The Business of Magazines

^Thanks a lot for taking time to type that passage. It was interesting to read. :flower:
When I read that paragraph the first amgazine that sprung to mind was W.

The publisher's only hope is to cut costs to the bone, cease soliciting any discounted subscriptions, fulfil the subscriptions with very thin, very cheap editions of the magazine – now a shadow of its former self in quality and number of pages – and thereby reduce what, in the jargon, we call the 'subs liability'. This can only be done is the poor beast is still technically alive.
 
The scandal about that article published by ELLE FR is getting bigger and bigger. A petition is now running ....
 
I didn't know where to post this but Vogue Paris' relanuched site is up.
 
Marie-Amélie Sauvé Heading to W Magazine

SAUVE’S NEW ROLE: Marie-Amélie Sauvé is joining W as senior fashion editor. She will work closely with fashion and style director Edward Enninful to style stories for the magazine. Sauvé began her career at Vogue Paris and returned in 2001 to be more involved in the magazine, under Carine Roitfeld. She eventually left to expand her work and contribute to American Vogue, where her last shoot was in November 2011. She has worked with W editor in chief Stefano Tonchi before, when he edited T: The New York Times Style Magazine.

Sauvé, a favorite of fashion blogs and street-style photographers, has collaborated with Balenciaga creative director Nicolas Ghesquière since 1997. Since then, she’s served as Balenciaga’s stylist and muse, and she’s worked on every aspect of the brand.

wwd.com
 
^ But wait, wasn't she about to work with Carine and Stephen Gan on Roitfeld's new mag due this Fall? Or can she be working (as part of a masthead) for more than one publication? Because technically now, she's not freelance anymore... I wonder if she can still serve for Balenciaga as consultant...
 
Condé Nast Unveils Corporate Web Site Redesign

CONDE GOES SOCIAL: If you want a job at Condé Nast and you don’t have a friend there, chances are you’ve submitted a résumé to condenast.com. Starting today, the publishing company hopes you’ll be visiting the site for more reasons than that. The site has been redesigned (but there is still a careers section!), and now visitors can personalize the experience, by filtering brand feeds to show only those they want to see, for example. “This has been talked about for the last few years,” said a spokeswoman of the new look. “We just wanted to have the same kind of vibrance that an edit brand has.”

There is a heritage section that includes a list of editors of all the titles throughout the years. There are brand pages, with access to digital editions of Condé Nast’s various magazines and apps, among other things. The redesigned site was developed in conjunction with Your Majesty Co., a creative agency that worked on The Daily app, as well as with Gilt Groupe and UrbanDaddy.

Each month, three executive profiles will be posted. The first round begins with Pete Hunsinger, president and publisher of Golf Digest Cos.; Wyatt Mitchell, creative director of The New Yorker and Juliana Stock, senior director, marketing & product development at Condé Nast. A spokeswoman said the three people were randomly chosen. So all you Condé Nasters out there, get ready for your 15 minutes.

wwd.com
 
^^^I'm thirlled with Marie-Amelie joining W but wasn't Lori Goldsten the senior fashion editor?
 
Just a little something about Vogue Brazil
Vogue has (yet another) great reason to celebrate. The report of the IVC (Institute that verifies the circulation of magazines) brings great news that hit the second time in six months our sales record. The November issue of 2011, dedicated to Rio de Janeiro and starred by top Czech Karolina Kurkova (who posed for the lenses JR Duran a fun test teaching how to become a Carioca), peaked at 70,991 copies sold (and audited! :( 56,179 purchased at newsstands and in retail, and 14,812 for subscribers.

Earlier in July, we had already hit record with the release starring Gisele Bundchen, in Amazonas, with four different covers, which sold 70,743 copies.

The two almost consecutive records reflect consistent and impressive growth of Vogue over the past year, with 21% increase in the circulation of copies.

