The Business of Magazines

[caioherrero]

Well this is something to celebrate!!! Finally Jill is out, pretentious, annoying, and never liked her! Good riddance!

The biggest problem now is Tabhita, Jorden, Virginia and Anna

 

[axiomatic]

What a mess Picardi inherits.
Note the incorrect "it's" in the editor's letter

Out Magazine, Pride Media Challenges for New Editor Phillip Picardi – WWD
Kali Hays
9-12 minutes

On top of a summer exodus of more than half of the editorial staff from an already small masthead over continued operational issues, there are new investors to keep happy, the task of getting recently re-branded holding company Pride Media ready for a Reg A+ filing (known as a “mini-IPO” — something akin to a regulated crowdfunding campaign), and, for good measure, a new owner that happens to be a documented supporter of conservative Republican politicians during a time when the culture wars have never been more fierce.

Behind Pride Media are the stepbrothers Adam Levin and Maxx Abramowitz, the founders and operators of Oreva Capital, which last September acquired Out and The Advocate, along with related brands and intellectual property. They are also, respectively, the chief executive officer and lead investor of High Times magazine parent High Times Holdings. That company was formed last year when they bought the magazine, but it is experiencing significant hurdles with its own mini-IPO filing and facing many millions in losses as it tries to raise money from the public.

Last year, HTH posted a $13.6 million loss. So far this year, it’s lost $12.3 million and is sitting on about $68 million in debt. Moreover, its public filing, which is set to close at the end of this month, had only resulted in around $5 million in investments as of three weeks ago, far short of its $50 million goal.

A source familiar with the company told WWD that the public filing of High Times was supposed to be a model for Pride Media, which Levin is said to have acquired opportunistically, seeing a largely untapped market in LGTBQ media. However, a new owner that not only is perceived as relatively disinterested in the community it serves, but has given money to politicians who worked against that community, didn’t sit well with a lot of now former staffers, who had a sense of mission in their work, sources said.

Levin has donated to a number of Republicans including Devin Nunes, Dean Heller and Josh Mandel (all of whom have publicly taken anti-LGTBQ stances, like supporting religion-based discrimination), and Dana Rohrabacher (who recently said gay people can be denied the right to buy a home and has consistently opposed legal advancements for the LGTBQ community) was praised on this year’s High Times’ list of cannabis supporters.

Of Levin’s political donations, a Pride spokesman said, “Adam is a staunch supporter of pro-Israel, pro-cannabis and LGBT issues and consistently works across the political spectrum to ensure he’s advocating effectively on behalf of each of these communities.”

But a tipping point for a lot of Out staff came once being regularly paid for their work was no longer a certainty.

A number of sources told WWD that issues with being paid are something of an editorial legacy at Out, but it started to really affect the staff earlier this year after Oreva came in and put in place new ceo Nathan Coyle. One of his first moves was to end a system at Out that had been in place since at least 2012, wherein editorial employees were paid not by then-parent company Here Publishing, like noneditorial staff, but through a separate company, Grand Editorial, owned and operated by former editor in chief Aaron Hicklin (he left over the summer, too).

Hicklin, however, says little over a year ago he sold Grand to McCarthy Media, owned and operated by Evanly Schindler, best known for his other media operation BlackBook. Terms of the sale included McCarthy taking over Grand, and its set-up with Out, by paying 40 percent upfront then working to take over the remaining portion in installments, tied to a consultant arrangement with Hicklin. According to Hicklin, he stopped receiving payments for the rest of Grand, in part because McCarthy was not getting expected funding from Pride to create and run Out. Grand was formally dissolved earlier this year.

Hicklin said that he became “alarmed” when in June the lack of payment started trickling down, which he says continued over a number of payment cycles and through his July resignation. “It became harder and harder [to be at Out]… and I could see that my staff had lost confidence.”

Observers speculated that this oddly bifurcated system of payment, which started with Grand and continued under McCarthy and Pride, for a time, began because it allowed Hicklin production autonomy and the platform to take on outside projects while giving Here owner Paul Colichman an easy way to cut and regulate costs, because it offered editorial staff no benefits or even full-time employment status. Essentially, Here outsourced the creation (in print and online) of its largest property directly to the editor in chief, along with all of the operational responsibilities, for a flat fee.

