That was a really cool Science and Technology magazine ( somewhat like Discover ) that seemed to disappear somewhere back in the Mid 1980’s. Anyone here know what happened?
The simple answer is that it was way too expensive to produce and when it started to lose subscribers it went out of business.
Omni was published by Bob Guccione (of Penthouse). For a long time, he was willing to subsidize it (even though it wasn’t making him much money, if any). Eventually, it went to a web magazine for a little while, then folded. Its fiction editor (and Omni published some of the best fiction in the field) is now editing the Sci-Fi Channel’s online SF magazine.
OMNI started out really well. It had a good mix of hard science, science fiction by respected authors, and general technology articles. In the first year, it was brilliant, and I read every issue from cover to cover. They even had Jack Handey doing “Deep Thoughts” on the back page, before his SNL gig.
As time went on, OMNI got flakier. They added a section on UFOs. Then on paranormal phenomenon. Then they stopped publishing good science fiction authors, and published more “Roswell” type fiction. There was less and less hard science, and more pseudo-science. Kirlian Photography, auras, blah blah. The magazine turned into a piece of junk.
Come to think of it, this is exactly what has been happening to TLC and the Discovery channel.
Moved to Cafe Society.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
It had great sci-fi short stories in the late 70s & early 80s. When it went “New Age”, I stopped buying it.
Now that this thread is out of GQ, I can vent with the rest of the posters.
The truth is that science magazines don’t make much money because they appeal to a very limited segment of the population. To my knowledge the market has never supported more than two general interest science magazines and every attempt to launch a third has met with a sad end.
OMNI soon found that science alone would not sustain a magazine, and that science fiction readers wouldn’t buy an expensive magazine for one story an issue. The audience for fringe science of all sorts, however, is very much larger and that’s the direction the magazine began to move toward, eventually to an embarrassing degree.
It’s hard to say how much of this was just plain economics and how much was the influence of Kathy Keeton Guccione, Bob’s wife and the true founder and power behind the scenes. She had some flaky ideas about health and medicine which she promulgated in her other magazine, Longevity. She died after supposedly being cured of breast cancer by an extremely controversial drug. The print version of OMNI had already been canceled, but her death finished off the web version.
What I can say is that it is not possible to do a successful balancing act between real science and fringe science in one magazine. OMNI was doomed to a slow death once it tried straddling that fence.
The collections of Omni-published short sci-fi are some of my favorite books in my collections. Lotsa good stuff, like George RR Martin’s ‘Sandkings’.
I wrote some short science-related articles for their newsbits pages when I was first starting out. Sorry to see 'em go, the editors were very nice people.
I’ve a copy of OMNI’s first issue. What am I bid?
When OMNI first started, I believe the editor was Ben Bova. The Bova era OMNI was a fine magazine. I don’t remember if he presided over its downfall, or if he left and the new editor took it in the new age direction.
Bova had a surprisingly short run at Omni. He was their first science fiction editor (Oct. 1978 - Dec. 1979) and then became the overall magazine’s executive editor from Jan. 1980 - Aug. 1981. But that’s all. Although the magazine was certainly a success while he was there, I don’t know how much impact he had on the glory days of the magazine and certainly none on its downfall.
There were several other executive editors, including Gurney Williams III, Kevin McKinney, and Keith Farrell. Bova was followed as fiction editor for a short stint by Robert Sheckley and then for the rest of its existence by Ellen Datlow.
The first issue of Omni is listed at $20.00 here.
OMNI was a cool magazine, until they traded their scientific credibility for new-age fad-of-the-week bullplop. I remember the “First Word” articles (which were serious) and the “Last Word” articles (which weren’t). My favourite “Last Word” article was a scholarly discussion of people with psychic abilities of limited use, such as being able to post-cognitively “see” events that took place decades earlier, and being able to read the minds of squirrels.
Not to hijact the thread, but if I could just divert it jus for a brief moment, I’m wondering, Exapno and RealityChuck, since Guccione’s name has come up, what do think of the current Playboy magazine and what do you expect once Hefner is no longer running it?
“Hijact???” Where the hell did that come from? 
Is this supposed to be a game of follow the thought trail? Guccione published Penthouse, and that went out of business, so that reminds me of Playboy, and… My wife thinks this way, only without ever mentioning any of the in-between clues.
I haven’t read Playboy in decades, but my understanding of the business is that Christie Hefner has been running the place for years with Hef as a figurehead and public pr face. Much like Stan Lee used to be for Marvel.
Almost all the Playboy income these days comes from videos, the cable networks, the catalogs, and the web site. The print magazine should be around for a long time to come, just because it’s still a visible symbol of the enterprise, but it’s a slowly fading prize. When it finally goes under I’ll bet no one even notices.
Long-time fiction editor Alice Turner was let go a couple of years ago, though. She had a good understanding of and affection for sf and the magazine ran many an sf story in it. Hell of a market. Lucius Shepard made his best income one year when they ran four of his stories at $5000 a pop. I don’t know if the new editor is running any sf at all now.
:rolleyes: That was funny 
I almost started a similar thread months ago. That was a great mag early on. Now then, does anyone know a similar type mag being published now? I was only about 13 or so when it was still good, but I couldn’t wait to get home from school the last week of the month to get the newest issue. It was my first mag subscription. oh for those good ole days
“Crap, what the hell did I do with that acorn? Where is it? Aaaahhhhhh! Uh, what was I yelling about? Oh well, I’m hungry, maybe I’ll go find me an acorn.”