The Inquisitr » magazines

Condé Nast shutters Gourmet, Cookie, 2 bridal titles

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:40:38 +0000

Publishing giant Condé Nast announced today that it was discontinuing Gourmet magazine, an influential publication that has been published since 1940.

The closure comes as a shock, as Gourmet is a more influential magazine than fellow Condé Nast title Bon Appétit, and Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl is well known and powerful in food and restaurant circles. Condé Nast is also closing Cookie, Elegant Bride and Modern Bride, and in the past year has closed newer titles Condé Nast Portfolio, Domino and Men’s Vogue.

The New York Times reports that the closure of the 69-year-old title came as a shock even to industry insiders such as Bon Appétit publisher Paul Jowdy. The Times spoke with Jowdy in February (conceding that Jowdy was interviewed in far safer economic times) and he then doubted the title would be retired:

“They would never do that,” Mr. Jowdy said in February. “They’re both very important magazines in the culinary world, and they’re very different magazines, and they’re both very healthy. So there’s all these rumors that are just ridiculous. I try not to pay attention to them, but you have to know — if you think of two of the most prestigious, credible, trusted magazines in the industry, you’re going to say Bon Appétit and Gourmet.”

Maybe there is a god: Reader’s Digest files for bankruptcy

Duncan Riley — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:07:35 +0000

Iconic snail mail spam company Reader’s Digest has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but sadly they’re likely to survive.

The Reader’s Digest bankruptcy filing was pre-arranged with debtors, and will allow the company to restructure its debt, bringing it down from a whopping $2.2 billion to an apparently more manageable $500 million.

Sadly for those of us outside the United States, the bankruptcy only applies to the US entity, not the subsidiaries in countries such as Canada and Australia.

Although apparently much loved for its magazine, Reader’s Digest is perhaps better known for its direct marketing campaigns that include sweepstakes draws and dummy checks saying people have won. Magazine publishing is difficult across the board in the current economic climate, but spamming physical letterboxes in an age where consumer awareness is high must be a harder business again.

An Open Letter to the Publishing Industry

Kyle Brady — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:15:25 +0000

Dear Publishing Industry,

You’re screwed, and everyone knows it – especially since you whine and moan about it on what seems like a daily basis via the very pulpits you are trying to protect. Crying over spilled milk doesn’t help anyone, and will likely only exacerbate the situation, regardless of Old World medium: newspapers, book publishers, and magazines. For the sake of simplicity, the Internet is assumed to not exist.

Newspapers

Despite being a minimum of twelve hours behind other media outlets, you continue to claim to be the only source of “true journalism” – while devoting days of front page coverage to Michael Jackson, publishing barely-modified Press Releases as news, and taking an ever increasing number of stories from wire services. Does that really sound like valuable, source-verified, original journalism?

Whining about personal problems (i.e. decline in sales) via the same journalistic channels that purportedly carry important, topical news pieces is not helping your argument. The value of newspaper-based journalism is not in “Breaking News” stories, but rather in-depth investigative pieces or complex works that can take months of traveling and significant capital to produce. The average, non-investigative article in a newspaper does not include enough room for a thoughtful analysis, and such works are better left to those with more time and space to do them properly.

Furthermore, the inexplicable coverage of nonsense over true news, such as celebrity drama instead of attempted healthcare reform, is disgusting. You’re contributing to the dumbing-down of a culture that doesn’t need any extra help, when, only twenty years ago, newspapers were once revered for their intelligent and thought-provoking insights.

Book Publishers

You’re an industry rotting from the inside because of overreacting to your audience. If you need proof of this, look into the saturation of the “Fantasy” market with hugely drawn-out “epic” multivolume series about people with swords and magic, most of which are the same book written by different authors – Lord of the Rings can only be reproduced so many times. Or the rampant existence of softcore porn fiction masquerading as “Horror”, or occasionally even “Fantasy”, using vampires and werewolves to get unsuspecting readers to purchase such idiotic literary filth – the Twilight and Anita Blake series are perfect examples.

“Science Fiction” readers, who are some of the most devoted consumers, are currently being shunned for more trendy genres, with only a handful of actual “SciFi” novels being published each year – Tor-Forge, a major publisher, is an exception. Even the best of “SciFi” is being labeled as “Thriller” or other more profit-friendly genres, based off of a core genre misconception.

Additionally, you continue to pump out cook books, celebrity novels, and other trend-hopping tomes. The following of fads inevitably results in market over-saturation, excess stock, and, in the end, smaller profits than if books were published in an intelligent fashion. Quotas for genres should be turned into an intelligent review process, where only interesting, smart, and original (or at least semi-original) material is published – does the world really need another Harry Potter clone?

