The Business of Magazines

[jmrmartinho]

^^Not very surprise. He fits the magazine perfectly.

 

[SugarMe]

Anna Wintour Brings On Eva Chen to Help Save Lucky Magazine
by LEAH CHERNIKOFF

When Anna Wintour was promoted to Condé Nast’s artistic director she said her role would be like a “one-person consulting firm.” In addition to her duties as Vogue’s editor in chief and Teen Vogue‘s editorial director she would meet with the editors of Condé’s other titles to offer advice and strategy.

Lucky Magazine, with its drop in ad pages over the last few years (the mag dropped 38 pages in 2012) and flagging circulation, is at the top of the list, it seems. According to the New York Post‘s Keith Kelly, Lucky‘s editor-in-chief Brandon Holley preemptively reached out to Wintour to seek her guidance.

We hear that Wintour has taken up residence at Lucky in a very hands-on approach to saving the troubled mag. Part of her strategy? Bringing on former Teen Vogue editor, social media maven, and all around beloved fashion lady Eva Chen.

A spokesperson for Lucky confirmed to us that Wintour has been working closely with the Lucky team and “brought Eva on to work on several project with her.” No word yet on what those “projects” are but we’ll keep you posted. And we don’t doubt that Wintour, Holley and Chen can work some magic at Lucky.

fashionista.com

 

[GlamorousBoy]

Sanoma Media Prague Wants Czech GLAMOUR

Rumor has it that Sanoma Media Prague wants to bring GLAMOUR magazine to Czech Republic. According to our information, several meetings already held with Condé Nast for this purpose.

Launching international magazines in the segment of lifestyle titles corresponds with the intention of Sanoma after the appointment of new CEO Agnieszka Dolezych. In an interview last year, Dolezych indicated that the two groups of magazines which Sanoma wants to develop on the Czech market are the original Czech magazines on the one side and international titles in the premium segment on the other. Glamour fits this segment.

Glamour is one of the few titles in the segment of women's lifestyle magazines which Czech version is not available. There were numerous efforts to launch GLAMOUR in Czech Republic in last 10 years but no one was successfully finished.

source: mediaguru.cz

 

[Srdjan]

Is there really a need for a new Glamour? Like there aren't enough editions (at least in Prague you can buy a few).

 

[GlamorousBoy]

of course there is, our market is 16 million large, foreign editions have almost no impact on the market

 

[Cold]

(British) Vogue exposes industry's tricks: The magazine has made a film to reveal fashion's fakery to teenagers

One of the biggest names in the world of fashion is to go into Britain's secondary schools to reveal the trickery behind the glossy images it sells.

Vogue magazine is making a film exposing the chicanery of a fashion shoot, to be screened to teenagers around the country in an attempt to promote healthier attitudes towards eating and body image.

The film, a project of the Vogue editor, Alexandra Shulman, will go behind the scenes at a fashion shoot to show "the difference between fashion and reality and how a fashion image is constructed," she told The Independent on Sunday.

Ms Shulman, who wrote to designers in 2009 complaining that the tiny clothes samples they sent were forcing magazine editors to shoot them on models with "no breasts or hips", hopes that the new schools programme will stop "a 12-year-old looking at a fashion model in Vogue and thinking, 'Why don't I look like that?'"

Digital retouching of models – where details like fat, blemishes and wrinkles are removed after the shoot – is only a "tiny part" of what happens, according to Ms Shulman. "It's basically a huge team of people that go in to create the image, of which retouching is the icing on the cake," she said. "You can do far more with lighting and make-up."

The Vogue editor was wary of giving details about the film, which will be edited and distributed next month. "I'm hoping that it will be fun for the pupils but, actually, it will make some serious points," she said. "Schools will get it at the end of this term so that they can slot it into their programme for the autumn term."

Vogue's publisher, Condé Nast, is keen to court British teenagers. Ms Shulman launched a fashion magazine for teenage girls this week, Miss Vogue, packed with adverts for high street labels and luxury brands.

Initial reaction to the Vogue film was warm. "Alexandra Shulman is clever enough to see the benefits where honesty is concerned for her brand," said Caryn Franklin, co-founder of All Walks Beyond the Catwalk, which campaigns for healthy body images. "The high levels of confusion that young women display about what is and isn't real need to be tackled by our industry."

