FOLIO: Section Blogs by Consumer

Buyout Window Closes, Layoffs Loom at Time Inc.

Jason Fell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:34:13 -0500

Wednesday was the deadline for representatives of the Newspaper Guild to notify Time Inc. brass about how many staffers accepted buyout offers as the company looks to eliminate as many as 500 from its overall workforce.

Time Inc. is expected to begin slashing jobs as early as next week. The number of cuts will depend on how many volunteers stepped up for the buyout packages. I was told today by a company spokesperson, not unexpectedly, that Time Inc. won’t be disclosing the number of employees who accepted the buyouts.

The New York Post’s Keith Kelly has a relatively detailed outline of how the layoffs might play out: The publisher’s biggest magazines (Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money) could eliminate 90 editorial positions—as many as 40 possibly coming from Fortune.

During a recent earnings call, Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time Inc. parent Time Warner, said the company will incur a $100 million charge during the fourth quarter as it begins a restructuring of Time Inc., primarily in respect to its news group. He said the restructuring will be “more targeted” in comparison to the massive changes that were made this time last year, resulting in around 600 layoffs.

And about those layoffs last year: They were made department-by-department, instead of happening all at once as part of a collective announcement. News of more and more and more layoffs were unveiled in slow motion.

We saw the same thing happen this fall at Condé Nast. Following the closure of Gourmet, Cookie, Elegant Bride and Modern Bride, hundreds of layoffs happened, but were announced at a painfully slow pace, over several weeks. It must have been a killer for employee morale. (In fact, morale hit such an “all-time low” the company reportedly hired a crisis intervention expert.)

As Time Inc. gears up for its latest wave of job cuts, I hope, for the sake of its staffers, that the axe falls swiftly and that workers aren’t paralyzed, waiting for days and weeks for the final word about whether they will remain employed.

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Despite a Brutal Year, The Number of Shelter Magazines Grows

Vanessa Voltolina — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:05:52 -0500

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 top growth in titles of 167 percent. Since 2004, that’s an increase from 105 to 280 titles in the category. Real estate publications have also nearly doubled during this period.
The initial reaction, of course, is surprise, considering today’s news and the number of shelter titles that bit the dust earlier this year, including Domino, Western Interiors Design, Remodeled Chicagoland, and Florida Designers Review. PIB numbers confirm that the category is suffering on par with other sinking sectors (ad dollars decreased by 9.3 percent and 22.6 percent in Q3 since the same period last year).
Even home and interior design category leaders like Dwell and Hearst’s House Beautiful have been hit hard. Dwell saw ad dollars plummet 43.4 percent and ad pages decrease 46.4 percent in the first half of '09 versus the same period last year. House Beautiful didn't fare much better in the first half: ad dollars declined 21.8 percent and ad pages experienced a 26.1 percent loss from first half 2008, according to PIB figures.
Ugly numbers aside, the category has also seen its share of launches this year, including a stable of Reader’s Digest “Family Handyman” titles, Cottages & Cabins, Modern, DG Commercial, Great Kitchen and Bath Ideas, Designer’s Choice, Today’s Home Improvement, SOHODESIGN and Lonny Magazine.
Back in January, Kate Kelly Smith, vice president and publisher of House Beautiful told FOLIO: that shelter magazines weren’t going away any time soon, but “category leaders” and those with a “diversified” business would better weather the storm. Almost a year later, Kelly Smith’s prediction is correct, according to the data. As home titles fold, others quickly pop up to take their places.
With the barrier of entry to launching new magazines still fairly low, it’s probably not that surprising so many new titles came into the shelter category. Who will remain five years from now is the bigger question.
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Latina’s ‘Viva Mexico’ Special Issue Debuts Custom Covers and Generates Additional Revenue, Advertisers

