The Business of Magazines

[honeycombchild]

Porter’s wording on it below. As a Subscriber previously you get the first two biannuals free.

“As one of our valued subscribers, we wanted to let you know that we are changing how we publish and distribute PORTER.

From Spring 2020, PORTER will publish as a global biannual edition with guest editors and limited-edition covers, drawing on the most exciting international photographic talent and a celebrated roster of contributing writers. The Summer Escape issue, publishing in June, will be followed by the new biannual issue in early spring 2020.

Your paid subscription will therefore end after the Summer Escape issue, which will be delivered to you as normal. We will issue a refund of any remaining balance from your subscription via your original payment method, and direct debits will be cancelled. Please allow 30 days for the refund to reach your account if you originally paid by card or PayPal. Cheques will be sent to the billing address currently linked with your subscription, although they may take a little longer to arrive.

As a thank you for being a PORTER subscriber, you will be the first to receive complimentary editions of the new biannual in Spring 2020 and Fall 2020. We’ll send the new version of PORTER to the shipping address currently connected to your subscription. If you have any questions, or if you don’t want to receive these complimentary issues, simply email [email protected] and our dedicated team will be in touch.”

 

[8eight]

The editor US Esquire resigned today.

 

[caioherrero]

The editor US Esquire resigned today.

Jay is out
Why?

 

[axiomatic]

Jay Fielden Out as Editor of Esquire Magazine

Jay Fielden Out as Editor of Esquire Magazine
Kali Hays
5-6 minutes
Jay Fielden is the latest magazine veteran to exit Hearst Magazines.

The editor in chief of Esquire, the core men’s title at Hearst, is leaving the role almost immediately, WWD has learned, only remaining to oversee the complete rollout of the just revealed June issue.

There have been murmurs of changes at Esquire and its operations since last year, when new Hearst Magazines president Troy Young started his overhaul. Talk turned to the imminent departure of Fielden in the wake of the publicized late-stage rejection by the publisher of an investigative story on sexual misconduct allegations against the director Bryan Singer that Esquire was initially set to publish. The chatter was renewed after some public blowback for a cover story on a white, politically conservative teen.

Nevertheless, Fielden’s exit is said to be mutual, insofar as both sides are said to have issues with the other. He is possibly going to serve as a contributor to the title going forward, but not in an editor capacity. The move comes just a week after Hearst’s longtime sales and marketing executive Michael Clinton revealed plans to take a big step back into an advisory role and there have been many other changes to the editorial and sales ranks at the publisher. In his less than a year as president, Young has methodically remade much of the core leadership across the business.

Fielden, in an Instagram statement that he posted after WWD broke the news of his exit, said he will miss “the conversation and debate, the collaboration, the shared life of revisions and deadlines and filling the monthly void.” But he alluded to upcoming projects, like a book he’s started and possibly something media-related of his own.

“I have…felt the lure of new possibilities — all the more so now, as the means of production for a new media venture is basically my laptop,” he wrote. “For me, the time has simply come to press on in a new direction, perhaps more than one, before I get struck by male pattern baldness.”

In addition to his role leading Esquire, Fielden is the editorial director of Town & Country, a position he will also be leaving. He served as editor in chief of T&C beginning in 2011 and took up Esquire in 2016, when the magazines division was still run by David Carey. Fielden succeeded David Granger, who led the title for just shy of 20 years. Before coming over to Hearst, Fielden was editor in chief of Men’s Vogue, closed in 2008, an early casualty in Condé Nast’s troubles.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Hearst wrote that Fielden is “an incredibly talented editor and writer” and confirmed that he will contribute to Esquire and T&C.

“We thank him for his leadership and contributions to Hearst Magazines over the years and wish him the best in his future plans.”

As for Fielden’s successor, there isn’t one in place. Hearst is said to be in the process of vetting candidates. One name said to be in consideration is Richard Dorment, the current editor in chief of Men’s Health, who assumed that role only last year after a stint as senior editor of Wired, a Condé publication. Earlier Dormant had spent nearly a decade as an editor at Esquire under Granger, with his exit timed to Fielden’s take-over.

Another possibility is said to be Greg Veis, who leads the Highline vertical at Huffington Post, which calls itself a magazine despite being digital only. The site focus is on long-form reportage and culture stories, which would fit well with Esquire’s tradition of general interest coverage.

