The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on virtually every sector of the economy, with the publishing industry very much included. Today brings sad news from that world: The long-running UK music magazine Q is shutting down. Editor Ted Kessler tweeted this morning that the next issue of Q will be the last one.

Q has been publishing monthly since 1986. It’s generally focused on big, mainstream-friendly rock artists, and it’s been heavily invested in the genre’s history. In May, The Guardian reported on the uncertain future of Q; the magazine, owned by the German company Bauer Media, had seen its circulation fall significantly in recent years, a process greatly accelerated during the pandemic. Last month, frequent Q cover star Liam Gallagher told Music Week, “It would be a tragedy if Q doesn’t survive. There are no other music publications left that can compare.”

In a scanned-in letter from the editor, included in the tweet about Q shutting down, Ted Kessler apologizes profusely to the magazine’s readers, and he blames the pandemic:

This is the final issue of Q, an eventuality that nobody could’ve predicted as recently as March. We’ve been a lean operation for all of my tenure, employing a variety of ways to help keep our head above water in an extremely challenging print environment. COVID-19 wiped all that out.

The final issue of Q is set to come out 7/28.