Vanessa Voltolina — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0400

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 director of the November 2009 issue which pays homage to Mexico. “Since this special issue is such a departure from our regular format, a celebrity cover model just didn’t feel right. If we used a Mexican celebrity instead, I don’t think it would have been as visually clear what the theme of the issue was. With these covers, there’s no mistaking what this issue is about.”
Latina’s design director Florian Bachleda decided upon two cover artists, Jesse Reyes and Rodrigo Corral, to compete for the cover, with the runner-up’s design going inside to open as the main Mexico feature. But Valdés Ryan was “blown away when they [the covers] came in, and couldn’t decide on which one should be the cover. To make matters more complicated, the staff was also evenly split,” she told FOLIO:.
The graphically strong concept covers look more like bright, authentic posters or newsweekly covers than that of a women’s service title covering health, beauty and lifestyle. Bachleda said that Reyes’cover, influenced by Mexican boxing and lucha libre (wrestling) posters, used “selected letterforms that are more than a century old and were in keeping with typestyles still being used in Mexico.” Corral, responsible for New York’s "Reasons to Love New York," among others, was a “no-brainer” for a Mexico issue designer, and pulled from traditional Ballet Folklorico dances as the graphic inspiration, Bachleda said.
Each of the drastically different cover approaches appealed to various types of readers, which was the reason Latina decided to keep both and do a split run of the covers for newsstand and subscribers.
Like many women’s service titles this year, Latina Media Ventures’ publication was hit hard, with the 506,000 circ title seeing ad revenue fall 32.4 percent in the first half of this year, according to PIB. But the two custom Mexico issue covers—and the special issue editorial, of course—were able to secure a 6 percent increase in additional issue revenue based on new advertisers Sephora, TBS (Lopez Tonight), Dos Equis and Goya, said a magazine spokesperson.
It’s always nice to be reminded that a good edit concept and innovative design don’t go unnoticed by readers—or advertisers.
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Condé Nast Layoffs: A Roundup (So Far)

Jason Fell — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:30:57 -0400

In his memo to staffers announcing the closure of Gourmet, Cookie, Elegant Bride and Modern Bride, CEO Chuck Townsend said that workforce reductions were “underway throughout the company.” He wasn’t lying. What he didn't mention was that the cuts would be made at a painfully slow pace.

The first to be let go, of course, were those employees who worked at the affected magazines. But then came news that its surviving bridal title Brides reduced its workforce by 12 people. Before the week was done, Condé Nast Digital was said to have cut 15 positions.

And the layoffs continued to roll. The following week, 14 people were let go between Vogue and sister fashion magazine W. Vanity Fair reportedly lost “a handful” of staffers and Glamour was said to have “trimmed staff,” too. Cuts also came from the company’s corporate sales efforts under the Condé Nast Media Group. The most recent layoffs came last week: Condé’s Golfing Group cut 19 people.

UPDATE: Another day, another layoff story (or two). Now, news comes that Wired has been hit and that Glamour is suffering more losses. Style.com is feeling the pinch, too.

When I spoke with Townsend on October 6, he said 180 people had lost their jobs. That number is climbing.
It’s like Condé has taken a page out of the Time Inc. playbook. Jaws dropped late last year when the mega publisher said it was axing up to 600 jobs as part of a major restructuring. After the announcement, news of more and more and more layoffs were unveiled in slow motion. It must have been a killer for employee morale.

The same is happening this year at Condé Nast. While the story(ies) are a boon for some media reporters, I can’t imagine working there and anticipating a pink slip today. Or maybe tomorrow. Or perhaps—well, no one really knows when.

And the cuts might continue. A Condé Nast spokesperson told me the company is "not commenting on specific reductions or overall numbers." She also declined to comment when I asked if Condé was all done reconfiguring its workforce structure.

Oh boy.
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ESPN 'Body' Issue a Quick Subscription Boost

Vanessa Voltolina — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:40:23 -0400

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 ESPN’s Insider—the paid content arm of the ESPN the Magazine Web site—saw 400 new subscribers within hours of the Body Issue content being posted online.

Since ESPN Insider subs cost $39.95 a pop, after some quick, unofficial math one could assume the publisher hauled in close to $16,000 in just one day. That’s not too shabby.