A year ago Vogue announced a code of conduct in which Condé Nast and the editors of Vogue's 19 international editions agreed to "encourage a healthier approach to body image within the industry".

Last weekend, the models Daisy Lowe and David Gandy took part in a discussion about body image as part of a fashion festival run by the magazine at London's Southbank Centre. "I've been sent home from a show in Milan for being too big," Ms Lowe revealed. And Mr Gandy claimed male models are under the "same pressure" as women.

independent.co.uk

 

[tigerrouge]

The end of the magazine, but not of the website (featuresexec.com

Condé Nast is suspending the print edition of Easy Living from July, along with its iPad and iPhone apps.

Easyliving.co.uk, which currently attracts around 330,000 unique users per month, will continue.

 

[Melancholybaby]

DECODING A MASTHEAD: Condé-nologists at 4 Times Square have been wondering when Anna Wintour’s name and new title, artistic director, would start appearing on the mastheads of the company’s magazines. It’s June for some, July for others. Vanity Fair, Lucky and W are some of the titles that have listed her in the June issues, while a handful — like Glamour, Allure and Vogue itself — have left her out. A Condé Nast spokeswoman attributed the disparity to each title’s production schedule but said that by July everyone should be caught up. For those interested in such things, Wintour’s name appears in the same bottom bunk as former editorial directors Alexander Liberman and James Truman, below the editorial and business staffs and Condé executives officers, and to the left of editorial director Thomas J. Wallace.

wwd.com

 

[Melancholybaby]

French Edition of Harper's Bazaar to Launch

FRENCH ACCENT: Hearst Magazines International and Groupe Marie Claire, publisher of Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan in France, plan to launch a French edition of Harper’s Bazaar, WWD has learned. French journalist Alexandra Senes has been appointed editor in chief.

“Even though the market isn’t growing for the moment, it’s a very strategic market to be in over the long term,” said Duncan Edwards, president of Hearst Magazines International, noting that France is one of the biggest economies in Europe and the world. “Besides that, [launching in France is very important] because of the fashion heritage of France. I wish we launched there a long time ago.

“A great product and a great brand can create room in its market,” Edwards asserted.

The move comes at a time when Hearst is pursuing the internationalization of Harper’s Bazaar. Germany and Japan are set to launch before the end of 2013, with Akiko Mori being named the editor in chief of the Japanese edition. These three introductions will bring the total number of editions of Harper’s Bazaar to 30.

Paid circulation in France of French women’s magazines fell 3.4 percent in 2012 to 371.6 million copies, according to France’s Circulation Audit Bureau. Still, there is a flurry of new launches in France, including Stylist, a free women’s magazine also launched by Groupe Marie Claire earlier this year, while Condé Nast’s much-awaited French Vanity Fair is set to hit newsstands on June 26.

Harper’s Bazaar plans to publish 12 issues a year and target a “high-scale readership,” according to Edwards, who declined to reveal the launch date.

“There is no specific age range for the Harper’s Bazaar reader who is interested in the culture of fashion,” Edwards said, citing the popularity of the feature “Fabulous at Every Age” appearing in the U.S. edition, which “sends a powerful message.”

Hearst publishes Marie Claire magazine in many markets. However, this is the first time the company and Groupe Marie Claire are collaborating on an edition of Harper’s Bazaar.

Edwards and Arnaud de Contades, chief executive officer of Groupe Marie Claire, identified a number of potential editors in chief, but enthused about Senes’ ideas for the magazine. Senes, who launched Jalouse magazine in 1998 and served as editor in chief for eight years, most recently contributed to L’Officiel and Architectural Digest.

Founder of a communications agency named SAS, she also hosted and produced the fashion series “La Vitrine” on French TV channel Paris Première and curated fashion exhibitions for department stores Printemps and Le Bon Marché. In 2012 she launched Kilometre, a clothing line sold at Colette in Paris.

Senes said would be international in scope, speaking about “Philippine contemporary art, as well as Brazilian design or Norwegian cuisine.…I see further than Paris’ Left Bank.”

wwd.com

 

[Miss Dalloway]

Thanks for posting that, wow not only in France, i always wondered how come Hearst is not pushing their brands as much as CN does, and i think it could work for Germany and France if its a good looking book they produce.