Coyle admitted to WWD that one of his first goals, after getting Picardi on board to be “the new, next face of Out,” was to end the relationship that began with Grand and continued with McCarthy and bring all operations back in-house. “It was a total ‘black box’ business relationship,” Coyle said, and one that made him concerned as soon as he realized he’d “inherited” it.

“When I’m running a business, I want insight into what’s happening in the various corners because those have implications for what we’re doing and how it’s perceived,” Coyle said.

He’s since terminated the relationship and it is set to fully dissolve by mid-November. Coyle reiterated a number of times that he inherited the operations and has been working to normalize things, but also that he had little to no insight at Out for many months given the Grand Editorial/McCarthy arrangement.

Still, Coyle said he was “surprised” to hear that any employees had grown frustrated with a lack of transparency after Oreva’s acquisition and said he’d told some employees directly of his plans to bring everything under Pride.

But now Pride seems to be having some cash-flow problems of its own. When the appointment of Picardi (whom Coyle had worked with previously at Refinery 29 and began courting as soon as he became ceo in spring) was revealed in late August as Hicklin’s successor at Out, contributor Michael Musto wrote on Facebook that Picardi was trading one “troubled” publisher, Condé Nast where he led Teen Vogue, for another “problematic” publication. “I will help you try and get paid, if you need me,” Musto wrote. A spokesman for Pride blamed any issues with payment on the Grand Editorial/McCarthy situation, and said speculation that Pride is experiencing significant cash flow problems is not an accurate reflection of the company right now.

But Musto is just one of many freelancers who have had to fight to get paid, sources said. Even those working solely for Out (people who would normally be considered staff editors, writers and photographers, but for the arrangement started under Grand), before the many summer departures, were being paid via PayPal, and often late at that. More recently, Pride is said to have missed its third-quarter financial goals, after meeting first-quarter goals and exceeding in the second. And Joe Landry, group publisher of Out, Advocate and related assets since 1994 and an executive vice president at Pride, was recently let go. While Pride is on the hunt for a chief financial officer, which it’s been without since June, it just brought on Orlando Reece as chief revenue officer, a first for the company.

Possibly in an attempt to bridge the gap between a major turnover in staff and a public filing, it seems that Pride, while only a year into its existence, has taken on another outside investor in Fisher Capital, operated by the billionaire Kenneth Fisher. The firm recently added the company to its list of investments without disclosing the amount of its stake and Pride declined to comment. Pride is also working to expand and diversify its revenue and reader base. This month launched an in-house branding agency, a money-maker for a number of media companies, along with Chill, a print and online outlet for “urban Millennials” that live “label-free.”

Coyle noted that “a digital push and really unleashing these brands in a stronger way in their digital manifestation is a huge priority” at Pride right now, and Picardi’s digital savvy is a big part of why he got the job at Out. As for Out’s print future, Coyle said it “may go on successfully for another five years,” but that its digital product is the focus. Revenue from digital operations at Pride as a whole is said to be up 9 percent year-over-year.

When Pride will be in a position to pursue a public filing, which sources insist is Oreva’s plan, is unclear. If going public doesn’t happen, a source speculated that the company could perhaps be sold again, marking the sixth time the properties will have changed hands in the last 20 years. The idea that Out or the Advocate would simply close was dismissed out of hand.

For now, however, it’s about getting Pride on solid financial ground, which at this point isn’t an easy thing and could become even harder if High Times’ public filing stumbles, which could leave Oreva, Pride’s majority stakeholder, in a tougher financial position.

As for Picardi, he’s said to be coming into Out mainly to shift the title to a digital-first publication from the print-focused one it has been. It’s also said that the prospect of getting in on the ground floor of a soon-to-be public enterprise is part of what drew Picardi away from Condé, where he was a favorite.

Editors note: This article was briefly amended after it’s initial publication.

