by the San Francisco-based Bay Area Reporter as part of a story of similar incidents faced by other LGBT publications. The magazine also relocated offices into the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center, also in San Jose.

In 2009 the economic climate led to ad cancellations and subsequent reduced pages of the magazine. OutNow reported that due to the state of California's budget woes they had lost major advertisers such as Santa Clara County's HIV prevention campaign, and the city of San Jose's ads aimed to getting gay people to move downtown. Another major advertiser American Musical Theater of San Jose went bankrupt owing thousands for previous ads. The publication lowered rates and used fewer freelancers. They also reduced the page count from 48 pages to 40. In 2009 the publication also retooled how it uses its sources online. Previously issues could be downloaded but they added news stories and articles as stand alone pages that can be linked by other web sites.