So, was there any blowback? Did any angry parents or religious types call up to cancel their subscriptions? An ESPN spokesperson said she didn’t immediately have those numbers handy.
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New Study Says Magazines a More Effective Buy Than Online, TV

Matt Kinsman — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:45:34 -0400

A new study says magazine advertising drives consumer attitudes and intended behavior more effectively than viewing television advertising on its own or seeing TV and online messages together.
Researcher Dynamic Logic recently updated its database of client-commissioned accountability studies, which look at how television, magazine, and online influence consumers as they go through five stages of the buying process (or "purchase funnel") and released the findings in a new white paper called "Assessing Ad Impact: How TV, Online and Magazines Contribute Throughout the Purchase Funnel."
Takeaways include:
■ Adding magazines to TV and online campaigns had the greatest impact on consumer attitudes and intended behavior in three out of five stages including brand awareness, brand favorability and purchase consideration/intent at conversion and action stages of the funnel.
■ Magazines were also the most cost effective medium throughout the purchase funnel when considering cost per person and people impacted per dollar spent.
■ Magazines significantly outperformed online and TV in generating brand favorability.
The Dynamic Logic CrossMedia Research surveys are conducted online by asking respondents about media habits and attitudes toward advertising for a specific campaign. The current white paper looks at an aggregation of 39 studies from 2004 to 2009 and includes 10 studies with ROI data.
While Magazine Publishers of America is doing its best to publicize the data, it says it was not involved in any of the studies nor did it have access to the data. The white paper can be found here.

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What to Expect of a Playboy Repositioning

Jason Fell — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:25:04 -0400

Recently-appointed Playboy Enterprises CEO Scott Flanders told me during a phone conversation this week that he is planning to announce a “strategic repositioning” of the company before the end of the year. While he was mum on sharing any details of the repositioning, Flanders’ promotion of Alex L. Vaickus from executive vice president and president of global licensing to the newly-created position of president, overseeing all of the company’s business operations, shows his commitment to the licensing portion of the business. (In a Q+A I did with Flanders when he took the helm as CEO, he said licensing, globally, is the company’s fastest-growing and most profitable segment.)

That means Playboy t-shirts, home wear, alcoholic beverages, and possibly lunch boxes (who knows?), sold globally. Maybe even Playboy-branded night clubs, like the one inside the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.

In terms of the flagship magazine, I recall a Playboy earnings call this summer when interim CEO Jerome Kern said the company was considering “radical changes" to its print business model. Those changes included price increases, a frequency reduction and lowering its rate base of 2.6 million. The company also said it would combine Playboy's July and August issues into a double issue.

A lot of these changes would make sense, especially price increases and a rate base reduction. Of the more than 30 big-circ. consumer magazines—including AARP, Reader’s Digest, Maxim and Newsweek—only Playboy fell short of fulfilling its rate base through the first half of the year, delivering a total paid and verified circ. of 2,453,266, compared to its 2.6 million rate base, according to ABC’s most recent FAS-FAX report.

And in terms of revenue, selling ad pages isn’t cutting it, either. The magazine saw ad pages fall 30.2 percent compared to the same period last year, according to PIB figures. Hopefully increasing cover and/or sub prices should help there.

Flanders told me he is “absolutely committed” to keeping Playboy in print. But if some if not all of these “radical” changes are still on the table for Flanders’ forthcoming “strategic repositioning,” might it also be assumed that layoffs would be associated with those changes? Presumably, fewer people would be required to publish a smaller magazine fewer times per year.

I wouldn’t doubt it.
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Dessert, Discourse and Digital Strategy

Vanessa Voltolina — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:24:29 -0400

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 digital magazines that are direct replicas of their print product. “Some companies are moving too quickly and opting for quantity over quality,” Hearst Magazines’ director of content and product strategy Stagg explained. Another gripe in the same vein was an “unfriendly” digital edition format. “Personally, I hate what The New Yorker has done,” said Caroline Miller. Both the tricky layout and format and inability to share a story don’t bode well with her, particularly since the magazine charges for its digital edition.