Magazines

GQ? Vogue? Teen Girl? Us Magazine? These are magazines in only the vaguest sense of the word, and are more akin to tabloids than anything else. TIME, Newsweek, and US Weekly are newspapers parading as magazines – while these publications are to be applauded for their significant, in-depth analysis and extreme feats of journalism, they largely chase the stories-of-the-moment which have already been covered elsewhere by faster outlets. If these were to be instead published monthly, at four times the length with a wider range of interests, the value would increase significantly – as would subscribers. Readers are not interested in the crazy-talk of extreme feminists or angry nonsensical “Tea Baggers”, but intelligent, coherent articles.

Other publications like WIRED and Popular Science have found a formula that works well: discover/create a niche market, and cater to it endlessly. Neither magazine deviates from this formula, and they typically stay within their audience parameters, although WIRED does occasionally produce some boring pieces. If the rest of the magazine market were to follow the leads of Popular Science, instead of continuing to rely on now-failing Old World principles, they could potentially be rejuvenated in the eyes of the reading public.

Publishing Reform

As a dying industry with many faces, and many problems, you will need to reinvent yourself and some of your practices in order to survive. Clinging to methods and ideologies that worked a decade ago is counter-productive – just ask the GOP how they’re doing at the moment. The readers across the world do not wish to see you fade from existence, but rather adapt to a more modern existence, since there is a benefit to each platform from which you operate.

Sincerely,

Kyle Brady, avid magazine and book reader

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

Kindle Getting Competition From Cosmo Publisher

JR — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:23:23 +0000

Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader will soon see competition from an unlikely place: the publisher of Cosmo.

Hearst Corp. is preparing to launch its own electronic reader, CNN Money reports, with the hope of bringing the magazine market into the palms of people’s hands. CNN cites “industry insiders” as saying Hearst’s reader will be more catered toward newspapers and magazines than books, boasting a “large-format screen” that will meet periodicals’ “reading and advertising requirements.”

As for any official comment, a Hearst exec said only that the company was “keenly interested” in the idea and expected the devices to be a “big part of [its] future.”

Interestingly, Hearst is also said to have invested in E Ink–the Boston-area company that creates the technology behind Amazon’s Kindle product as well as the Sony Reader. The same company produced a moving image on the cover of Esquire–also owned by Hearst–last year.

American Media Inc Facing Bankruptcy, Liquidation: Already Defaulted on $413m

Duncan Riley — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:03:36 +0000

Here’s something to gossip about. American Media Inc., the publisher of Star magazine, The National Enquirer, Shape and Men’s Fitness has received a new extension to try to work out a deal to avoid bankruptcy or liquidation.

The company has already defaulted on $413 million in outstanding bonds.

According to a SEC filing, the new deadline is midnight, January 26.

According to the NY Post, the company warned in the filing that “given the continued weakness of the credit markets, there can be no assurance that the company can refinance its existing notes or obtain the additional capital necessary to satisfy its short-term cash needs on satisfactory terms.”

If the bondholders demand payment on that debt, “the company may have to liquidate assets on unfavorable terms or be unable to continue as a going concern and incur additional costs associated with bankruptcy.”

The company has been cutting staff across the board, with a recent round said to total 10% of the workforce.

Magazines Hit Hard By Advertising Downturn, Condé Nast The Hardest

Duncan Riley — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 04:12:07 +0000

The magazine industry has been hit hard by the recession, with advertising by volume dropping 17% in January, according to figures from the Media Industry Newsletter.

Worst hit was Condé Nast, with four magazine titles featuring in the list of top 10 declines for January. Advertising in Wired was down 47% over the same time last year, Architectural Digest 46% and Vogue and Lucky both down 44%.

Other magazines making the top ten include Boating (Hachette Filipacchi Media) Power & Motoryacht (Source Interlink Media), Everyday Food (Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia), Salt Water Sportsman (Bonnier Corporation), Texas Monthly (Emmis Communications), and Boys’ Life (Boy Scouts of America.)

As the New York Times points out, the difference can be seen by all readers: for example Allure magazine went from 70 pages of ads in January 2008 to 41 in January 2009.

The financial situation of Condé Nast going into the downturn is difficult to gauge; the company is an operating unit of Advance Publications Inc, a large newspaper owner, and one of America’s bigger privately held companies, so profit figures aren’t immediately available.

Notably the 17% industry downturn is by volume, not revenue, so the actual hit could be higher again. In a tight market advertising rates will be heading downward as magazines look to fill their inventory, so the financial loss could be 30-40% industry wide.

The only question now is how long for many of these magazines. Even a private company like Advance isn’t going to keep publishing titles that are bleeding money, and unlike the newspaper part of the business, the historical attachment to magazines is much less, making the decision to cease publication easier.

The Deal cuts 10% of workforce

Duncan Riley — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:32:16 +0000

Financial weekly The Deal has cut 10%, or 15 employees.

The cuts were across the board out of 150 employees of which 75 were full timers.

New York based the The Deal is a group of finance and business magazines, newspapers and electronic resources covering deal terms of mergers & acquisitions, private equity, venture capital financings, bankruptcies and other topics of interest to the investment banking, private equity and venture capital industries.