Out Magazine, Pride Media Rife With Challenges for New Editor

 

[axiomatic]

Didn't know CN had this

https://nypost.com/2018/10/18/plug-pulled-on-lena-dunhams-lenny-letter-website/

Plug pulled on Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter website
By Alexandra Steigrad and Keith J. Kelly
2-3 minutes
October 18, 2018 | 12:54pm | Updated October 18, 2018 | 1:35pm

Lena Dunham’s feminist-leaning site, the Lenny Letter, is shutting down.

The website from the co-creator of HBO’s “Girls,” which blasted twice-a-week emails with articles on women’s topics, will cease operations on Friday, The Post has learned.

A rep for Dunham did not respond to requests for comment.

Rumblings of Lenny’s closure began to trickle out earlier this week when freelance writers were notified by editors that they would receive “kill fees,” or compensation for written works that haven’t been published.

The newsletter had always struggled for ad support, according to industry sources, and a series of controversies hasn’t helped. Last November, Dunham caught flak when she defended former “Girls” writer Murray Miller after an actress accused him of sexually assaulting her in 2012.

Lenny Letter’s readership has plunged precipitously since July 2017, sources said, when it reportedly had 500,000 subscribers, with nearly half of them still opening its newsletters.

Launched in 2015, Lenny Letter was the brainchild of Dunham and Jenni Konner, her co-creator for the “Girls” series. In its early days, it generated buzz with articles penned by stars like Jennifer Lawrence, who wrote about the gender wage gap in Hollywood, and Alicia Keys, who talked about her decision to start wearing little to no makeup.

Months after its launch, Dunham and Konner inked a deal with Hearst Digital Media to handle advertising sales for the newsletter. At the time, sources at Hearst had expressed frustration about its inability to drum up meaningful revenue.

Late last year, rival magazine publisher Condé Nast poached Lenny from Hearst to sell ads, and potentially distribute content across its various websites. That deal was said to take effect in 2018.

Condé declined to comment.

 

[axiomatic]

Joanna Coles, the veteran magazine editor and former chief content officer of Hearst Magazines, is coming aboard “CBS This Morning” as a creative adviser.

CBS News President David Rhodes announced the news to staffers Thursday. Coles’ role will be part time.

“Initially, Joanna will be engaged with the CBS This Morning team and will weigh in on other strategic opportunities. We love the journalism that CTM is doing, we believe in the people doing it—and we want Joanna’s perspective and experience to help us engage new audiences everywhere around that work,” Rhodes told staffers in a memo.

Coles joins as “CBS This Morning” has hit a plateau in the ratings. While the show has been a success at CBS, which had not been able to mount a competitive morning-news program for years, it has – like rivals “Today” and “Good Morning America” – suffered ratings shortfalls in the most recent TV season. Nonetheless, the program generated its second-highest ratings during the period. CBS News recently added anchor Bianna Golodryga as a fourth co-host of the morning program, joining Norah O’Donnell, John Dickerson and Gayle King.



Until this summer Coles was editor and chief content officer of Hearst Magazines, overseeing more than 300 publications worldwide. She was previously editor of Cosmopolitan and of Marie Claire, and has been a producer on two different cable series, “So Cosmo” and “The Bold Type.” She is also on the board of directors of Snap Inc.

“She also brings a sharp sense of humor and a habitual viewer’s perspective to our daily experience of news coverage in this extraordinary climate, ” Rhodes said in the memo.

Joanna Coles, Hearst Magazines Veteran, Joins CBS News (EXCLUSIVE)

 

[dodencebt]

I find it extremely interesting how top editors are moving from magazines to networks and social media companies. The reality is that magazines don't seem to pay well anymore, and without the creative freedom I guess it doesn't even matter whether you work at Vogue or at Snapchat; it's all about the business side and boosting clicks and sales now.

 

[Benn98]

Didn't know CN had this

Yet another blight for CN. Everything they touch seems to turn into stone.

 

[GivenchyAddict]

I find it extremely interesting how top editors are moving from magazines to networks and social media companies. The reality is that magazines don't seem to pay well anymore, and without the creative freedom I guess it doesn't even matter whether you work at Vogue or at Snapchat; it's all about the business side and boosting clicks and sales now.

True. Magazines do not have budget anymore. I mean they have but not for good and interesting projects. Plus working at a magazine is speaking to an audience. People are more in front of their TV or smartphones than reading magazines. It is just a different and interesting way to use experiences as an Editor for networks and social media companies.