No wonder that the magazine's gala, held on Friday (10:02) in hotel Unique, SP, is born as the most excited - and expected - of recent times. Everyone's wanting to celebrate!
vogue.globo.com
 
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Carine’s Next Project?

CARINE’S NEXT PROJECT?: Carine Roitfeld has made no secret of her wish to launch her own magazine, and the guessing game has been with whom. Now there is speculation that Roitfeld is in talks to publish her title in collaboration with the media group that owns Visionaire, V Magazine and VMan. She’s already guest edited an issue of V. Roitfeld has been seen a lot in the company’s offices recently and there is talk the title could be out as soon as this fall. Roitfeld could not be reached for comment.
wwd.com
 
U.K. Titles Post Slow-growing Abcs

U.K. TITLES POST SLOW-GROWING ABCS: U.K. magazines continued to post either declining or slow-growing print circulation figures in the second half of 2011, according to data published by the U.K.’s Audit Bureau of Circulation Thursday.

In terms of fashion titles, British Vogue fell 0.2 percent in the six months to December, compared to the same period last year, to 210,806, while Hearst’s Elle declined 2.7 percent to 195,020 year-on-year, and IPC’s InStyle fell 2.5 percent to 176,002. British Glamour, while still the best-performing paid-for women’s lifestyle title, fell 6.8 percent year- on-year to 466,327. All figures are for the titles’ total average net circulation and distribution.

Those titles that did grow circulation did so modestly. Harper’s Bazaar, published by Hearst U.K., rose 0.2 percent year-on-year to 120,004, while Vanity Fair rose 0.1 percent to 102,585, and Marie Claire, published by IPC in the U.K., rose 0.7 percent to 266,881.

Men’s titles also registered declines. Men’s Health fell 10.1 percent year-on-year to 221,176, while FHM plummeted 20.6 percent to 140,716 and Esquire fell 4.7 percent to 56,583. GQ’s circulation stayed flat year-on-year at 120,094. As a whole, the men’s lifestyle sector fell 5.2 percent year-on-year.

However, both Condé Nast U.K. and Hearst Magazines U.K. pointed to the growth in digital sales of their magazines, and each firm independently published ABC figures that combined their digital and print sales. Condé Nast U.K. said that combining both media, Vogue posted a circulation of 211,624, while Vanity Fair achieved a circulation of 105,089 and GQ registered a circulation of 125,825. Nicholas Coleridge, managing director of Condé Nast U.K., said: “Print is proving to be remarkably resilient at the luxury end, confounding the doom-mongers. In addition, the iPad and other tablet devices are offering exciting routes to market, which is proving popular with our upmarket readership, in particular for GQ, Wired and Vanity Fair.” Digital sales combine both Apple Newsstand and Zinio sales.

Hearst said that Elle achieved a combined digital and print circulation of 197,463, while Esquire recorded a combined circulation of 60,328 and Harper’s Bazaar achieved a combined circulation of 122,884. The company said that since October 2011, 10 million users have downloaded Hearst Magazine U.K.’s apps.

IPC Media’s chief executive officer, Sylvia Auton, pointed to positive results from Marie Claire, which notched up a 6.4 percent gain in the six months to December compared to the previous six months, which IPC attributed to an increase in newsstand sales and a focus on delivering a “strong editorial product.” The title recently launched a biannual fashion collections spin-off, called Marie Claire Runway. Auton also cited the positive performances of Woman & Home, InStyle and Country Life as evidence that “empty nesters and those without dependent children are continuing to buy magazines in large numbers.”
wwd.com
 
Many interesting Q&A's with people behind the magazines

Daily Front Row, February 11-12th 2012





youkioske
 
Thank you for all that, Flashbang. I love that E&J said they didn't want the mag to fit in a scanner :lol:
 
If I'm not mistaken, first issue of Vogue Netherlands will be out on March 22!
 