 

[Thefrenchy]

Wonderful! Between this and VF, I can't wait!

 

[vogue28]

It's always welcoming news a new publication is about to emerge, since so many have come and gone within a short period of time. The first thing I think of regarding a French edition of Harper's Bazaar is Carine Roitfeld. It's a shame she started CR Fashion Book so sudden after her Vogue departure. CR Fashion Book hasn't exactly shock the magazine industry and is still yet to prove itself (at least to me). She would have been fantastic for the editor's job at Harper's Bazaar. Nonetheless, I look forward to seeing how Alexandra Senes handles the magazine.

 

[Thefrenchy]

Announcement and launch date for Vanity Fair France in VP June/July 2013

SNAPPED BY THEFRENCHY

 

[tigerrouge]

Love invites guest editors ahead of website redesign (featuresexec.com

LOVE launches takeovers while relaunching website

LOVE magazine has launched its first guest editor takeover with photographer and filmmaker Glen Luchford starting the project.

A number of guest editors will take over the website in the following six weeks while it is redesigned for its upcoming relaunch.

 

[Handbag Queen]

What is with all of the US fashion mags doing June/July issues this year? More and more of them are doing this and it's concerning. I remember when it was just US Harper's Bazaar and now it's Lucky, W and probably some others I'm forgetting. Anyone know why this is happening so much? I'm guessing it has to do with $$$.....

 

[Melancholybaby]

Fashion Magazines See Bump in Ad Pages in First Half

NUMBERS GAME: Memorial Day weekend could not have come soon enough for the magazine industry.

With less than two months to go before the make-or-break September issues close, the pressure is on to enter the last stretch of the year on a strong note with advertisers.

This year, there’s added pressure on September, since the first half, from January to June, had the misfortune of competing against what was a robust 2012 first half and so looked softer by comparison, though several of the major fashion magazines are up slightly for the period.

From January to March, magazines had a total of 31,137 pages, down 4.8 percent, according to the Association of Magazine Media. Media Industry Newsletter reported the declines to be smaller, 0.12 percent in the first quarter and 0.86 percent in the second quarter.

Let’s start with the magazines that maintained their momentum. In the first half of last year, Harper’s Bazaar, which reduced frequency to 10 times a year in 2012, had 13 percent more pages than the year before. This year, publisher Carol Smith pushed ad pages to a little more than 900, a 19 percent surge over the same period in 2012, according to MIN.

Thanks to former publisher Connie Anne Phillips, who resigned from Time Inc. in early May, InStyle, coming off a decent first half in 2012, is again off to a solid start in 2013, with a total of 1,261 pages, the most out of any of the fashion magazines, and a haul that is up nearly 4 percent. But can the magazine keep up the pace now that Phillips is out of the picture?

At Susan Plagemann’s Vogue, which claims nearly 1,181 pages through June, paging is also up a little more than 4 percent for the period.

The competition between the glossy supplements from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal is still healthy, with both titles posting double-digit jumps — WSJ., run by publisher Anthony Cenname, posted 252 pages through its June 13 issue, or nearly 30 percent above the previous year, while T: The New York Times Style Magazine, under group vice president, advertising Todd Haskell, has 13 percent more pages, at 486. (Without the May design issue, which was discontinued, the magazine is up 26 percent in total ad pages).

The caveat in all the increases — and declines — is the rates publishers charged per page. Only they and their clients know the truth, since wheeling and dealing is standard operating practice, no matter what they say.

Allure, Marie Claire and W were way ahead of the pack through last June, each with percentage jumps in the double digits. Against those records, their 2013 first half can only pale in comparison — Allure has nearly 690 pages for the period, or less than 1 percent above last year, while Marie Claire, at 756, is up nearly 3 percent. W, now under new publisher Lucy Kriz, has 549 pages, up 9 percent. Elle has the third-highest number of ad pages, behind Vogue and InStyle, with 1,157, up 5 percent. Cosmopolitan and Glamour both were down a little more than 2 percent at the same time last year, but only Cosmo has recovered for the first half — at 696 pages, it’s up 6 percent. Glamour, down nearly 4 percent, boasts 671 total ad pages. Vanity Fair has 647 pages, down almost 6 percent to what is roughly the same amount of ad pages the title had in 2011 (it had 685 pages at the first-half mark in 2012). Lucky’s new publisher, Gill Gorman Round, brought the magazine out from a 17 percent drop in ad pages through last summer. Now it is down only 6 percent at 382 pages. O, The Oprah Magazine was down 16 percent to 479 pages, the second year in a row it’s posted double-digit declines in the first half. The magazine was shaken in April with the departure of editor in chief Susan Casey.

