The Business of Magazines

[tigerrouge]

Some news of US mid-year ABCs (observer.com

White' Hollywood Vanity Fair Cover Sold Poorly at Newsstand

When Vanity Fair's March 2010 issue hit the newsstands, there was a fair bit of criticism that the actresses featured in the Annie Leibovitz-shot cover and photospread were, as Jezebel put it, "pretty, thin, female and white."

Well, it turns out those characteristics do not necessarily sell magazines. The "A New Decade. A New Hollywood!"-titled issue is, so far, the lowest newsstand seller for the glossy in 2010 according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Rapid Report. The issue sold 300,000 single sale copies.

"The Hollywood cover was made up of the next wave of young actresses, faces that the public is just beginning to recognize," Vanity Fair spokeswoman Beth Kseniak said in an e-mail.

The most successful cover for Vanity Fair so far was January's Meryl Streep cover. The actress brought the magazine 435,000 single sale copies. Ms. Kseniak said that the Streep cover and their second highest seller, the May Grace Kelly cover, featured "two very well-known women, both of them icons."

 

[tigerrouge]

More results (same source

Jennifer Aniston, Gerard Butler Sell Big off the Newsstand

Covers featuring Jennifer Aniston have been the top sellers in 2010 for both Architectural Digest and W, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Rapid Report.

The Architectural Digest cover featured Ms. Aniston draped over a piece of furniture with the tagline "Jennifer Aniston In Her New Home." According to an AD press release the issue gave readers "an exclusive look at Jennifer Aniston's newly renovated home." Ah, lifestyles of the rich and heartbroken.

"Who wouldn't want to see the inside of Jennifer Aniston's bachelorette pad?" said Elissa Lumley, a spokeswoman for Architectural Digest, in an interview with the Observer.

Ms. Aniston cover sold 118,000 single sale copies, 32,000 more copies than the next highest seller, the May 2010 cover featuring (ta-da!) Ms. Aniston's rumored beau and The Bounty Hunter co-star Gerard Butler (ABC's data runs through the May issue).

They sell elsewhere too! Ms. Aniston and Mr. Butler appeared together on the April cover of W, doing a sexy pose for Steven Klein, which sold 34,000 copies, which is 5,000 more copies than the March cover featuring Megan Fox (the ABC data runs through April).

Ms. Aniston has recently been a safe bet when it comes to selling magazines. Her January 2009 GQ cover in which she wore nothing but a tie was by far the magazine's biggest seller of that year at 330,451. So was her Elle cover from September of that year at 434,399 copies.

 

[tigerrouge]

I love the title (same source

The W We Were, With John Fairchild

Three weeks ago, Mr. Fairchild met Stefano Tonchi, the new editor of W, for lunch at The Pierre. Mr. Fairchild was worried because he had ridiculed the hotel’s restaurant, Le Caprice, in one of his columns.

"I had written about the restaurant, how awful it was," he said. "It was perfectly nice. He didn't like it that much."

“We didn’t talk about W at all — we were talking about what’s fun and what he does and where he lives,” said Mr. Fairchild, thinking back on lunch with Mr. Tonchi. He mentioned that Mr. Tonchi said he had a house in Bridgehampton.

“Poor guy, I feel sorry for him, it’s tough," he continued. "Well, what he inherited — it’s not my place to say — but what he inherited, a lot of it in people who were not there for very long, and mad art directors and everything. They’re all gone so he’s got a chance to build it his way, which is right.”

Mr. Tonchi, who is in the middle of moving the magazine into a new office and putting together his first issue, told The Observer in May that his W would be “closer maybe to what Mr. Fairchild had in mind when he started the magazine.”

A few weeks ago, Mr. Fairchild decided to end his monthly column for W, a satire of society-types written on the backpage of the magazine.

“The column’s name was written by Louise J. Esterhazy, but it was really written by me," he said. "But I was born in Newark, New Jersey!" He laughed long and hard.

It was his last byline at Fairchild Publications, the company started by his grandfather Edmund Fairchild, where he worked since he was 13.

