FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

The number of outrageously poor digital alterations on magazine covers just grew by one.

The latest: Demi Moore on W’s December cover. As Boing Boing reported earlier this week, Moore's left hip was cropped in order to make it appear thinner, which had potential to be a deft move had the bottom half of her leg not remained the original size. Moore’s one thin hip makes the rest of her leg bulge below the sarong.

But it appears to go beyond the hip snafu. Look at Moore on the cover [pictured]. She looks like a starving actress—like she hasn’t More...

It seems like each digital platform has had its moment in the sun as the next new savior of print magazines—Web sites, PDFs, mobile, digital editions and e-readers. But based on a 2009 Forrester Research study released last week, called “Publishers Need Multichannel Subscription Models,” which surveyed 4,711 U.S. consumers during the third quarter (and is part of their “Media Meltdown” series), no one delivery method reigns supreme among consumers.

When asked, “If the publications you read were no longer available in print, how would you prefer to access that content,” responses showed that no single channel dominates. Thirty-seven percent of consumers said they’d prefer to access content on a Web site, while smal More...

Hachette Filipacchi announced Monday that Metropolitan Home will shut down after its December issue, adding to the already-substantial list of ceased shelter pubs this year. But despite a tough '09 for the sector, recent data reports that home magazines have still seen top growth over the past five years, meaning the number of individual titles has actually grown.

According to the 2010 National Directory of Magazines, which tracks data for 17,020 North American pubs that accept advertising, home titles have seen More...

Here at FOLIO:, we receive a sizable number of magazines in our mailboxes every day. Needless to say, we notice when a title touts a particularly interesting, out-of-the-box concept. So when Latina, a women’s service title geared toward young, bilingual women, scrapped its typical cover model concept and debuted two poster-quality, Viva Mexico covers, it didn’t go unnoticed by us—or new advertisers.

“This beautiful country is not all H1N1, drug wars and violence. Mexico is so much more and this issue serves as a reminder,” said Mimi Valdés Ryan, Latina’s editorial More...

I don’t think anyone doubted that the throng of semi-nude athletes appearing in (and on the cover of) ESPN The Magazine’s “Body Issue,” which hit newsstands October 9, would raise some eyebrows, and maybe help turn a few pages among the title's readership.

The better question was how ESPN would capitalize on all the attention. At the Magazine Publishers of America’s Innovation Summit Thursday, ESPN Publishing’s general manager and editorial director Gary Hoenig shed a little light on the results. While newsstand numbers haven’t been counted, he said More...

Once again, the number of magazine closings has outpaced the number of titles being launched, according to the latest report from U.S. and Canadian online magazine database MediaFinder.com. But when comparing the number of titles (383) folded through the third quarter of 2009 to the same time period in 2008 and 2007, the pace is significantly less.

According to MediaFinder's most up-to-date numbers, 643 magazines ceased publication in 2007, and a total of 613 magazines closed in 2008. Right now, that means we’re 230 titles off from last year’s total. So unless there’s a dramatic push in closings through the fourth quarter, it looks like the industry may be looking at fewer magazine c More...

Last night at NYC’s ilili restaurant, several top senior-level female editors met for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres in a scaled back version of Mediabistro’s long-running "Dinner & Discourse" event. Comedian, writer and radio talk show host Sara Benincasa moderated the discussion, where five senior-level female editors—ContentNext’s Caroline Little, Lonny magazine’s Michelle Adams, Newser’s Caroline Miller, Glam Media’s Jennifer Salant and Hearst Magazine’s Nicole Stagg (founding editor of Hearst’s new RealBeauty.com) weighed in on the future of digital strategy and online content development.

According to the editors, one of the most egregious mistakes that publishers can make online is offering dig More...

Do athletes need to be nude these days in order to sell sports magazines on the newsstand?

ESPN The Magazine’s first “Body Issue” will hit newsstands on October 9, featuring more than 30 male and female athletes posing nude or semi-nude. Already, it’s raised some eyebrows—enough, in fact, that the magazine decided to host a media conference call this afternoon.

On hand during the call were editor-in-chief Gary Belsky, editorial director and general manger Gary Hoenig, executive editor Sue Hovey, as well as USA Softball’s Jessica Mendoza, one of the issue’s athlete-models. The editors said the issue was meant as a “phot More...

Us Weekly editors have reached across the fashion/celebrity magazine divide to report Vogue’s high pharaoh of fashion, Anna Wintour, in to—wait, yes—the Fashion Police.

Fashion Police, one of Us Weekly’s departments where comedians and fashion experts weigh in on celebrity outfits with witty and usually scathing commentary, has also made its mark on UsMagazine.com as an interactive slideshow that allows its readers to be the judges. This time, readers’ crosshairs were targeted at Wintour, More...

It’s no shock that TNS Media Intelligence’s U.S. Advertising Expenditures report, which was released Wednesday, showed print media continuing to see ad page rollbacks: specifically, a 20.9 percent total decline. Among the publishing sectors hardest hit were Spanish Language Magazines (-27.3 percent) and B-to-B (-26.7 percent), with Consumer Magazines faring better (or, less badly?) at 20.1 percent.

Despite another round of bleak numbers for the industry, one bright spot is that this data reports that global advertisers are still spending in print.

TNS Media Intelligence told FOLIO: that Procter & Gamble ranked number one among advertisers devoting the most advertising dollars to magazines in the first half of 200 More...

For its October issue, Self is doing something that it hasn’t attempted in over a decade, and Shape and Good Housekeeping are of the few to recently execute it: putting multiple models on a single cover.

Shooting two or more models for a cover is hardly a “radical” move when you consider the new publishing, mobile and Web technologies launching every day; however, it presents challenges when it comes to good use of cover real estate.

Despite a long history of executing “triples”—covers with three models� More...

Ailing economy? Down housing market? One might not recall such conditions looking at how some magazine publishers are locking up plush Manhattan residences for events and brand extension initiatives.

Again this fall, Hearst is planning its annual Esquire “Ultimate Bachelor Pad” in Soho, featuring a 9,200-square-foot, glass-walled penthouse at Soho Mews, with an opening gala set for September 21 to celebrate the New York Film Festival.

The price tag for the penthouse? According to nyc BLOG estate site, Soho Mews' rentals range from $7, More...