DPG Media will not take 22-year-old Viva Forum offline after all

The Viva Forum, which belongs to the magazine of the same name, will nevertheless remain online. A Viva community manager says that the number of reactions to the decision to close was ‘enormous’ and that owner DPG Media has decided to ‘guarantee the continued existence of the forum’.

Originally, the forum was supposed to go offline on August 2 this year. The last edition of the associated magazine will also be released on July 20 of this year. The magazine dates back to 1972 and the forum saw the light of day in 1999. Today the forum has 2.8 million users and countless topics. The Royal Library was already started archiving of the site, while that was still possible.

The news about the closure of the Viva forum was not seen as positive. Many see the site as ‘cultural heritage’ because of the many posts made over the years. For example, reactions from just after 9/11 and the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh can be found, signs Loyalty in an extensive story on the forum. The newspaper was one of the first to cover the news came out.

“Since Viva is discontinuing as a brand, we will work out how best to do this in the coming period,” continues the community manager. Perhaps the forum will have a different name.