Folio: Wire | 3.29.07

Meredith to Publish Child Online Only
Meredith Corp. becomes the third publisher this week to announce the closing of a print publication. The company said today Child magazine will stop publishing with its June/July issue and become an online-only publication. Sixty jobs will be cut as a result of the closure.

Child's online brand will reside in Meredith's "parenthood" portal, which will launch in July and feature content from the company's parenthood brands including Parents, American Baby, Family Circle and Child.

Time Inc. to Close Life
Life, the once iconic picture magazine, will close and become a Web-only product, the magazine's parent company Time Inc. said Monday. The company is in the process of digitizing the magazine's 12 million photos and 2,200 issues, said Time Inc.'s executive vice president John Squires, speaking to members of the media at a digital press event held at the Time & Life Building in New York. "We are extremely excited about the future of Life and we are going to continue to grow this great brand," he said.

Squires said the magazine, which became a newspaper insert in 2004, has been suffering from "pretty significant" print advertising problems. "It's a very sad day for our colleagues over at Life," he said. "And we're going to do everything we can to place those people in other parts of our business."

Time is laying off 15 editorial workers and 27 in its business department in connection with the shutdown, spokeswoman Dawn Bridges told Reuters. For more on the closing of Life, click here.

American Heart Association Launches New Magazine
The American Heart Association, publisher of six scientific journals, launched Heart Insight along with publishing partner Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Heart Insight will target heart patients, families and caregivers and will launch later this month as a quarterly magazine distributed through 10,000 cardiologists' offices and other healthcare providers.

Wasserstein Explores "Strategic Alternatives" for ALM
Wasserstein & Co. announced today that it has retained Credit Suisse to "explore strategic alternatives," including a sale, for ALM, a New York City-based publisher specializing in the legal industry.

The move comes shortly after Wasserstein merged Prism Business Media (formerly Primedia Business) with Penton Media in January. Wasserstein bought Primedia in August 2005 for $385 million, and teamed with MidOcean Partners to buy Penton for $530 million in late 2006, making it one of the largest b-to-b publishing owners. In addition to ALM, Wasserstein also owns The Deal.

With more than $200 million in estimated revenue, ALM has been a solid performer. The company publishes 34 national and regional magazines and expanded beyond the legal market with the acquisition of Real Estate Media in 2005.

VSS Invests in MediZine
Private equity investor Veronis Suhler Stevenson has made a signfiicant investment of MediZine, LLC, a provider of patient education health and wellness magazines distributed in doctors' offices and pharmacies and through direct mail. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. VSS will partner with the founders and management team to grow the company both organically and through acquisitions.

IDG to Shutter InfoWorld Print Publication, Keep Web Site
IDG said Monday that it plans to morph InfoWorld into a Web-only publication. A spokesman said that April 2 will be the last print issue of the magazine. Following that, the publication will be "100 percent online and events" focused.

Paidcontent.org reported Monday that few layoffs are expected from the closure. The b-to-b publication has long-provided coverage and analysis to help IT professionals evaluate their buying decisions.

Although news of the closure was causing quite the stir in the blogosphere, it's hardly surprising. Numerous consumer publishers including Hachette Filipacchi and Time Inc. have transitioned print publications into online-only properties in the past year. And b-to-b publishers have done the same. Technology publisher CMP has, for more than a year, been quietly transforming itself through print closures, which include the shuttering of IT Architect, Secure Enterprise, Software Development and C/C++ Users Journal, and through the expansion of its IT and event offerings.

AEXP Partners with CNN
American Express Publishing title Travel + Leisure has partnered with CNN Headline News and CNN.com to produce the 2007 America's Favorite Cities survey, a multimedia integrated program that will include online, in-book and broadcast components.

The survey, which begins April 30, will be accessible on both the magazine's Web site and on CNN.com. Travel + Leisure editors will also be profiling the cities on CNN Headline News program Robin & Company. Once voting ends July 15, the magazine's editors will appear on CNN Headline News periodically to discuss preliminary survey findings, trends, and user-generated comments on the early results. The survey results will be announced on October 10 on Robin & Company, online on both sites and in the pages of the November issue of the magazine.

Institutional Investor Redesigns
Institutional Investor's March issue reveals a new look that includes a more-image driven design featuring more photographs, illustrations and info-graphics. The redesign also includes the addition of new departments and expanded existing sections. Designer Tom Brown of Vancouver, Canada-based Tom Brown Art & Design assisted in the redesign. Brown has worked on the redesigns of major publications including Men's Journal, Field & Stream and Ski.

Ten Laid Off at Star
Ten staffers, including the executive editor, have been let go by American Media's Star magazine, Radaronline is reporting. For more, click here.

Departures Launches Russian Edition
American Express Publishing lux lifestyle title Departures will launch Departures Russia this month. The magazine, which is distributed exclusively to American Express Platinum Card and Centurion members, will be published by French media conglomerate Hachette Filipacchi Shkulev and is the 13th international edition of the magazine. Departures is already printed in the U.S., Japan, Germany, U.K., Russia, Sweden, Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy and Austria, and throughout the Middle East.

5280 Goes Green
Denver, Colorado-based regional magazine 5280 will begin printing on 30 percent post-consumer recycled paper starting with its April 2007 issue. Editor and publisher Daniel Brogan examined the magazine's environmental awareness status after publishing 5280's Green Guide in the March 2007 issue. The magazine had been published on 10 percent post-consumer recycled paper for more than a decade. The new paper stock is 100 percent Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.

American Profile Publisher Launches Music Label
Franklin, Tennessee-based Publishing Group of America (PGA) title American Profile, has partnered with music label group Sheridan Square Entertainment Inc. (SSE) to produce its own label music CDs. The company plans on marketing a minimum of four releases in 2007 through various retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target, and directly through American Profile.

The magazine will feature stories with accompanying music offers while SSE will create "American Profile Presents" music packages that coincide with the magazine content. SSE's retail distributor, KOCH Entertainment, will manage retail distribution and marketing of the CDs. PGA and SSE plan to share the revenues generated by both retail and direct response sales.

BusinessWeek.com Partners with SPIEGEL ONLINE
BusinessWeek has teamed up with German language Web site SPIEGEL ONLINE for an online content sharing partnership. BusinessWeek stories will now be available on the SPIEGEL channel and SPIEGEL ONLINE stories will be available on BusinessWeek.com's Europe Channel.

IEEE Spectrum Editor Wins Grand Neal Award
Glenn Zorpette, executive editor of IEEE Spectrum, won the Grand Neal Award at the 53rd annual Jesse H. Neal Awards presented Thursday at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Zorpette was chosen for his subject-related series of articles, "Re-engineering Iraq." Zorpette's series was one of 1,100 submissions for the Grand Neal.

The awards, presented by American Business Media, were given out in 12 categories during Thursday's ceremony. Click here for a complete listing of the 2007 Neal Award winners.

Click here to see photos from the ceremony.

Ocean Home Magazine Launches Web Site
Boston-based Ocean Home, which launched in the summer of 2006 has launched a companion Web site. The site features information targeting the oceanfront homeowner, buyer, and developer and will feature customized search functions; rich content including photos, floor plans and virtual tours; and additional content not found in the print edition.

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