When Fielden landed the top spot at Esquire, he talked of wanting to appeal to women as well as men and use the magazine’s journalistic reputation, mainly built up on New Journalism laurels in the Sixties and Seventies, to showcase fashion. The subject has long been a big topic for the magazine, which has marketed itself as something of a guide to manhood, from how-tos on tying knots and making cocktails to political engagement. Fielden tried to bring back some of the magazine’s lost swagger with a big injection of Hollywood, maybe trying to be something like Graydon Carter’s Vanity Fair. But perhaps leadership at Hearst senses missed opportunities that youth and an ongoing obsession with street style may offer.

Meanwhile, GQ, Esquire’s rival in the men’s space, has started to skew much younger and with a focus on high and street fashion, complete with a full-blown e-commerce piece — something Esquire has apparently resisted, despite Hearst’s big push into the space. GQ’s new editor in chief Will Welch is focused on expanding the title’s editorial around fashion, as well as athletes and musicians/rappers — there’s more designer advertising to be had at the magazine. With a focus by Young, and Hearst’s chief content officer Kate Lewis, on leveraging data insights (i.e., what gets traffic) for editorial direction and changes, Esquire could soon be getting a youthful, fashion-forward makeover of its own.

 

[MissMagAddict]

W Magazine Inches Toward Sale With Surface, Sandow, New Operations

W magazine is on the cusp of getting a new lease on life in media with its acquisition said to be imminent, but what it will look like under new ownership is in question.

After being on the market for almost a year, one of three titles Condé Nast decided to sell off, a deal fronted by design-centric Surface magazine is said to be close. The price is thought to still be around $8 million, as first reported by WWD, but details are still being negotiated, meaning any terms of a contract could change, including the price. Buyers for Golf Digest and Brides have also been found in recent weeks.

The shape of W post-Condé Nast is likely to be much different, however, should the deal come to fruition. First, W (founded by the legendary John B. Fairchild as a sister publication to WWD) is expected to be part of an entirely new holding company and operate more as an independent outlet than as a direct subsidiary of Surface. W’s current editor in chief Stefano Tonchi, who’s been leading the magazine since 2010, is expected to continue with the title, possibly in an expanded role that will include leadership of W’s expansion in digital media. Although Surface magazine is on a quarterly print schedule, it’s thought that W will remain on its current print schedule of eight issues a year.

While W’s full-time editorial staff of roughly 20 is expected to come as part of the deal, there is worry that the purchase will mean more cuts. Some higher profile staffers like Sara Moonves, daughter of former CBS chief executive officer Les Moonves, and contract contributors like Lynn Hirschberg are thought to be negotiating their employment anew with Surface ceo Marc Lotenberg. Meanwhile, Rickie de Sole, W’s fashion director and daughter of industry executive Domenico de Sole, is said to be staying on at Condé in her relatively new position at Vogue. A few other staffers left at the end of last year.

A Condé spokesman declined to comment and Lotenberg could not be reached.

Although Surface is the name attached to the purchaser, funds for the acquisition are said to be coming from a small consortium of investors, as Surface does not have the money itself to pay for the acquisition. The magazine just last year got $2 million in a seed funding round from Magna Entertainment, thought to be one party behind the W deal. Magna is a New York holding and investment company owned by Joshua Sason, who was sued in February by the Securities and Exchange Commission for “microcap fraud” that took place between 2012 and 2013, based on Magna’s alleged scheme of obtaining fake promissory notes to short penny stocks. Sandow Media, the publisher behind magazines New Beauty and Interior Design, is another likely investor.

C Ventures, the media investor run by Adrian Chang who was until recently in the lead to buy W, as first reported by WWD, is no longer a part of any deal. Negotiations for the purchase fell apart for reasons that could not be confirmed.

But independent operations may be crucial for the survival of W, as Surface ceo Lotenberg does not have a stellar history as a media operator.

His first media venture, 944 magazine (named for a Florida zip code despite its founding in Arizona), went bankrupt in 2010. Court documents show that the company was over its head in debt and owed more than $10 million to creditors, including his father and scores of staff and freelancers, many of whom were never paid for their work. The company was also sued in local Los Angeles court a dozen times between 2007 and 2009 over accusations including harassment, wrongful termination, discrimination and breach of contract. One of the lawsuits, filed by a small group of 944 employees, was removed to federal court and sought $1.6 million for allegations including gender discrimination, hostile work environment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. That case appears to have been settled out of court.