WSJ. and T: The Rivalry Is On

Five years ago, The New York Times had a real business on its hands when it badly needed one. T: The New York Times Style Magazine had become a powerhouse. It had just over 1,600 ad pages, and brought in more than $45 million in revenue. It was frequently mentioned by chief executive officer Janet Robinson in quarterly earnings calls and at media summits as being a standout business for The New York Times Co.

Meanwhile, across town, Rupert Murdoch, fresh off closing on the sale of The Wall Street Journal, was assembling his own luxury magazine, WSJ. When the magazine came out in September 2008, it came off as a poor imitation of T, and a transparent attempt by Murdoch to elbow his way even further into the Times’ turf. The verdict came in early: It was T’s town and there was no competition.

Not so fast. In the year of crazy catch-ups, with the Giants surging to a Super Bowl championship and Linsanity and Rick Santorum roaring up to Mitt Romney, WSJ. editor Deborah Needleman has driven the Journal’s magazine into sudden contention with T editor Sally Singer’s domineering but also flat-lining title. In 2011, WSJ. had a double-digit increase in ad pages and this year will get another frequency bump to 10 issues, the third time that’s happened in three years. As for T, from going to a star of the Times Co., it has now become something of a source of frustration for the ad sales team and the paper’s executive editor, Jill Abramson.

The gap between the two glossies remains significant — T, which published 15 times last year, finished 2011 with 1,087 ad pages, according to Media Industry Newsletter, and WSJ., which published nine times, had just 383, according to stats provided by the Journal. But Murdoch’s team is beginning to feel some momentum and sensing an opportunity.

“If there are 1,000 pages out there that T has, I want a good portion of them,” said WSJ. publisher Anthony Cenname.

When Singer came to T, succeeding Stefano Tonchi, she wanted to create a more readable magazine, something that a reader of A1 news wouldn’t find to be such an exotic little creature that looked entirely out of place in the paper.

“I want to make sure that the reader who reads the front page [of the Times] doesn’t think of T as this strange dispatch from ‘Project Style’ that they can toss away with everything else,” Singer told WWD last year.

She went to work retooling it. Her magazine is grungy, cool and downtown. Her women’s fashion issue has Lana Del Rey on the cover, shot by Terry Richardson. It does not bear much resemblance to the explicitly commercial enterprise that Tonchi’s T was.

Early on, it seemed like a bit of a risk to muck with the T format since it had been a success at its only real mission: to be a cash cow. The paper’s former executive editor, Bill Keller, once said that T was created to “generate the revenues that help subsidize the stuff that drew most of us into the business.”

These days, its results have been mixed. In 2011, T had an ad page bump of 0.7 percent, according to data from Media Industry Newsletter. T’s upcoming fashion issue had an 8 percent decline, according to MIN. It was a noticeable drop for the magazine considering nearly every major fashion title had strong results in the second biggest month of the year for fashion titles (Vogue, InStyle, Elle, Marie Claire, Glamour, W and Harper’s Bazaar all had ad page gains ranging from 2 to 31 percent in their March issues).

The paper’s new executive editor has taken notice. According to several Times insiders, Abramson gave Singer a dressing down late last year after hearing complaints from the ad sales staff. They were having a tough time selling her magazine. The ad sales team was not a big fan of the magazine’s visuals. It was time to go ahead and make a slightly more marketable title. And perhaps those black-and-white covers — five of Singer’s first 17 issues have had them — could go. Any hiccups at T are particularly felt considering that the Sunday Magazine — itself under a new editor, Hugo Lindgren — has dropped 28 percent in ad pages from the beginning of the year to mid-February, according to MIN.

“Jill’s position is that T largely exists for one reason and one reason alone: To make money,” said a Times source. “It should not be something, like our coverage of the White House or how we handle anonymous sourcing on sensitive A1 articles, that should be occupying a lot of her management time.”