Two categories in particular that were slightly weak through last summer are thriving so far: food and men’s. Bon Appétit and Food Network, from Condé Nast and Hearst Corp., respectively, posted double-digit jumps in advertising. BA had 347 pages, up 25 percent, while Food Network had 472 pages, up 16 percent. Details, at 350 pages, is up 19 percent; GQ, at 531, is up nearly 11 percent, and Esquire has 439 pages, up 6 percent. Rivals Men’s Fitness and Men’s Health are running neck and neck, and both are up double digits, 36 percent and 25 percent, respectively, following redesigns and new editorial management.

That was enough for Men’s Fitness publisher Patrick Connors. “Let the holiday weekend begin!” he said Thursday in a tweet from LaGuardia Airport on his way to Miami.

wwd.com

 

[Miss Dalloway]

^ Thank you for posting that , always interesting to read how the magazines are doing when it comes to advertisers.

 

[kimair]

On Newsstands, The Allure of the Film Actress Fades

Pity the poor Hollywood film stars: they can’t open movies the way they used to and now they can’t sell magazines.

Even a few years ago, the prize for a magazine editor was in luring an A-list Hollywood star onto the cover. But just as much critical attention has shifted to television from theatrical releases, readers are now more likely to pick up a magazine featuring a television actor, reality star or musician.

“There was a day when movie stars were the gold standard for magazines,” said Jess Cagle, the managing editor of Entertainment Weekly, where the frequency and sales of TV-oriented covers are catching up with film covers. “But movie stars are less revered than they used to be, and also audiences have shifted their allegiance in large part to television.”

Glamour featured film stars on half of its covers in 2012. But the May 2012 issue featuring Lauren Conrad, the former star of the reality show “The Hills,” was the year’s best-selling issue, at 500,072 copies. The magazine now expects to make film stars the minority presence in 2013.

At Cosmopolitan, the best-selling cover this year featured Kim Kardashian in April, with 1.2 million copies sold, followed by the singer Miley Cyrus in March with 1.1 million copies. In 2012, three out of five of Cosmopolitan’s top covers featured the celebrities Demi Lovato with 1.379 million copies sold, Khloé Kardashian at 1.354 million copies and Selena Gomez at 1.334 million copies.

Vogue’s best-selling cover in the first four months of 2013 featured Beyoncé with 340,000 copies sold. In 2012, Lady Gaga commanded the cover of Vogue’s September issue and sold nearly double the number of copies of the January 2012 issue, featuring Meryl Streep.

It’s not just younger women’s magazines that are moving away from film stars. When Redbook landed an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow for its January issue, the magazine featured her with her trainer Tracy Anderson and not in what the magazine’s editor in chief, Jill Herzig, called the “traditional A-lister in a ball gown kind of way.”

Magazine editors credit these changes to the improvement in the quality of television programs and the strength of musicians. These kinds of celebrities also are often more approachable than their film star equivalents. Lesley Jane Seymour, the editor in chief of More magazine, said that more highly regarded actors are taking parts on television instead of film and more people are watching better quality television — critical hits like “Mad Men” and “Homeland.”

While top-notch stars often remain inaccessible and surrounded by handlers, reality television stars are opening up about their struggles with weight, romance and family, which readers grasp more than the musings of a flawless film star. Television stars and musicians also connect with their fans far more frequently. Fans watch their programs on a weekly basis or hear their songs on a daily basis, compared with seeing an actor in a film once a year.

After Ms. Cyrus appeared on the March cover of Cosmopolitan, she posted to her more than 12 million Twitter followers that they should visit their newsstands and place Cosmopolitan in the front. It also spawned a hashtag #BuyMileysCosmo.