The magazine was eventually purchased in 2011 by Sandow. Although Sandow paid $1.3 million for the bankrupt entity and its assets, according to court records, it quickly shut the magazine down.

While 944 was winding down through bankruptcy, Lotenberg got ceo positions at two New York marketing firms, Gen Art and Wonder, and in 2012 became ceo of Surface. Sandow, led by founder and ceo Adam Sandow, in 2011 purchased Surface and in 2014 it was broken out as Surface Media LLC. In 2017, Sandow made a bigger investment in the title and merged it with Culture + Commerce, an agency it owned. Given Sandow’s involvement with Surface, it seems almost certain that it, too, is behind the deal for W.

But Surface has gained its own reputation in media circles as an operation with very high turnover (nearly all of its editorial employees left last year and there were other cycles before that) and a difficult workplace culture, purportedly led by Lotenberg. Industry chatter, as well as public workplace reviews online, have singled out the ceo for issues within the relatively small operation.

Considering the W deal is thought to include most of the magazine’s current staff and Tonchi, a passionate booster of art, fashion and his magazine, here’s hoping he can establish a professional culture of his own as an independent operator.

source | wwd

 

[SophiaVB]

That whole deal sounds entirely unsustainable.

 

[lucy92]

I do not know why NAP just didnt give out Porter to the people that were ordering big ticket items. Wouldn't have made the shipments more expensive.

 

[honeycombchild]

They did, although not with shipments. Top tier customers got free annual subscriptions. They also get sent gift products and such too.

 

[axiomatic]

Tech investor Eric Crown is backing a bid by Marc Lotenberg, chief executive of Surface Media, to buy glossy fashion title W magazine from Condé Nast, according to a well-placed source.

Crown, a prominent GOP donor who heads Tempe, Ariz.-based AZ Crown Investments, did not return a call or email seeking comment Friday.

Meanwhile, Adam Sandow, CEO of Sandow, publisher of NewBeauty and other magazines, denied speculation in Women’s Wear Daily on Friday that he is also likely involved in the investment team.

That’s despite what the Sandow company called a “significant investment” in Surface Media in 2017 when it sold Surface the in-house agency Culture+Commerce.

“Sandow is not involved in any way in the reported acquisition of W magazine or the operations of Surface Media,” Adam Sandow told The Post. “When Sandow later sold Culture+Commerce to Surface Media, Sandow received a small minority stake in Surface. Since that sale, we have not been involved in the management or board of Surface. If Surface is involved in purchasing W magazine, we wish them the best, but we are not aware of this and are not involved.”

Lotenberg could not be reached, and Condé Nast declined to comment.

Interesting match..

https://nypost.com/2019/05/24/tech-investor-backing-bid-to-buy-w-magazine-from-conde-nast/

 

[Benn98]

Ugh, so much happened in two days! Truly shocked at Fielden's departure, and this obsession to make everything 'youth' and 'hip' is exasperating. The mere fact that the 'American Boy' cover and the Bryan Singer drama were mentioned tells me that it may have factored into the choice to push him out. And while I thought the Singer story was a huge misstep, I didn't get why everyone was up in arms over the March cover story?
Anyway, the men's market is not all hypebeast, and even GQ isn't all about that.
The majority of international Esquire editions rely on a more mature, cultured male reader anyway, so I don't get this new direction. There's something to be said when a magazine knows who their readers are and fine-tune their approach accordingly. And now they want to replace Fielden with a web editor (because Hearst wants their own Samantha Barry mistake), or the editor of Men's Health who doesn't even get invited to Fashion Week? Good luck at winning over the hypebeast driven youth! The fashion team will probably also go because their direction aligned so much with Fielden's.

As for W and Tonchi, I will just sit back and watch how Anna and Co are leading them down a garden path filled with thorns. Maybe Tonchi is thinking that anyone other than CN will be good for the brand? I happen to think they're keeping him on because W in its current guise follows a similar model to Surface, yet in theory, the two really chalk and cheese. Remember Tonchi wants to do W Talks, W Awards, W summits and the like. He's forgetting the fact that before a brand can even think of these expansions, it must first be strong, defined and in the forefront of everyone's minds. That's why British GQ's Men of the Year awards, and the recently launched Heroes summit is such a success. Because UK GQ is actually strong enough that these events matter.
Does the core of W still matter to people? It should. There's really very few to no rivals for the magazine in the US (well, there's Interview who can't seem to escape the unethical odour which follows them), so under tight direction, the magazine could be a hit.