All jobs which used to be related to magazines are changing. Stylist's job scope is very different. I notice how I was just working on magazines and shows years ago but now dealing with creative direction, e-commerce, casting, a bit of Art direction, videos, etc.

More money, more interesting and with fashion landscape - especially the boring collections delivered by brands, it is refreshing to do styling in a different way.

 

[caioherrero]

Silvia Rogar is leaving Vogue Brasil. The new editor in chief is Paula Merlo from Glamour

 

[Benn98]

Well, I suppose it's safe to assume Edward won't be getting one of Lucinda's handcrafted Christmas cards this year!

At home with Lucinda Chambers: ‘The way I left Vogue could have been more elegant’

The former fashion director on her eclectic style, the myth of age-appropriate dressing – and life after burning bridges

Jess Cartner-Morley
Fri 5 Oct 2018 12.00 BST

Lucinda Chambers has the kind of style you just can’t buy. That illusive je ne sais quoi that’s eye-catching without being attention-seeking. See today’s sparkly, dangly earrings worn with her fine blond hair twisted into a perfectly imperfect messy bun. She can make an outfit that sounds chaotic on paper (say, a pleat skirt with a bright print blouse, ribbed socks, chunky pool slider shoes) look a match made in heaven, and make perfectly ordinary pieces (a man’s white shirt and black trousers) look exquisite by dint of a just-so sleeve roll and the ideal number of buttons undone.

The house where she has lived in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, for 30 years is the same. Grand and yet slightly scruffy, it has one room painted pink and another yellow, and yet, somehow, an air of quiet harmony. My visit falls on one of the last warm, sunny mornings of the great summer of 2018 and Chambers has the doors open from her kitchen (garden flowers on the wooden table, seating nooks patchworked with cushions, holiday postcards cheek by jowl with classic photography) on to a veranda, white wooden boards foxed and flecked with age, where wicker chairs look on to a long, green garden. An antique silver candelabra with neon-yellow candles sits in front of a faded curtain of rose and white ticking stripe fabric.

It is slightly bonkers, but surprisingly peaceful. From indoors comes the sound of the tongue-and-groove panelled doors of the many kitchen cupboards banging as Chambers hunts for the cafetiere. She eventually locates it after a phone call to her husband on his mobile upstairs, and brings coffee along with plates of pastries, pushing a huge vase of cut hydrangeas to one side.

For two decades until last summer, it was this idiosyncratic taste for which Chambers was known, as fashion director of British Vogue and consultant at Marni and Prada. And then, in July 2017, two months after her departure from Vogue had been announced, as part of a slew of masthead changes accompanying the change in editor from Alexandra Shulman to Edward Enninful, a bracingly candid interview given to the little-known online journal Vestoj went viral. In it, Chambers burned bridges with the new Vogue regime by describing an unceremonious sacking by Enninful, claiming she “hadn’t read Vogue in years”, describing some of the clothes featured in the magazine as “ridiculously expensive” and a cover image styled by her of Alexa Chung in a “stupid” Michael Kors T-shirt as “crap”, rubbing salt into the wound by explaining “he’s a big advertiser so I knew why I had to do it”.

A year later, Chambers is still reluctant to discuss the interview and the “nightmarish” summer that followed. All she will say is: “Not that I didn’t say those things, but the manner in which I said them was taken entirely out of context.” Reading between the lines, one guesses at a chat in which a story she was playing for laughs was then transcribed as a no-holds-barred exit interview. “Actually, I always understood that [my departure] was healthy and necessary for Vogue. Change is good. [But] the way it happened could have been a lot more elegant.” In the aftermath, she was mortified not just at having burned bridges, but at having offended long-standing friends. “The worst thing was that I hurt two people I love. Michael [Kors], and Alex [Shulman, the previous editor].” Are they reconciled? “Oh goodness, yes. Thank God.”

Amid the changing of the guard at Vogue, Chambers was cast as part of the posh, white fashion establishment being dislodged by the new regime. Despite the accent (old-fashioned cut-glass) and being called Lucinda, Chambers does not, in fact, come from money and did not land at Vogue through connections. She inherited her flair for interiors from her mother, a single parent for most of Chambers’ childhood who funded family life by buying houses, doing them up and selling them on.