Mr. Fairchild’s idea for W grew out of Women’s Wear Daily. After Princeton and some time as an enlisted man working as a speechwriter at the Pentagon, Mr. Fairchild began reporting for Women's Wear's Paris bureau.

“I was very aggravated that all the fashion magazines saw all the collections — this was the old days mind you,” Mr. Fairchild said.

“Our idea was to go see things in advance even when they were working on the collections and publish it before the magazines.”

“I’m a very competitive animal,” he said. “I got arrested by the French economic police for breaking the release date.”

He was proud of this.

“But it’s a sport you know. Don’t you like the sport of being a journalist, getting scoops? It’s a sport!”

In 1960, Mr. Fairchild returned to America and became the publisher and editorial director of Women’s Wear. The Fairchild brand began to change.

“Basically, when we started changing Women’s Wear and started being fluffy and consumer minded and less trade oriented, we had such a big success with the society world,” said Mr. Fairchild. “So we thought maybe we should do another publication which would be more complete on that score.”

“I was in a family business and most of my family was absolutely opposed to the idea of starting W. I had a little battle there. They thought we should continue to be a business trade paper with Women’s Wear.”

Mr. Fairchild had other plans.

“A W story would be to go to a place that very few people had been to – who would be there and who they’d see. You’d tie it to people, not necessarily movie stars, but other people who were well known.”

Mr. Fairchild was less interested in covering the glamour of the fashion industry.

“It shouldn’t be just fashion," he said. "That’s my philosophy, right or wrong. In the fashion world, it’s totally incestuous. One hand wags the other hand. The thing that’s often forgotten, that is really forgotten, is that the reader is what counts. If you don’t amuse the reader or stimulate the reader, you’re not doing your job.”

Mr. Fairchild took an everyman’s approach to the world of fashion.

“They didn’t have to be rich people either!” he added. “We’d do a story on some of the Indians out west. We could do anything. The world was our oyster, we loved it!”

Mr. Fairchild said that he has not gone to a fashion show or returned to Women's Wear's offices since he retired more than a decade ago.

“Times have changed. He’s got to operate differently now than the way I did. Let’s face it, we didn’t have to pull punches because we were not controlled by our advertisers,” Mr. Fairchild said. “I suppose we were a bunch of mad people, and we decided that we would publish what we wanted to publish. It was great! I loved those days.”

We asked Mr. Fairchild if he would be reading Mr. Tonchi’s W.

“Of course!” he said.

“It’s going to be great I’m sure because he’s a talented fellow. I think it’s got to move with the times. What I think is fun and amusing at 83 years old is probably boring to younger people and to some of the readers.”

“Listen, let’s face it, he’s got a lot of great people, he doesn’t need me! It’s a new world, a new generation.”

 

[kokurox]

NEW TACTIC: Things are getting experimental at Condé Nast. In a bid to bulk up retail sales, the publisher revealed plans Tuesday to print special editions of certain titles that will bundle similar content in themed, newsstand-only volumes. The company used a bound anthology of Glamour’s “Dos & Don’ts” as a possible example, and said it would print as many as six collections over the remainder of 2010 from Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker and Vogue. Elsewhere in the Condé monetization labs Tuesday, Vanity Fair released Movie Madness, an iPhone trivia app that snagged a sponsorship from Bing, the Microsoft-owned search engine. The game is hosted by a bobblehead doll likeness of editor Graydon Carter, who, sadly, did not lend his voice. — Matthew Lynch

wwd.com

 

[kokurox]

Vanity Fair Names Diehl Fashion Director

In what came as a surprise to almost no one in the end since it had been rumored for months, Michael Roberts is out as fashion director of Vanity Fair and will be succeeded by Jessica Diehl, currently contributing senior style editor. Roberts will stay on as style editor at large as a contributing photographer, illustrator and stylist. In 2006, Roberts joined Vanity Fair from The New Yorker, where he served as fashion director for nine years.“Jessica’s work at the magazine has been consistently outstanding, and I’m delighted that her role here will expand,” said editor Graydon Carter.

wwd.com

 

[missbluejean]

T magazine fashion director Anne Christensen 'devalued' after losing editor in chief job

Anne Christensen cannot be happy with The New York Times. After the fashion director of its magazine T spent weeks reading that she was the front-runner to be the advertising-heavy fashion supplement's editor in chief, a job left vacant when Stefano Tonchi went to W, management picked Vogue editor Sally Singer for the gig.