It's a shame what is happening at Porter too. Relegated to guest editors and multi covers. And after Lucy and Natalie conceived the magazine from scratch. That sounds more like a cost-cutting measure than anything else.

 

[dodencebt]

For the past 5 years I’ve been thinking that Tonchi should be largely blamed for how clueless and irrelevant W appears, so keeping him on sounds like a terrible idea to me. Good luck to them turning the magazine around.

 

[8eight]

RE GQ heroes. Was it a success? Did people actually pay? From what I saw it was full of guests and Media industry types.
Also. They gave Sam Smith a cover and he didn't even turn up...

 

[Benn98]

RE GQ heroes. Was it a success? Did people actually pay? From what I saw it was full of guests and Media industry types.
Also. They gave Sam Smith a cover and he didn't even turn up...

I know some people got invites a mere 2-3 days before the event, probably they were trying to fill slots? The turnout seemed decent from the coverage. It is the first run, and now that people know what it's about, I reckon it will be stronger in the future. They should just start drumming it up at least 2 months before the event. It's a great concept for the magazine. The thing with these events is that you can come up with the idea (Awards, Talks, whatever), but you need to actually have the funds to foot half of the expenses, and somehow get a partner to cover the rest.

Looking at it now, I'd say that the casting may have been deliberately bait-sh. Adwoa who's very popular online, Gervais who most GQ readers actually like, Gwendoline to ride on the hype of GoT, and Sam Smith. But you only needed to read Sam Smith's interview to find that he's generally not in a good space right now. Least of all for something like the Heroes event which is such a strong marketing push and almost puts him on a pedestal. In fact, I reckon he should lay off doing major press runs.

 

[Benn98]

For the past 5 years I’ve been thinking that Tonchi should be largely blamed for how clueless and irrelevant W appears, so keeping him on sounds like a terrible idea to me. Good luck to them turning the magazine around.

That's my thoughts as well! He will come up with a list of excuses as long as your arm though. CN didn't invest enough, staff problems, advertisers, blah blah blah. Fact remains, other titles got shut down while W was allowed to operate. And even in its current state, which the magazine's page count slowly increasing by the issue, he's still not fluffing the magazine up with content which is actually of worth to the W reader.

 

[8eight]

Sam Smith got the cover but didnt turn up. He must've pulled out after they went to press.

 

[vogue28]

Aren't American Vogue producing a standalone Met Gala-themed edition this year? I've suddenly just thought we haven't seen a one for 2019!

 

[Benn98]

So it's either she knowingly set Beto O'Rourke up and knew that coverline would make waves, or she didn't know it would make waves which......I mean both are really quite embarrassing to be honest.

Love how Beto was so shocked when he saw the coverline on the newsstand. Just shows what a rookie he is. He should ask Jennifer Aniston how it feels to be 'misrepresented' with a coverline, lol.

Radhika Jones interview with CNN

 

[reesewu]

Not a fashion magazine, but Entertaiment Weekly will go monthly. Everything with print is so tragic these days, no Hollywood executive would even dare create a movie about how glamorous it is to be a journalist.

 

[MissMagAddict]

My apologies if a repost. I haven’t been around much.

Radhika Jones Introduces Vanity Fair’s Full Digital Archive

The magazine’s editor in chief welcomes readers to the first fully searchable collection of its entire history, from its Jazz Age beginnings to its 1983 revival and on to the present day.

Don’t let anyone tell you that time machines don’t exist. We call ours by another name: the Vanity Fair Archive. In seconds it will whisk you to the Jazz Age, to the go-go 80s, to that time Mark Felt confessed that he was the guy they called Deep Throat. Once upon a time, archives required special dispensation and white gloves; they were hidden away in corners of libraries and the adjective most associated with them was “dusty.” Not so in the digital age. Our elves have been coding for more than a year and a half to bring you a state-of-the-art, searchable presentation of the entire history of Vanity Fair, from its beginnings in 1913 to its revival in 1983 through to the present. Here you’ll find vibrant color illustrations and evocative woodcuts, poems by A.A. Milne, humor from P.G. Wodehouse and Dorothy Parker, and court dispatches by Dominick Dunne. You’ll find jaw-dropping photographic portraiture by Annie Leibovitz, from a nude, pregnant Demi Moore to Whoopi Goldberg in a bathtub of milk. You’ll find essential investigations by Marie Brenner, Bryan Burrough, and Maureen Orth. It’s more than 700 issues’ worth of zeitgeist moments rolled into one.