“Literally doing them up – I mean, physically. My mother could knock down walls and rebuild them. [When I was] a child, we moved every 18 months. Although always on page 58 of the A-Z.” In the interview for her first job at Vogue, as a secretary, she was asked, “And who do you know here?” The answer – no one – was unusual at the time, but Chambers got the job. Has that attitude moved on? “Oh my God, 100%. That was one of the first things that I actively sought to change when I became fashion director. I couldn’t see another CV with ‘godchild of so-and-so’ on it. It just wasn’t interesting.” Diversity, she says, “did not start with Edward Enninful becoming editor of Vogue. It started a long time ago. But the pace has definitely picked up.

Two photographers with whom Chambers often worked at Vogue, Mario Testino and Patrick Demarchelier, have since been accused of sexual misconduct, which they have denied. Chambers says she never witnessed any wrongdoing by either man. “I ran a tight ship on my shoots. I don’t think people would have dared. Only once in my career have I seen a photographer behave toward a model in a way that I considered unacceptable. I stopped the shoot and never worked with him again.”

By the end of Chambers’ time at Marni, her role had expanded so that she was one of the designers – “there wasn’t a button or a fabric I hadn’t brought to the table” – and soon after leaving Vogue she became a designer officially. Two former designers with whom she had collaborated at Marni, Molly Molloy and Kristin Forss, approached her with an idea for a new label. Colville, in which the three share creative and business responsibility, launched earlier this year, making the kind of colourful, textured, timelessly esoteric pieces that transformed Marni from an obscure fur house into a cult label.

“I am not sure I would ever have left Vogue if what happened hadn’t happened. Now that I’ve got the distance of a year, I can see how a situation that was a bit messy propelled me from a job I loved into something much more exciting. Three women starting a company together as a kind of collective – it feels very right, very much of our time.” In addition to Colville, a second project – a new digital platform – is in the pipeline.

So, a scrape that might have made Chambers fall out of love with fashion renewed her passion for the industry. “When you’ve been in a job for 20 years, you think you’ve identified who the good guys are. But you never know who will be there when you’re not, you know, Lucinda From Vogue. It has been wonderful to find out that, actually, they were all still there.”

One of the first people to pick up the phone during the fallout was Anna Wintour, who commissioned Chambers to shoot Pharrell Williams for last December’s cover of American Vogue. Michael Kors – whose T-shirt Chambers had disparaged – offered a very public olive branch by inviting her to his New York fashion week show, where she was given a prime front-row seat. “What was amazing, after the shock, was the support,” she says now. “You don’t assume that it will be there. It was quite overwhelming, actually.”

At 58, Chambers doesn’t believe in age-appropriate dressing. “I don’t think anyone should ‘dress their age’, whatever that even means. Not in terms of putting a ringfence about what you are allowed to wear. But on the other hand, being stylish is about being at ease with who you are, not trying to be something you’re not. Comfort, to me, is underrated. Carine Roitfeld [the former editor of French Vogue] looks incredible, but I would never dress the way she does, because it doesn’t look comfortable. Her skirts are so tight, her shoes are so high.”

The newest member of Chambers’ household is Tig, a jointed wooden mannequin bought on eBay. Today she is wearing a trench by & Other Stories over a zip-up knit by Zara. (As styled by Chambers, I took the look for Celine.) Dressing herself, dressing Tig, dressing her house, “it all comes from the same place,” she says. “I do it to give myself pleasure, and what gives me pleasure is fabric and colour and texture and pattern.” Ideas can come from anywhere. Today, she’s ruminating over rolls of yellow, blue and red electrical tape that she spotted on a shelf in the post office. “Those colours… I know they will turn up in something I do, although I don’t know yet what form it will be. I don’t think I’m a particularly original person. I get my ideas from the world around me. You have to be on receive mode all the time, that’s the thing. And if you like something, if it makes you happy, then you go for it.”

Source: Theguardian.com

 

[Benn98]

Also, can someone tell Alexandra to STOP with her blatant M&S plugs!?! It's embarrassing for a 'former editor of Vogue.'