Now comes news that Singer has decided to replace Christensen with one of her own hires. Singer's decision is to be expected - editors stock their staffs with people whose work they know and trust.

But the move has left some Times insiders fuming over the offhanded way that Christensen was treated throughout the whole T saga. "They put her up for the job. They pushed her as their candidate, and then they hung her out to dry," says one incensed source.

"If you're genuinely considering someone as a candidate, you must value that person. And if you value her, then why would you devalue her so quickly?"

At the very least, insiders say, The Times could have found a new role for Christensen, the way it ginned up a new job for New York Times Sunday Magazine editor Gerry Marzorati when the paper announced he was stepping down. (Gatecrasher loves the headline that New York magazine's Daily Intel column wrote for that story: "Gerry Marzorati Will Stay at Times in Made-Up-Sounding Role.")

In a statement, Times executive editor Bill Keller said: "We have great admiration for Anne and the creative work she has contributed to the T franchise. Having appointed a new chief editor, it's only natural that we would be assembling a team - some T veterans, some new recruits - to work alongside her." A Times spokeswoman declined to divulge Singer's new hire.

nydailynews via thecut

 

[tigerrouge]

Some news about September issues of Chinese magazines (globaltimes.cn

The return of Faye Wong, her September issue and cover girl wars

You do not have to be an industry insider or have watched The September Issue with Anna Wintour to know how important the annual September issue is to a fashion magazine. I mean, it's just commonsense, which, if you do not understand, then you probably shouldn't be reading my column in the first place as it is purely based on the fashion obvious, gossip and the spirit of never being boring.

Speaking of boring, the word is far removed from this year's September issue cover com-petition between the Chinese mainland's top three fashion magazines, namely Cosmopolitan, Vogue and Elle, when only one Faye Wong can go so far.

Wong, the pop diva who exited the local showbiz world about five years ago, but continued to capture the media and public spotlight, has announced her return to the scene with a new EP release scheduled for later this month and concerts penciled in for August. Wong needs the September-issue and the magazines need her and her massive fan base to boost sales and increase exposure.

The battle for Wong to pose on September issue covers began shortly after she appeared in the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in February. With almost every fashion magazine in the country bidding for her image, everyone knew it would come down to a prestigious top three.

After months of negotiations and who knows how much money, the winning publication has been finalized and although not officially announced, my undercover sources have confirmed that Wong will appear on the September issue cover of Elle, whose Hong Kong and Taiwan editions have a long history with the star.

The result is really not that surprising, as Wong has never graced the cover of a mainland-based fashion magazine, not even the local edition of Cosmopolitan, which is run by a mainland media group.

Rumors that Wong would choose Vogue and its publisher Angelica Cheung have been squelched and when you think about it, appearing on the September issue covers of mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan editions of Elle is a pretty tempting option. Wong's bid to win back fans across the country will also, no doubt, get a bit of a boost.

My source told me that Wong has flown to Paris to be fitted for possible cover couture, all 12 outfits of which are from Celine's new line. Considering the "coincidence" that Celine's creative director Phoebe Philo returned to the fashion circle last year and hit another career high, Wong seems to have a similar ambition now that she has announced her own comeback.

After losing Wong, it's now expected that Cheung will turn to Liu Wen, the model Vogue itself discovered and constantly promotes, although Liu has only one foot in the international modeling world and can hardly compete with the likes of Wong.

My new concern is whether Cheung will stick to her original plan of debuting the group's new magazine Numero and if she does, who will she have on the cover when Elle has Wong?