Miller, who is co-founder and editor-in-chief of online news site Newser, offered a take that resounded with print veterans. “It’s like we’ve gone full circle,” she said. “Thirty years ago a friend and I started our own newspaper—and we literally did everything, from writing the stories, copy editing, layout, design, and physically driving them to the printer…. Now, that’s part of the thrill of working online, that kind of do-it-yourself environment.”

While online may set the standard for scrappy, jack-of-all-trades journalists, both panelists and attendees questioned whether advertisers will eventually pay more for digital’s guaranteed metrics, which will then allow online sites to pay writers higher rates. “One of my darkest thoughts of the future is that print ads are a big con,” said Miller in a slightly pessimistic moment. “There are metrics to connect print ads to buys, but there’s no proof. Now, with digital, we’re in the business of counting eyeballs.”

Of course, the changing environment means that editors must rely on a different skill set. When hiring new talent, Stagg looks for dot.com experience, with crunching numbers a close second. “You need to be able to analyze data in order to understand what’s working and what’s not when it comes to online,” she said. When moderator Benincasa asked panelists if provocative bloggers and writers are a hallmark of an online product, most agreed. Stagg, though, offered a different take: the definition of “provocative is different depending on the audience. “Recently, there was a raging discussion on Good Housekeeping on how to make eggs…to our readers, this is an important, heated topic,” she said.

Check out some photos from the event here.
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Condé Nast CEO: No More Magazine Closures

Jason Fell — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:55:09 -0400

Ever since Condé Nast hired consultants McKinsey & Co. this summer to help the big consumer magazine publisher rethink its business strategy, news trickled out about all of the dramatic changes that were unfolding.

At first the changes seemed, well, trivial. The stocks of Poland Spring bottles vanished. Weekly deliveries of company-bought fresh flowers on editors’ and publishers’ desks disappeared. Vanity Fair chief editor Graydon Carter was seen—gasp—eating in the cafeteria.

More recently, reports speculated that some Condé managers would be told to reduce their budgets by roughly 25 percent. Some magazines would be folded. Then, reportedly, they wouldn’t fold.

But yesterday, a few weeks after the McKinsey consultants were said to have wrapped up their report, the big bomb dropped at 4 Times Square: Condé Nast shuttered Gourmet, Cookie, Elegant Bride and Modern Bride. The news, especially in regard to Gourmet, sent shockwaves around the industry that spilled over into the mainstream media. Roughly 180 people lost their jobs.

Monday evening, I spoke with Condé Nast president and CEO Chuck Townsend over e-mail about the magazine closings. He said the McKinsey consultants weren’t tasked with determining which magazines to shut down, but rather to concentrate on the “businesses with the strongest potential for growth for the long term.” In regard to Gourmet—which launched in 1941 and was acquired by Condé Nast in the early 1980s—Townsend said it had less potential for strength and long-term growth than its sister food title, Bon Appetit.

Editorial content aside, I think it made some sense, from a business standpoint, to close those affected magazines. Townsend said the company will reinvest the money it saves from no longer publishing the titles into its remaining magazine products.

More Closures/Cutbacks to Come?

But couldn’t there be additional targets for closure? Fashion title W, with a 450,000 rate base, saw ad pages plummet 44.2 percent during the first half, according to PIB figures. Architectural Digest (800,000 rate base) saw pages fall 49.5 percent, pages decreased 47.6 percent at Wired (700,000 rate base) and Condé Nast Traveler (800,000 rate base) saw a 42.4 percent drop. Details (450,000 rate base), which shares some of its market with sister Condé title GQ (875,000 rate base) saw pages fall 37.3 percent during the period. Although it carries a 1 million rate base, Teen Vogue saw ad pages drop 40.8 percent.

Despite those steep losses, Townsend said he is convinced the titles are still “strong contributing businesses to our company.” When asked if any more Condé Nast magazines will be closed, Townsend’s simple answer was “no.”

