Professional Development
Tour of New York
Magazine Publishers
June 21-23, 2004
and Sheila Webb, Marquette.
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Professional Development June 21-23, 2004 |
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| Faculty members in magazine programs spent three days visiting New York magazines to update their knowledge and find out what magazine staff members were thinking about. | Attendees: Claudia Caruana,
LIU and NYU; Kathleen Endres, Akron U; Beth A. Haller, Towson
U.; Barbara Straus Reed, Rutgers; Ann Schierhorn, Kent State, and Sheila Webb, Marquette. |
| The 2002 Tour | The 2003 Tour |
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Time Inc. Production
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Monday June 21 9:30 a.m. Time for Kids editor and editor of Time
for Kids Online, Dina El Nabli and Kathy Satterfield. |
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Life, picture managment
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1:00 p.m. back again with Andy Blau. (See below for detailed coverage of his presentation.) Focused on the relaunch of revised Life, this time as a newspaper supplement in Friday editions, distributed through some of the biggest newspapers, such as Knight Ridder and the Tribune Co., with an initial circulation of 12 million, bigger than any other magazine at Time-Warner. He called Life the "#1 magazine in the world in
terms of awareness." Bookazines using Life archives
were making money, started thinking of Life as a brand,
and felt would appeal to people who didn't grow up with Life. |
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Time.Com ASME Luncheon Budget Living Newsweek
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Tuesday, June 22 ASME Luncheon (See below for detailed account of Ellis' speech.) Lunch attended by editors of InStyle, Ladies' Home Journal, Parenting, Good Housekeeping, Fitness, Reader's Digest, Elle, People, Health, among others. Budget Living Newsweek |
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Women's Wear Daily, DNR, W
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Wednesday June 23 9:30 a.m. Panel discussion: Arthur Friedman, senior editor, Women's Wear Daily; Arnold Carr, executive editor, DNR; Jennifer Bikel, photo research editor, Women's Wear Daily, and Jennifer Hirshlag, associate section editor, Women's Wear Daily. Discussed competition, problems, new ownership (Advance [Newhouse] Conde Nast magazines' owner), pressures, successes and other issues involving their magazines plus others such as W. We toured their premises and remained there till after noon. (See below for detailed coverage.) Rest of the day: relax and explore NY, including attending plays, etc. |
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Internships with
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Meeting with Bucky Keady, Executive Director, Human
Resources, Time Inc., and formerly with Conde Nast.
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| Andrew Blau, president of Life magazine 
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June 21, 2004 Life will be relaunched Oct. 1 as a national entertainment magazine appearing in 55 newspapers with a circulation of 12 million. Time Inc. wanted the top 25 DMAs, which encompass half the U.S. population and 70 percent of the purchasing power. It will succeed in reaching 20 of the 25, Blau said. The new Life is designed to bring pop culture, health, food and travel news on Fridays to an audience that is younger, better educated and has a higher income than the average reader of these newspapers. The target age is 24 to 45. Life will differ from Sunday magazines Parade and USA Weekend in demographics (those magazines are more appealing to older readers, Blau said -- and shared focus group results) and in production. Life will be printed on high-quality paper by rotogravure, like the Sunday NY Times Magazine, and will be trimmed and stitched. Its closing cycle will be 12 days, four weeks faster than the other two, Blau said. When Time Inc. tested the concept of the Friday magazine, Blau said, researchers determined that younger readers associated the Life name with "great photography and integrity," even though Life as a weekly closed before some of them were born. Time Inc., with 25 percent of the consumer magazine market, sees the new Life as a bridge to other revenue streams. The greatest resistance came from newspaper companies that were concerned the Friday magazine would cannibalize their national advertising, Blau said. Contacts with the newspaper companies vary, and some will pay for the magazine, some will get it free, and some will be paid to insert it. Blau wouldn't be more specific. The magazine will be available by subscription to readers who are not in an area where it is inserted in a newspaper. It will come free to those who subscribe to another Time Inc. magazine. Four other new magazines are being launched by Time Inc. this year:
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Rosemary Ellis,
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Speech given at the ASME Roundtable Luncheon, June 22, 2004 Ellis was responsible for refocusing Prevention to appeal to a younger audience while retaining its loyal subscriber base. Since a January 2004 redesign, the magazine has raised its rate base to 3.3. million, making Prevention the 11th largest magazine in the country. She said the target reader is a self-starter in her late 30s to early 40s who has children. The digest-sized magazine is intended as a guidebook packed with information for women who are "successful and in control" and those who are "health seekers." Ellis said the editorial voice of Prevention was changed from that of "a 17-year-old cheerleader" to a voice that sounds more conversational and skeptical. She plans to have investigative stories as well as one-page pieces on topics such as alternative medicine. She has added new columnists on the mind/body relationship and midlife motherhood. Other changes incorporated in the redesign:
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Fairchild Publications: Women's Wear Daily
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Met with Arthur Friedman, senior editor of Women's Wear Daily (WWD); Arnold Carr, executive editor of DNR; Jennifer Bikel, photo research editor of WWD; and Jennifer Hirshlag, associate sections editor of WWD. They are launching a new magazine, Vitals, Sept. 2004. It will be the Lucky magazine for men. The Advance Bridal group of magazines has moved to Fairchild. Magazines included are Bride and Modern Bride. Women's Wear Daily It comes out 5 times a week, M-F. It considers itself a trade newspaper with some magazine elements. It covers a wide range of topics from stories on mergers, to features and hard news. It considers the Wall Street Journal its competition, but as the only one covering the apparel industry, WWD usually gets the story first. The stories from WWD also are sent to a variety of newspaper subscribers through the NY Times syndicate. It has a daily budget meeting at 2:30 p.m. WWD has 1-2 special sections a day. These alone bring in 10% to 40% of its revenue. WWD has evolved in the past 10 years to more business coverage. In the past, it had more fashion design coverage. DNR It has 18,000 circulation, mostly in NY and LA. It covers the textile and fiber industries. It is mostly staff written, about 4-to-1. It has been covering some of what is going on in China with the textile industry, but China is a problem for journalists because of the censorship there. Mostly it uses freelance Washington reporters to cover Chinese issues. DNR's competitors are the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and Hollywood Reporter. DNR has a newsstand price of $10. DNR and WWD want reporters with business or a regular news background. They want people with daily newspaper experience. DNR comes out on Mondays. The last news pages go out on Thursday. Twice a year DNR puts out a consumer supplement on men's wear. Fairchild owns Footwear News, which covers that niche of the apparel industry. W There is some crossover from WWD and W, with content about designers flowing into W. It calls itself a high-end women's fashion magazine. It has the distinction of having subscribers with the second highest household income of any U.S. magazine after Architectural Digest. It believes its connection to WWD gives it an edge because it has the industry news first. It has 400,000 circulation, mostly in NY and LA. W is mostly staff written with a small freelance base. Its writers have a magazine journalism background. Its coverage is a blend of fashion and business. Its writers have to come up with interesting story ideas. W is designed using Quark for the Mac. The magazine is getting larger because it is getting more advertising so it has been adding pages. That also has meant the need for more freelancers. Fairchild Publications intern program is outlined at: http://www.fairchildpub.com/ |
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Bottom: Claudia Caruana |
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Special thanks to . . . Marlene Kahan, Executive Director, American Society of Magazine Editors |
| Site construction: Gerald Grow. |