Tang Wei may have been an option, but after the GQ cover incident, which I will reveal all on next week, well, Cheung clearly needs a whole lot more luck for her successful all-important September issues.

 

[agee]

So what are the best selling fashion magazines by country? I have data on the UK and Russia courtesy of a couple of recent posts of tigerrouge and tarsha:

The most recent ABCs put the UK circulation figures as:

• Glamour - 515,281 (-5.9%)
• Cosmopolitan - 430,353 (-4.5%)
• Marie Claire - 283,025 (-9.9%)
• Vogue - 210,526 (-4.5%)
• Elle (U.K.) - 195,455 (0.2%)
• Instyle UK - 184,141 (1.7%)
• Harpers Bazaar - 110,638 (1.1%)
• Vanity Fair - 102,421 (1.2%)
• Tatler - 86,345 (0.3%)

I've left out Easy Living and the rest of those lifestyle magazines we never really mention here. From the ABCs I've seen over the years, Glamour has been a strong performer ever since its launch, it pretty much went straight to the top of the list, and given the climate, it's done a decent job of staying there, especially considering that other magazines launched at the same time have since gone into terminal decline.

The TV magazines tend to sell over a million, and Take a Break is a huge performer as well.

Some magazine news from Russia.

Elle : the most popular fashion-magazine in Russia

As a result of recent research company TNS Russia monthly audience of the magazine ELLE in Russia reached 730,940 people, which is the highest among audiences of all fashion magazines in Russia (NRS-Russia, December 2009 - April 2010).

-- snip --​

It is important to note that the growth audience ELLE by 19% much faster than the market average segment at 6%. Editorial changes in ELLE allow not only to successfully keep the interest of loyal readers, but also attract the audience before prefer other publications.

Second place : Vogue
Third place : Marie Claire
Fourth place : L'Officiel
Fifth place : Harper's Bazaar

glossy.ru

Does anyone have data from other countries? Thank you.

 

[kasper!]

#104 The journalist made a mistake,Liu Wen was first discovered by the people from Marie Claire.

 

[kokurox]

OVER AT GLAMOUR…: T isn’t the only mag with a top fashion slot to fill. Glamour is on the hunt for a successor to longtime fashion director Xanthipi Joannides, who departed last month. And the magazine is apparently casting a very wide net — Marie Claire’s Nina Garcia and Kate Lanphear of Elle are among those said to have met with editor in chief Cindi Leive and co. about the position (though the discussions with Garcia ended shortly after they began, according to sources). A spokeswoman for Glamour said a decision had not yet been made.

wwd.com

 

[missbluejean]

Anne Christensen Leaves T

ON TO NEW PASTURES: Weeks after losing her bid for the top job at T: The New York Times Style Magazine to Sally Singer, Anne Christensen has resigned from her post as women’s fashion director of the Times’ style glossy. And she’s landed on her feet. In an e-mail to WWD sent during a break from styling a Vogue China shoot, Christensen said, “I’ve had a great 10 years at the Times and T magazines under 2 creative and smart editors: Amy Spindler and Stefano Tonchi. I’m very proud of the work I’ve done there and particularly proud of the upcoming Fall women’s T that I worked very hard on. Now I’m happy to move on to other adventures. I wish Sally Singer the best of luck. She has inherited a wonderful group of people at T.” As to whether those adventures will include finding a position at another magazine or focusing on her freelance styling career — which she was able to maintain while at T since she wasn’t a full-time employee — Christensen said she was keeping her options open. “I do want to explore other magazine possibilities. I like having magazine as a base — for a stylist, it gives you a real voice, and that’s important. And I have a great freelance career that I will continue, as well,” she said.

Meanwhile, with regard to Christensen’s replacement at T, a spokeswoman for the Times said there were “no personnel announcements to make at this time.” Yet rumors are swirling that Singer will be bringing a Voguette (or two) with her when she assumes control of the title next week. According to insiders, T’s new editor in chief wants to bring in a freelance fashion director-stylist and a strong full-time market director, which is likely why Meredith Melling Burke, Vogue’s oft-photographed senior market editor, is one of the names being tossed around in media circles as a possible Singer recruit.