V.F. began its life in 1913 as Dress & Vanity Fair, a men’s style magazine, published by Condé Montrose Nast. Along the way it dropped the “Dress” and acquired the first of its bold, innovative editors, Frank Crowninshield, who expanded Vanity Fair into a wide-ranging magazine encompassing all aspects of a cultured, sophisticated life. Depressed by the Depression and the onset of World War II, the magazine closed its doors in 1936 but was brought back by S.I. Newhouse in 1983. Tina Brown imbued it with the glitz, glamour, and excess of the 1980s, combining robust journalism with literary undercurrents provided by the likes of Martin Amis and William Styron. Graydon Carter built on its journalistic identity, championing investigative reporters and war photographers while adding top notes of nostalgia and Old Hollywood charm (debuting the magazine’s signature Hollywood Issue in 1995) and introducing the world to Suri Cruise and Caitlyn Jenner.

When the editor-in-chief baton passed to me, I requested the loan of bound volumes of each chapter of V.F.’s existence, the better to absorb its history. Magazines evolve the way living things do, in concert with and response to the changing world around us—but they retain their core DNA, and the archive records its imprint. For the digital archive, we’ve curated pages focused on our signature topics and voices, from “Crime & Punishment” to Christopher Hitchens. You can bookmark stories to read later and create your own shareable collections. You can chart your own narrative arcs from the early 20th century to the early 21st—the shifting nature of influence and aspiration, from the lofty refinements of high culture to the delicious depths of low. You’ll see—as we so frequently do, when news breaks—that more often than not, the stories and scandals of the present have roots in the past, and more often than not, the players, heroes and villains alike, have appeared in the pages of V.F. See, for example: the current occupant of the White House.

For the first month, access to our archive will be free—all you need to do is create an account here. Come on in, poke around, and dive down the rabbit hole. After June 30, it will become a perk of membership in the V.F. community, with full access granted to subscribers. If you haven’t joined us yet, let the archive be your invitation and your guide.

source | mydigitalcopy

 

[axiomatic]

nypost.com
Esquire magazine faces turmoil amid masthead exodus
Keith J. Kelly
3 minutes
There is chaos at Esquire, as the entire top of the masthead has either resigned or been let go following the resignation of Editor-in-Chief Jay Fielden last week.

Bruce Handy, features editor, who one source said was the choice of Hearst Chief Content Officer Kate Lewis to be interim editor after Fielden’s resignation on May 30, instead turned it down and resigned when Fielden told staffers he planned to leave.

Michael Hainey, the No. 2 as executive director of editorial, was in Cannes the day Fielden resigned. Earlier this year, he had turned down the Gawker reboot job that eventually went to Dan Peres. As soon as Hainey returned from France, he resigned. Helene Rubinstein, the number three who carries the title editorial director, is also said to be exiting.

The newest rumor on a potential replacement for the top job is Michael Sebastian, who is running Esquire.com. He could not be reached for comment.

More staff cuts on June 5 only further fueled the rumor that Esquire, which in 2019 cut back to eight issues from monthly, will reduce its print issues further, possibly to six times or quarterly next year, in favor of a more digital and video-oriented strategy for the future.

Whoever takes over will have a lot of rebuilding to do. So far, the only editors among the upper echelon to survive are Fashion Director Nick Sullivan and Managing Editor John Kenney. Neither of them is rumored for the top job.

A least six full-time staffers and many of the regular freelance writers were told their days were over this week. Among that tier of departures: Raul Aguila, design director; Emily Poenisch, entertainment features director; Matthew Marden, style director; Ryan Lizza, chief political correspondent; Bob Mankoff, cartoon and humor editor; Ash Carter, senior editor; and contract writer Maximillian Potter; as well as writers at large Alex French and Stephen Rodrick.

Esquire was rocked late last year when Hearst Magazines President Troy Young and Lewis decided to kill a story on years of alleged sexually predatory behavior by prominent Hollywood director Bryan Singer, who directed “X-Men” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Singer denied the claims.

Killing the story created a lot of anger directed at Young and Lewis. “The mood had been getting more and more dismal even before the Bryan Singer thing exploded,” said a source.

While corporate sees digital as the future, the source said that many editorial veterans were angry that they were kept apart from the digital.