That’s some good news for the paranoid (and rightly so) Condé Nast staffers. However, if the speculation is right, more cutbacks are coming, and could roll out in waves over the next several months. Unfortunately, Townsend declined to tell me about any of those pending changes.
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Five Things One Executive Has Found to Be True

Matt Kinsman — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:17:00 -0400

At the recent Niche Digital event in Minneapolis, keynoter and Network Communications Inc. CEO Dan McCarthy offered a wealth of takeaway quotes. Among them:

■ There are two indisputable realities in the media world these days, and we need to adjust accordingly. First, readers and users of our products are increasingly distracted and have abundant alternative sources of information. And second, advertisers want to spend less money.

■ The world is post-digital. If the IT person or the CIO is driving your Web strategies, you're going for a ride. The truth is that technology just works. We don't care how an iPhone or BlackBerry does what it does, we are not engaged with the technology behind devices, we just assume they will work. Instead, consumer behavior is the real driver and that's what company leaders should focus on.

■ A true premise, from which business strategy should evolve: "If you increase the channels of engagement with a market, you enhance yourselves and offer more marketing solutions."

■ One new approach to serving a market, is the Sharing Model. It starts, McCarthy said, with the notion that "Anything I'm interested in, people who are interested in me will also be interested in." Based on that, then share what you have, as you get it. "Go into the market," McCarthy said. "We have people who are knowledgeable. Let them go find things out and share them with greater frequency. It's a level of confidence. Instead of having everything you learn go into a funnel to be produced in a magazine or as a Web site, share as it happens frequently, in an unproduced manner."

■ There is a meaningful increase in brand vibrancy just by building a digital network. It doesn't take costly Web design, or expensive SEO. Use Facebook, Twitter, and use the entire workforce, whether sales, editorial, production, circulation or more. Instead, use high-frequency content updates by all staff.
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Loyalty Shown the Door

Jason Fell — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:29:20 -0400

Brian Nutting showed his loyalty to the wrong group of people—or at least that’s what his bosses thought.

Following the round of 44 layoffs at the CQ-Roll Call Group—associated with parent company the Economist Group’s merger of recently-acquired Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call—the 27-year CQ editor sent an e-mail to CQ-Roll Call Group executive vice president and managing director Laurie Battaglia, editorial director Mike Mills and the entire newsroom, demanding an explanation from top brass in regard to the cuts.

“We were told that the people in the company were highly valued,” Nutting wrote. “And now this.”

That e-mail, or apparently not showing remorse for writing it, landed him a pink slip. In a memo to staffers Tuesday, posted by Mediabistro’s FishbowlDC, Mills wrote that Nutting had left the company “effective today.”

That same day, Nutting told Politico’s Michael Calderone, who has covered the acquisition and subsequent merger extensively, that he was fired for “insubordination.” “I guess I was given one last chance to say I was sorry, that I’d done something impulsive, and I apologize," he told Calderone, indicating that he refused to apologize. “I didn’t feel like I could turn my back on the people I worked with," he said.

It’s a tough time in magazine publishing right now, and I’m sure there are A LOT of people in the industry who aren’t, and won’t, speak up about management missteps for fear of losing their jobs. Don’t get me wrong, though—I’m not saying that the CQ-Roll Call Group layoffs were necessarily the result of mismanagement.

What I am saying is that this isn't the first time we’ve seen a passionate editor stand up for what he/she believes—even with their job on the line. And I hope it isn’t the last.
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Disney-Owned ESPN The Magazine 'Body Issue' to Feature Nude-ish Athletes

Vanessa Voltolina — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:34:19 -0400