— Nick Axelrod

wwd

 

[Flashbang]

(PARIS) Massive staff changes, the imminent release of the September issue, and that oh-so-salacious rumor that Anna Dello Russo may be decamping stateside to take the fashion director title at the glossy…who can even keep up with all the news out of Stefano Tonchi's W? The Daily caught up with the editeur after Valentino couture to get the scoop.
VALENTINE UHOVSKI

Does it feel different to cover the shows for W?
It's so different from the days at The Times. We used to do couture, and then all of the [RTW] shows, of course. Sure, I have a new group of people around me. I’m very excited to have them with me for this.

Is it challenging to close the September issue in New York while your senior staff is in Paris?
Well, I mean, this week is a little bit of a dead week in New York anyway, with people taking time off Friday, then Monday...so it makes sense to take these one or two days and not work in New York, but here in Paris. I have plenty of appointments.

Do you have a core group of photographers in place?
Yes, September will be a new place for the magazine, and we’ll have a sort of dark group of photographers. Alex White shot many stories. We have Craig McDean, Mert and Marcus on board, and we’re using some new photographers for us, like Tim Walker, with more joining soon.

A few rumors to address: We’ve been hearing that W will be going bi-monthly as of September. Any truth to that?
Never heard that! I mean, personally, I never, never heard that. And beyond that I pretty much have the next 12 issues scheduled. There’s more than one cover in place.

Alex [White] has worked with you extensively on September. What about Anna Dello Russo?
I love Anna, but she has a great job at Japanese Vogue that she quite likes and I don’t have any idea to actually move her to New York. She’s a good friend, but I didn’t really even have a conversation with her about this seriously. She’s a fashion director, but she’s not necessarily the one that’s doing shoots and maybe that’s what I’m looking for. Alex is doing that, and that’s what we need at W.

Are you satisfied with how things are going so far?
Yes, it’s been great so far, with very strong support from the company and the industry. Especially with The Daily. You’ve always been the first to know and ones to wish me the best. And now I'll have to focus on a year's worth of great issues.

dailyfrontrow.com

 

[MissMagAddict]

^I'm beyond happy that Alex is staying. Really, really looking forward to the September issue.

 

[tigerrouge]

New York Magazine wonders (nymag.com

3-D Fashion Spreads: Outta This World, or One-Trick Ponies?

This was a long time coming. Last year, both Archetype and Dazed and Confused magazines toyed with the public's 3-D obsession, popping out punchy multidimensional fashion spreads and experimenting with eyeball-twisting covers. Shortly thereafter, Mexican Vogue and Chinese Harper's Bazaar also hitched rides on the 3-D bandwagon, proving to everyone within gawking distance that swimsuit models look even hotter when they're come-hithering two inches from your face (a trick that, unfortunately, didn't translate very well online). And now, every editorial image, plus twenty advertisements, in this week's issue of Time Out New York, which hit newsstands yesterday, is full-on three-dimensional — including a playful shopping story on the galaxy-print trend.

All of which raises the question: Is 3-D (as well as other interactive novelties like V magazine's new scratch-off cover) the future of fashion, or just a cheap gimmick employed by print outlets desperate to capitalize on their medium's hold-it-in-your-hands tangibility? More importantly, when are we going to see a hyper-meta, three-dimensional spread of Karlie Kloss and the Kaiser live-tweeting while luxuriating in a bathtub filled with Veuve Clicquot, each wearing gold-rimmed, chain-embellished 3-D glasses we can Text2Buy with a snap of our camera phone?

 

[tigerrouge]

Can't imagine it's really closing - if the problem's with the publisher, then switch to someone else for the future. But if it wasn't selling well, this is certainly a way to shut it down without giving the impression it was in trouble (dailymail.co.uk

Playboy cancels Portuguese edition after it features Jesus Christ among topless models

Playboy magazine is to pull the plug on its Portuguese edition after it ran a photo shoot featuring Jesus Christ among topless models.