The Deal is owned by U.S. Equity Partners and raised its last round of $30 million in 2000. The original The Daily Deal was established in 1989.

(via Folio)

CondéNet cuts: Wired.com lays of 25% of staff

Duncan Riley — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:50:38 +0000

CondéNet, the online arm of publisher Condé Nast has today laid off staff across the board, with Wired.com taking a big hit.

According to reports, 25% of Wired.com’s San Francisco staff have been laid off, with the majority of layoffs coming from tech roles. 10% of the editorial staff have been cut.

According to Valleywag, also gone is Kourosh Karimkhany, the VP of corporate development for CondéNet and a man responsible for the acquisitions of Reddit and Ars Technica.

Peter Kafka at AllThingsD has an official statement from the company:

Visibility for 2009 is very limited and we are adjusting all costs to prepare for slower revenue growth. The adjustments are across the board and include staff restructuring and some reduction. Despite the current environment, CondéNet will end the year slightly up over 2007. These moves will put the company in a stronger position to handle a challenging year ahead and for the business to benefit when the economy and the ad market start to rebound.

The cuts don’t come as any surprise, with Condé Nast announcing a 5% cut across the board (online and offline) November 1.

Update: more from CNet

In an interview with CNET News, Evan Hansen, Wired.com’s editor in chief, said the company downsized to prepare for the economic downturn.

“Revenues are expected to be up year over year but not as much as we expected,” Hansen said. “We’re concerned about 2009 because visibility is murky. We’re taking steps to make sure we’re in good position.”

Hansen declined to discuss who was let go, but sources familiar with the situation said none of the publication’s staff writers was cut. This is only the latest reduction of editorial staffing for Wired.com’s publisher, Conde Nast.

Media Briefs: Washington Post mixed results, Conde Nast makes cuts

Duncan Riley — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 04:15:16 +0000

Another week ended with mixed news on the media front, with The Washington Post reporting mixed results, and Conde Nast making cuts.

Figures for the 3rd quarter released by the Washington Post showed a massive drop in operating income to $10.1 million, down from $72.2 million, but the majority of the drop was caused by a $60 million charge to write down the value of its Maryland community newspapers and a paper in Washington state.

Advertising delivered good news and bad news. The bad news saw newspaper publishing revenue fall 7% for the quarter off a decline in print advertising revenue of 14% at The Washington Post newspaper. The newspaper division reported an operating loss of $82.7 million in the third quarter of 2008, compared to operating income of $8.8 million in the third quarter of 2007. The good news is that the decline in ad revenue slowed from a 22% decline in the 2nd quarter. Revenue from online properties rose 13%, and non-newspaper related revenue increased 10% for the quarter.

Conde Nast, publisher of a range of well known magazines and online properties has joined the layoff trend announcing a cut in payroll and nonpayroll budgets by 5%. The exact number of jobs to be cut across the company has yet to be determined.

Magazines facing the biggest changes include Men’s Vogue, which will go from 10 issues a year to 2, and Portfolio, which will shift from 12 issues to 10 per year and have its online production outsourced to Wired Digital. Staff cuts at Portfolio are said to be 20%, or 32 members of staff.

Search Ad Boom Bad News for Heritage Media?

Duncan Riley — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:10:53 +0000

New figures released by eMarketer show online ad spending surged 20% in the second quarter of 2008, despite the downturn in the US economy.

The figures broken down however paint an interesting divide: in hard times, people are switching to search advertising over display advertising, with search set to hit a 42% share with the majority of that spend heading directly to Google.

Portfolio though notes the side affect of the switch: Heritage Media relies on display advertising, so any switch to search makes it harder for magazines and newspapers to build substitute online revenue to cover their declining heritage media assets.

It’s an interesting notion. I haven’t been able to get a full breakdown on eMarketer’s figures, as the unknown mix is does Adsense fall into the search figure given both are delivered by Adwords, as Heritage Media can run these units. But lets presume that Heritage Media does take a hit on two sides, what does this leave us?

This isn’t a zero sum game, there is still a display advertising market, and it still pays, so there is still money to be had online for Heritage Media. But the lower numbers can only result in further constraints, speeding up the bleed from Heritage to New Media. It will force media companies to become more efficient, more quickly, with a real likelihood of some dying more quickly that we might have previously thought. If the advertising pie isn’t big enough, the game becomes scale, and quick, lean and efficient companies are the ones who are best placed to survive.

Someone Has a Foot Fetish

Meieli Sawyer — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:06:50 +0000

Somehow Eva Mendes manages to make even chewing her toenails look incredibly hot. Italian Vogue pulled a wildly sexy photoshoot out of its European bag of tricks. It hasn’t been well-received by Americans per se, but it’s certainly worth a browse for the weirdness: cream-smearing, breast-squashing, mesh-licking goodness (NSFW Link Here).

A photoshoot this interesting will definitely help her in the ways of publicity for her newest project “Queen of the South,” or at least her support of Linked Against Leukemia. Some good’s got to come out of it, right?