FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

President Barack Obama has been a boon for more than just Time magazine.

Johnson Publishing’s Ebony said that its January issue featuring Obama recorded the highest single copy sales in the magazine’s 67-year history. To be exact, it sold 405,000 copies off the newsstand—or more than double an average January issue.

Time said newsstand sales for its commemorative election issue and Person of the Year issue shattered the magazine’s own single copy sales records. The November 17 election issue sold an estimated 575,000 single copies—or nearly five times as ma More...

Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell won’t be reading Glamour, People or any other magazine for that matter, on her lunch breaks anymore.

As part of a wide-ranging plan to save taxpayers $21.3 million for the fiscal year that ends June 30, Rell is canceling a number of state contracts for goods and services—including magazine subscriptions.

“Services such as car washes, giveaways like magnets and pens, niceties like magazine subscriptions and luxuries such as new office furniture are simply not affordable at a time when our budget shortfall grows every day and taxpayers are wondering how they will make their own paychecks More...

UPDATE: Anderson Files Antitrust Lawsuit

The Web site is down. E-mails and phone calls have not been returned. There may not be a business anymore.

On Saturday, Anderson News, the magazine wholesaler, announced it was suspending “normal business activity,” but would “continue to hold discussions with publishers and retailers, trying to develop a viable model that allows it to remain in business.” On a pre-recorded conference call, CEO Charlie Anderson infor More...

Get your proverbial crystal ball—and your pocketbook—ready.

In a press release issued today, Michael Alcamo, president of a New York City-based investment banking firm, boldly predicted that there is a “95 percent chance” the economic recession will end on or before June 1. Alcamo based the prediction on evaluations he conducted of empirical data collected by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“The NBER data show that we have had 11 recessions since World War II, and that the average post-war recession lasted 10.3 months,” Alcamo said in the release. “This recession may be different in character and caus More...

Kent Brownridge’s tenure as general manager of the U.S. edition of OK! was as tumultuous as it was short-lived. Not long after joining the celebrity weekly, Brownridge [pictured] fired publisher Tom Morrissy, hired a new head of public relations and named former Quick & Simple editor Susan Toepfer to replace founding editor Sarah Ivens, who announced she was leaving the magazine.

But OK! endured the same economic downturn that punished the entire magazine industry, and London-based publisher Northern & Shell last month decided to cut its losses and ousted Brownridge (as well as Toepfer) after only four months on the job. More...

Celebrity escapism isn't enough to save magazines anymore.

Bauer's celebrity magazines In Touch Weekly and Life & Style took some of the most severe hits at newsstands in the second half of 2008.

Newsstand sales at In Touch were 834,492, plummeting 32 percent from 1.23 million during the same period in 2007, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations’ FAS-FAX report released today. Single copy sales of Life & Style fell 31.3 percent to 461,969, down from 672,463 during the second half of 2007.

It should be noted, though, that In Touch and Life & Style both upped cover prices by 50 percent, from $1.99 to More...

Earlier this week, FOLIO: reported that Doubledown Media, the publisher of magazines aimed at the Wall Street elite, has ceased operations. This morning, as I was scanning the newsstand, I came across a couple remnants of the once-rising enterprise—and was seeing double. Literally.

Side-by-side, the November/December issue of Doubledown’s Trader Monthly and the December/January issue of Dealmaker are nearly identical. The cover subjects—Dean Smith and Wray Thorn, respectively—are posed and photographed the same way. The coverlines are near mirror images of each other.

Flipping thr More...

Layoffs are always difficult—certainly for those losing their jobs, also (sometimes) for those who are wielding the axe.

Chicago-based Johnson Publishing came up with a clever spin on announcing them.

Yesterday, a Johnson spokesperson assured me no layoffs are associated with its “multi-phased” reorganization.  Current employees, however, are “eligible to be considered for new positions.” The spokesperson declined to offer specifics about the new staffing plan other than to say Johnson expects to “see a net gain” in employee head count as a result.

Translated, Johnson employees will find out later, n More...

Another shelter magazine bit the dust yesterday as Condé Nast announced plans to pull the plug on Domino and dominomag.com.

Recently, other magazines in this category have met a similar fate, with Meredith closing Country Home earlier this month and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia folding Blueprint at the beginning of last year.

The shelter category is suffering a pair of blows: the ill effects of the overall down economy, paired with the downfall of the housing market.

Despite all the turmoil, however, the shelter magazine category isn’t going away, s More...

As the saying goes: Ask and ye shall receive.

This, however, was a bit extreme.

When AARP member Tony Thomas first noticed he wasn’t receiving his copies of AARP Bulletin, the organization’s bimonthly news publication, he called to complain. That was 2007. After 18 months, and five phone calls, he still wasn’t getting the magazine.

That changed December 6 when the Post Office delivered not one but 1,000 copies of the January/February issue. “I called [AARP] back and said, ‘Thanks for the copy. I received it. What do you want me to do with the other 999,’” Thomas More...

Looking back at Macrovision’s $2.8 billion cash and stock merger with Gemstar/TV Guide last April, and its recent divestments of the print edition and online networks, some questions came to mind.

What was Macrovision’s thinking when they bought Gemstar and has their strategy changed, if at all, since the purchase? What are they left with after the divestment of the print magazine and online network?

Do the divestments justify what they paid?

Earlier this month, the Santa Clara, California-based digital software solutions firm More...

Sort of an ironic cover.

Masthead, a magazine that for more than two decades covered the Canadian magazine industry, said this fall the November/December issue would be its last (as of last month, the Web site will continue).  The big cover line for the final, collector’s edition?

Long Live Magazines.

It’s sad that Masthead, like so many other magazines, is closing down its print edition to exist only online. Although difficult, we see though that launching and publishin More...