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 “photographic and journalistically-driven” exploration of the athletic form. (This issue's six covers, featuring a different athlete on each, will be kept under wraps until next week, the company said.)
Content, they said, will include an essay about how athletes use sex and physicality to sell themselves, an article focused on the creation of realistic video game avatars (with vendor EA and athlete Kobe Bryant) and a story based on the staff's participation in an ACL repair surgery. And, of course, plenty of male and female athletes baring it all.
Journalistically-driven? Maybe. But, sex sells, and ESPN The Magazine needs all the help it can get. Through the first half, newsstand sales plummeted 20.4 percent, according to ABC’s FAS-FAX report.
Featuring a small army of nude or partially nude athletes on its pages is tricky ground for a magazine owned by family-friendly Walt Disney Co. Competing sports title Sports Illustrated has received its fair share of flack over the years, sometimes even including protests from staffers within its publisher, Time Inc., comparing the steamy annual issue to porn.
So, is it kosher for ESPN The Magazine to have an issue with athletes like Serena Williams and Steph Davis showing skin (“It was totally up to them,” Belsky said during the call) under the same parent company as FamilyFun?
“Disney is great,” said Belsky. “They expect us to uphold the standards of ESPN, and aren’t really involved at this level.” Upholding these “standards” falls on the higher-ups at ESPN, he said. And in case you thought that the “Body Issue” was beginning to sound like a more extensive, glorified version of SI’s much anticipated annual, one of the Body Issue models, NASCAR driver Carl Edwards, told USA Today that if it takes off with readers, it could become an athletic version of the SI Swimsuit Issue.

When I asked Belsky about this comparison, he didn’t directly confirm or deny it, but said that the creation of this issue was “driven by a longstanding interest” from ESPN The Magazine and “something that we think we can come back to year after year.”

One thing that definitely won’t be the same as SI: “Even though this issue will be provocative and sometimes sexy, it’s still journalism, so we’re not looking to create ancillary products like a calendar,” he said.
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Hallmark’s ‘Anti-TMZ’

Jason Fell — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:55:02 -0400

South Carolina Republican representative Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s speech to Congress on health care. Tennis player Serena Williams’ on-court, expletive-laden tirade. Kanye West’s aggressive—however not altogether unusual—behavior during MTV’s Music Video Awards.

They all make good headlines. But the Hallmark Channel, a division of Hallmark Cards, wants to know: Has civilization lost its civility? In an affront to all the vitriol that continually makes up news headlines and TV news programs, the Hallmark Channel has created CelebrityGoodLife.com, a site devoted exclusively to positive news about celebrities—from Hollywood to sports, to politics and beyond.

CelebrityGoodLife.com features content from chief correspondent-bloggers Delaina Dixon, who is based in New York, and Daisy Whitney, who is in Los Angeles. The site is live now but is eyeing October 23 for its official launch.

With the tag line "Cleaning Up the Red Carpet," Hallmark is calling the site the "anit-TMZ." "CelebrityGoodLife.com will bring only positive news to the masses who are tired of the mudslinging,” Hallmark said in an announcement. “Whether the news is love and marriage, children, chivalry, dream home, dream vacation, enlightenment, or benevolent altruism, Dixon and Whitney will shine a light through every sector of show business, putting deserving entertainers in a favorable spot.”

How nice! (Earlier this year Hallmark Cards shuttered its flagship Hallmark magazine. According to spurned subscribers, the way Hallmark handled the shut down wasn’t so nice.)

A Hallmark Channel spokesperson told me the site hopes to get to at least 50,000 uniques within the first two months and eventually wants to host paid advertising. Right now, the home page looks like an overt plug for Hallmark’s upcoming film, Always Forever, with a large banner ad and a series of five promotional videos at the bottom.

It’s true, there is a lot of negative news in celebrity-dom these days. The same can be said for magazines. We've made a big effort to post as many positive stories during these difficult times as we can. But the reality is that negative stories get A LOT more reader/user/viewer attention than the positive ones, even on FOLIOmag.com.
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Fashion Faux Pas: Us Weekly Readers Charge Anna Wintour with ‘Life Sentence’

Vanessa Voltolina — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:02:01 -0400

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, blasting the orange dress that the devilish editrix wore to the premiere of The September Issue, A&E’s new documentary film on Wintour and the making of the magazine’s big fall fashion issue.

Online voting was divided into appropriate categories: Warning, Misdemeanor, Felony and Life Sentence. The overwhelming majority (56 percent, or more than 1,000 votes and counting) charged Wintour with a Life Sentence.

One of the magazine's "Top Cops," comedian Jeffrey Giordano, wrote, "Is she going to Sunday night bingo?" Another, AOL News senior producer Buck Wolf, wrote, "The only thing busier than she is? This outfit."