Singer declined to comment for this story and Abramson was traveling, but said in a statement: “Sally is a brilliant editor who has done a terrific job with T to the great benefit of our readers. The upcoming spring fashion issue is absolutely gorgeous and full of interesting and enterprising pieces. It is one of her finest issues to date.”

Indeed, sources said Abramson and her boss, Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, both believe Singer is a talent, but they have real concerns about her budget. And the objections with the visuals in Singer’s magazine are not limited to her ad sales department. Just ask her predecessor, who has long to be known as a quasi-publisher in his own right.

“It’s different from my vision,” current W editor in chief Tonchi told WWD last June. “I had a very specific vision, I suppose. I like large images, I like white space, I like a certain kind of elegance in the design and the images and I thought that was the way to make a difference from the rest of the paper, from [the Styles section]. Now, it’s all a little bit like soup. You don’t know exactly if you’re in T, in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the style pages or the paper.

“I think I brought in a lot of great images,” he continued. “I don’t see them anymore, photography particularly.”

(Tonchi’s W is starting to pick up: After a single-digit ad page bump in 2011, the magazine has a 17 percent gain in the first quarter of 2012, tied for the biggest quarterly increase in the magazine’s history. Its April issue is up more than 30 percent, said a spokeswoman for the magazine).

Like Tonchi’s W, Needleman’s WSJ. is bringing in good returns. Since she took over in 2010, the Little Engine That Could of the Journal newsroom has had frequency increases from six to nine to 10 issues. In the six issues that overlapped between 2010 and 2011, it saw 30 percent ad page gains, according to the Journal’s internal stats, which a spokeswoman said are tallied in accordance with how the Publishers Information Bureau would add it up. In 2010, WSJ. finished with 217 ad pages and last year had 383. Its March issue is up 27 percent year-over-year and its publisher said that the April issue will be up more than 50 percent. The magazine, which once had no place in the world of fashion media, is quietly beginning to circulate more and more.

Needleman created a cult magazine in Domino, but it wasn’t a commercial success — it closed four years after it started, one of six Condé Nast titles that shuttered in 2009. Now, it appears that Needleman that could be turning into a bit of a business success.

“It’s nice that it’s fat with ads and they’re good-looking ads,” said Needleman. “But from my perspective I’m still doing the same thing, which is trying to make the best magazine I can make. But it’s definitely nicer be at a growing magazine.”

When she took over WSJ., she said it was a “respectable luxury platform” but that “it didn’t have a whole lot of personality.”

She said she had to set out figuring out a way to connect a lot of different interests for her luxury title — fashion, luxury, philanthropy, art, food, business, design and technology.

“The filter — that’s how these disparate subjects get held together in one magazine,” she said. “I had this at Domino. All the stories have to meet certain criteria. It’s like influence, and creativity and innovation and power or a sense of independence. Every person, idea or story is in some way kicking off one of those boxes and that’s how it keeps it coherent. Lots of magazines create coherence by doing all one thing — it’s like Dwell, it’s all one look or something! But the other way, in my mind, is to have a kind of filter that everything goes through. You basically create a world, a little hermetic world.

“I felt like at Domino we were feeding decorating crack to 30-year-old girls,” she continued. “The audience was made for what we were serving them. It surprises me and this is something that pleases me much more than any of the ad things.”

And what of her rival, Singer? When Needleman and Singer were both appointed to their jobs, it looked like it could be the most intriguing of the several wars between the Journal and the Times. After all, both were extremely well-respected and burnished their reputations at 4 Times Square — not the newspaper world. Is T Magazine her rival?

“I was giving this talk to the ad people yesterday or two days ago, and I think it’s really something that’s true for the advertisers,” she said. “To them, they are our direct competitors. The ad dollars are finite and if they go here, they’re not going somewhere else. But making a magazine is not quite like that. I truly don’t ever think about other magazines when I’m making this magazine. I feel like it’s a natural comparison for other people to make but it doesn’t feel real to me at all.”

But to her bosses? And to Singer’s? It’s starting to feel very real.

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