The spread was ostensibly a tribute to Nobel Prize-winning author Jose Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, but Hugh Hefner’s headquarters have reacted with outrage.

The pictures show a long-haired, glowing Jesus watching two models in a lesbian clinch, standing next to a prostitute and looking over the shoulder of a woman reading a book.

A final, heavily tattooed woman, appears to have died in his arms.

Theresa Hennessy, Playboy Enterprises vice president of public relations told the Mail Online: ‘We did not see or approve the cover and pictorial in the July issue of Playboy Portugal.

‘It is a shocking breach of our standards and we would have not allowed it to be published if we had seen it in advance.

‘We are in the process of terminating our agreement with the Portuguese publisher.'

Saramago’s novel is a fictional re-telling of Christ’s life, depicting him as a flawed, human character.

It generated controversy among the Roman Catholic Church, who accused Saramago of depicting a ‘substantially anti-religious vision.’

However, other critics have praised it as a ‘deeply philosophical, provocative and compelling work.’
​

 

[Fiercification]

Now I'm really excited for the September issue of W. Guess I didn't need to be worried about the change over after all.

 

[Flashbang]

(NEW YORK) Surely you didn't think Anne Christensen would remain a free agent for long? It appears that the former T trouper has been tapped as the new fashion director at women's service bible Glamour, replacing Xanthipi Joannides, who retired from full-time mag duty in June after three decades of service at Condé Nast. Glamour did not respond to The Daily's request for comment.

According to reports, Glamour EIC Cindi Leive cast a very wide net to fill this position, interviewing everyone from Nina Garcia to Elle's Kate Lanphear. But according to rumors, the Garcia idea was not a "good fit," and that Marie Claire contract is still firmly in place. Christensen’s serendipitous resignation fromthe New York Times was well-timed with Leive’s quest to find a candidate with sufficient fashion cred and a willingness to shoot on a variety of body types (i.e., not just Abbey Lees and Natasha Polys.) And another bonus: Christensen knows how to charm those advertisers and marvel at the workmanship of mass-market merch. Surely she's ready for a salary upgrade?
So come August, Christensen will find herself ensconced in a glassy office at 4 Times Square not entirely unlike the one vacated by Sally Singer, who snatched up the T EIC gig that Christensen so ardently petitioned for. And indulge us for a moment: In Paris, the only Glamour editor allowed to hole up at the Ritz is Leive. During her tenure at the Times, Christensen was a loyalist of the place. Surely she won't be forced to endure Le Meurice?

dailyfrontrow.com

 

[kokurox]

UP, UP, UP — AT LAST: Coming off horrendous figures a year ago, the September issues of all the major titles — Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, InStyle, Marie Claire and W — are on the climb again. Vogue leads the way, with 532 ad pages, an almost 25 percent increase from the September 2009 issue. “The endemic categories were very strong for us,” said vice president and publisher Susan Plagemann. “And we’re feeling good about the rest of the year.” InStyle is reporting 403 ad pages, up 16 percent over last year. A spokeswoman said this issue marks the first time since 2000 that InStyle’s September ad performance has exceeded 400 pages. Elle’s pages are up 18 percent to 382 and Harper’s Bazaar posted a 12 percent rise in paging, to 302 pages. W isn’t far behind, up 31 percent to 252 pages. Glamour wins for posting the largest gain during the period, up almost 58 percent to 241 pages, and Marie Claire’s September issue is up 10 percent, to 156. Don’t pop the Champagne just yet, though, given the slowing economic recovery. — Amy Wicks

wwd.com

 

[lawaldorf]

They still haven't posted the list of each magazine's best performing covers?

 

[Flashbang]

How the Fashion Magazine Industry Plans to Profit from Digital This Fall

http://mashable.com/2010/07/20/fashion-mags-digital-fall/