While Wintour isn't a stranger to being called out on her fashion choices (namely, her signature pair of sunglasses), UsMagazine.com's reader feedback makes it personal. But hey, it's probably karma for an editor known for her perpetually harsh style commentary.
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Could Webisodes Replace Mag Reality TV?

Vanessa Voltolina — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:12:38 -0400

Over the past year or so, a number of consumer titles have piggybacked on the popularity of reality television, and show no signs of letting up (Condé Nast is the latest to announce the debut of “Gourmet's Adventures With Ruth” this October).
Some, like Marie Claire, have seen viewership for its TV initiative soar out of the gate; its eight-episode docu-series, “Running in Heels,” reported 5.1 million total viewers across all telecasts on Comcast’s Style Network. (Hearst already has plans for future MC-branded TV partnerships, confirmed a rep). Bravo’s Top Chef saw a 20 percent increase in viewers this past season (3.63 million in total), with Food&Wine’s Gail Simmons acting as a show judge and a critic. Popular fashion reality show, Project Runway, initially saw a similar success through a Bravo-Elle partnership, with its fifth season averaging 3.6 million viewers.
But oh, how the mighty fall. Since Elle fashion director (and one of the show’s judges) Nina Garcia left the title for Marie Claire, this partnership has disintegrated, leaving Elle to regain its TV presence through the launch of Stylista on The CW this past spring. The show reported only mediocre success—1.7 million viewers for its eight episode run, with the show’s future left hanging in the balance.
Time Inc.’s Real Simple. Real Life. also experienced underwhelming results in the 300,000-viewer range, while Nielsen’s American Idol-style show, Billboard Next, was announced, but never even made it on the air (a rep was not immediately available to confirm future plans for the show).
But as a low-budget alternative to a sitcom, producing a reality TV show isn’t a bad move for publishers. It can save around 35 percent over sitcoms (no scripting and fewer high-profile celebs) and is a logical next step in the brand extension process. The downside? Publishers have to be confident enough in their dramas to drop at least $950,000 per episode—a chunk of change that’s hard to stomach for even the largest titles.
Webisodes: Magazine TV Testing Phase?
While online video has traditionally been reserved for how-to content, it may also serve as a test phase for publishers who don’t want to pony up prematurely.

In the past, Vogue’s received flack for shunning reality TV in favor of its own Model.Live, a 12-week, 14-episode reality show online at Vogue TV. Despite being online-only, the series saw over 1 million views only three weeks after airing last summer. Of course, in the style of Vogue, an initiative which could have been a money saver was taken to an extreme, hitting the $3 million mark to produce. Another series of webinars to debut this September is Meredith’s More “The Broadroom,” written by Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell.

According to a recent comScore report, online ads are proving just as effective as TV ads (over a 12-week span, online campaigns involving consumer packaged goods with a 40 percent reach were responsible for lifting retail sales 9 percent; the average lift of TV was 8 percent). As the argument for advertisers online becomes stronger, are there incentives for publishers in the TV trial phase to test their luck with webisodes?

“We wanted to explore the new online frontier,” Julie Fuoti, vice president of marketing for Meredith 360 told me. “Especially since reality television is a huge investment.” The Broadroom will rely on Meredith’s recently launched Gamma network to reach out to its 10 million-plus target female audience, said Meredith. And despite being uncertain of what to expect, Nancy Weber, Meredith Publishing Group’s CMO, thinks “it’s an exciting new format and very flexible, particularly for publishers trying new programming.”

While not a reality show per se, The Broadroom’s fourth webisode will be a looser form, reality-based sneak peek; More also has “something on pilot now that will be webisode-based and will have a reality bend,” said Fuoti. “Really, the concept was just right for the brand, and is what Candace [Bushnell] does best. However, this doesn’t preclude reality TV for us.”

While it remains to be seen whether The Broadroom will ever make it past the Webisode stage, at a time when few publishers lack the extra to invest on a TV experiment, will more and more publishers turn to the Web to test for TV?
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