 

[tigerrouge]

That said, if she's in the pay of the Daily Mail - and by extension, whatever PR arrangement they've currently got with M&S - Alexandra will never be scraping around for freelance work. There's a lot to be said for living a boring life but being able to pay your bills.

No doubt there will be plenty more articles to come about 'key pieces' from M&S (and pictures of David Gandy in his underwear).

 

[Benn98]

Vogue Paris Magazine Sales for 2018 so far:

February - Kaia Gerber - 99,941
March - Grace Elizabeth - 93,508
April - Alma Jodorowsky - 101,737
May - Anna Ewers - 86,562
June/July - Edie Campbell - 139,993

Their sales have taken a knock from last year, drastically! No wonder Alt is changing her direction. Anna Ewers, who normally performs well for VP, delivered the weakest numbers for them in some years. Even weaker than Rianne and Valentina last year. Knowing how much Alt fixate on her numbers, doubt we'll be seeing her on the cover anytime soon. I am however surprised at Grace Elizabeth's low numbers for March......

Glad for Edie, whose numbers came in close to Gisele's 145K from last year!

 

[tigerrouge]

I wonder if we'll see more multi-covers again soon, given that Edie's cover was glorious, but it also came in two versions...

 

[Benn98]

I wonder if we'll see more multi-covers again soon, given that Edie's cover was glorious, but it also came in two versions...

And shortly thereafter we saw Kate, Naomi and Christy for September. We don't have the sales for that yet, but maybe Edie's cover inspired Alt to go that route.

 

[AD011620]

Let’s not forget Eddie’s cover was on newstands for a month longer than the other ones...

 

[Benn98]

Let’s not forget Eddie’s cover was on newstands for a month longer than the other ones...

That's why Edie's figure was compared against last year's June/July cover featuring Gisele, which turned approx 145K.

June/July covers are not expected to turn twice the amount of an average month, because June is for most editions a quiet month. Same applies to January. The fact that some editions still do January or June issues must be due to their advertising strategy. American Vogue's January and June issues are impossibly thin, I can see them cutting one or both down soon. That's certainly not the case with British or Italian Vogue, however. And Australia and China won't need to worry about that anytime soon.

 

[Valentine27]

Let’s not forget Eddie’s cover was on newstands for a month longer than the other ones...

And that it's a cheaper price than the regular issue. The June/July cover costs 2,95€.

 

[GreyVetiver]

Really surprised to see how low the number is for Anna's May issue. That was one of my favourite covers by VP this year. Perhaps May is usually an issue that doesn't perform so well?

 

[Benn98]

Really surprised to see how low the number is for Anna's May issue. That was one of my favourite covers by VP this year. Perhaps May is usually an issue that doesn't perform so well?

I didn't like it at all personally. I thought she looked like a traveller. But then I've not been impressed with Anna's work for some time now.

May 2016 was 105k, and 100k for 2017. At best hers should've been somewhere in the region of 95-ish, even more considering she's such a best seller for the magazine. But the tide appears to have turned and I reckon her number is up.

 

[Morgane07]

Vogue Paris Magazine Sales for 2018 so far:

February - Kaia Gerber - 99,941
March - Grace Elizabeth - 93,508
April - Alma Jodorowsky - 101,737
May - Anna Ewers - 86,562
June/July - Edie Campbell - 139,993

Their sales have taken a knock from last year, drastically! No wonder Alt is changing her direction. Anna Ewers, who normally performs well for VP, delivered the weakest numbers for them in some years. Even weaker than Rianne and Valentina last year. Knowing how much Alt fixate on her numbers, doubt we'll be seeing her on the cover anytime soon. I am however surprised at Grace Elizabeth's low numbers for March......

Glad for Edie, whose numbers came in close to Gisele's 145K from last year!

Which websites can we use to find out the number of copies of magazines sold if you don't mind me asking you? It's something I've always been very interested in finding out but I've never been able to find a website/source.
I'd be particularly interested in seeing how better nepo models or celebs' kids do in terms of sales compared to the others, or which pop stars or actresses tend to do well and which tend to underperform.