Cindi Leive, editor in chief of Glamour, called singers like Beyoncé and Rihanna the “Mick Jaggers of today” whose digital presence translates into newsstand sales.
“They do an incredible job of connecting with their fans,” she said.

That is not to say television stars overrule all film stars. When Vanity Fair published a May 2012 television issue, it was the magazine’s worst-selling issue of the year, with 183,511 copies sold. People’s recent cover featuring the actress Angelina Jolie sold a robust one million newsstand copies. Joanna Coles, editor in chief of Cosmopolitan, said celebrities like Ms. Jolie sell well because they attract varied audiences. “Angelina is not just a film star,” Ms. Coles said. “She is a spokesman for something bigger.”

For nearly four decades, magazine editors followed the formula coined by People’s founding managing editor, Richard B. Stolley, who remembered it as: Young is better than old. Pretty is better than ugly. Rich is better than poor. Film stars outsell television and music stars. Anything sells better than politics, and nothing sells better than a dead celebrity.

“There was a kind of crown on Hollywood that a movie star was bigger, new, more important, more interesting than television stars,” said Mr. Stolley, who was managing editor from 1974 to 1982. “Television did not promote itself and did not have the kind of push that movies did.”

Film stars carried so much more influence that Ms. Seymour of More, who previously edited Redbook and Marie Claire, said some movie stars refused to appear on magazines if they would be following a cover featuring a television star. At the time, Ms. Seymour said, film stars would say: “Your magazine is too low for me. Why would I be on it?”

But that assumption has drastically shifted as television enters a boom time rich with characters. “Television is a medium that cultivates a really personal connection. Zooey Deschanel is not someone you see in a film once a year,” Ms. Leive said of the television actress seen in “New Girl.” “If I have a work problem, I actually want to call Olivia Pope from ‘Scandal.’ ”

Mr. Cagle, who noted that less than 5 percent of Entertainment Weekly’s circulation came from newsstand sales, said that he often measured the success of a cover by its social media impact. The casts of television programs like “Pretty Little Liars” and “Vampire Diaries” — along with their fans — are more likely to post an article link on Twitter or share it on Facebook.

“When Ian Somerhalder tweets out your cover, that’s really great,” said Mr. Cagle, referring to the “Vampire Diaries” star. “Your cover has this whole life.”

As television stars have become more accessible, women’s magazines have fewer options coming from Hollywood. A recently published study by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism showed that the percentage of female characters with a speaking part in the nation’s top movies each year reached its lowest point in the past five years in 2012, at 28 percent. Ms. Coles said it had become so difficult to find female film stars to feature from this summer’s blockbusters that her magazine was publishing an article about the problem.

“There are a lot of movies right now that don’t speak to women,” Ms. Coles said. “Since ‘Sex and the City,’ there haven’t been those big, rah-rah movies for women.”

The holdout seems to be men’s magazines. Dan Peres, Details’ editor in chief, said that in the last three years, the number of film stars on his magazine’s covers grew from seven in 2011 to all five covers so far in 2013. He noted that while women might be drawn to a more relatable television star or musician, men could relate to plenty of film stars.

“With men, at least from where I am sitting, it’s a little bit different. We still want to emulate a little bit. We still want somebody who is a little bit of an icon,” Mr. Peres said. “Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, these are still guys you want to relate to.”

yahoo via nytimes, 6.7.13

 

[Miss Dalloway]

Thank you for posting that Kimair. Very interesting, the game has most certainly changed, people no longer believe in the classic "movie star" idea, it can not be sold anymore. Look at Reese losing her cool lately, and i think because we live in a internet gossip society that is very much into "love/hate" relationships with every celebrity, that is where the market has moved.

 

[loladonna]

I think the problem is movie actress cover features is they aren't written about in a way that is realistic. Read any Vogue cover story and you get a lot of fluff about how flawless/amazing/thin/beautiful/talented the Cover subject is and a little bit about whatever movie she's promoting. They're dressed in couture no one can afford. You know that no real questions will be answered and there will be no genuine insight into the actress because the terms of the interview were probably heavily negotiated by a publicist.

I think people want "realness" and A-list actresses are the antithesis of that.