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Magazine News Round-Up

Finally, the wait for iPads to hit shelves finally came to an end on Saturday. Today Apple announced that it sold more than 300,000 iPads in the U.S. as of midnight Saturday. This number included deliveries of pre-ordered iPads to customers, deliveries to channel partners and sales at Apple Retail Stores. Apple also announced that iPad users downloaded more than one million apps from Apple's App Store and more than 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore during the first day.

Right before Saturday's much-anticipated release, many magazine publishers made announcements their content would be available on the new device via apps (some paid and some free). Among them were Bonnier’s Popular Science, Rodale’s Men’s Health, Time Inc.’s Time magazine and other magazines from Hearst and Conde Nast.

• Last week Editor & Publisher magazine named Les Hinton, Dow Jones & Co. CEO and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, as its 2010 Publisher of the Year. Editor & Publisher magazine editor Mark Fitzgerald said the choice was easy, that "The Wall Street Journal is in one of the strongest positions of any newspaper in this country. It has grown its print and paid online combined circulation to more than 2 million subscribers to become the No. 1 daily in the U.S."

• Folio magazine, which covers the magazine industry, released it annual list, "The Folio: 40," of magazine and media professionals from "every corner of our industry" that are noteworthy influencers and innovators.

• Lastly, TV Guide magazine is making content changes in an effort to remain relevant. The 56-year-old entertainment magazine is doing away  with its back-of-the-book listings grid. With its April 19 issue, TV Guide magazine will feature the grid in the day-of-the-week sections that are color-coded. The magazine will also feature recommendations on what to watch and on what platform.

Entertainment Weekly Adjusts Delivery Schedule

It's no secret that Entertainment Weekly magazine is struggling to prove its relevancy in the world of  24/7 entertainment news on the Internet. We've just been wondering how the magazine would handle it.

One answer came earlier this week when Entertainment Weekly's publisher Time Inc. announced it is adjusting the magazine's delivery schedule to get copies to its 1.7 million subscribers earlier, which of course is appealing to both magazine readers and advertisers. Starting with the April 9 issue, 97 percent of subscribers will get delivery by Friday; compared to the currently 89 percent that now receive it. Newsstand copies will still go on sale Thursday and Friday.

Publisher Ray Chelstowski told MediaWeek that the magazine's own research shows "that two-thirds of subscribers use the magazine to decide what movie to see that weekend and more than half use it to plan their weekend entertainment."

What do you think of the new Entertainment Weekly delivery schedule--will it make the magazine more relevant?

Magazine News Round-Up

Stefano Tonchi, the editor of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, has been appointed editor of W, the fashion magazine published by Condé Nast. Tonchi told The New York Times his plans for W magazine are open, but include “probably to just make it more of a general-interest style magazine, and less of a fashion-obsessed publication.”

Though Birmingham native Anthony L. Williams Jr. was eliminated on "Project Runway'' Thursday night, his design from the show's "Run for Cover" episode is featured on this month's Marie Claire magazine.

LGBT news magazine The Advocate magazine has struck an affiliate deal with NBC News, making the magazine the first LGBT-oriented magazine to partner with the network.  Advocate.com will use NBC resources to produce daily news segments that will run online and on air via "The Advocate On-Air," a television and Web magazine. In addition, The Advocate writers may report on issues relating to the LGBT community for NBC News.

The Buzz is Back: Magazine Publishers and iPad

Since January's iPad announcement there's been a lot of speculation about how the magazine industry will embrace and profit from e-readers. Though a handful of companies have produced prototypes of versions of magazines e-readers, not much of the early hype has remained; instead, for the most part the focus of much of e-reader reporting has been on books.

Then, last week a stunning presentation of a concept video for a digital edition of VIVmag hit the Internet. While the previous concepts were impressive, this one takes how magazines could look on a digital reader to an 11. Among the features are a motion cover concept; Geek.com explains all the bells and whistles in great detail.

Finally yesterday the buzz surrounding iPads and magazine publishers reemerged with the Wall Street Journal reporting that magazine publishers and advertisers are "lining up for the launch of the tablet computer next week;" 

The Wall Street Journal states, "Magazines largely are planning downloadable iPad applications that are near-replicas of the stories in the print versions, but they are demonstrating the new-media bells and whistles for advertisers: add-ons like videos, social-networking tools and navigation that take advantage of the large screen, touch technology and Internet connections of the tablet computer."

Real Simple Magazine Leads April Ad-Page Gains

With its 10th anniversary April issue, spring has sprung for Real Simple magazine. min reports the women's magazine is at the top of its "top 5 monthly magazines" with the highest ad-page increases for April.
Kevin White, publisher of Real Simple, told min: "Our 10th anniversary issue grew in virtually every category, continuing the momentum from our redesign last November. Advertisers are clearly responding to our consumer-centric approach, and our continued growth shows that Real Simple is as relevant as ever."

The rest of min's top five magazines for April ad-page gains are Fitness, Vogue, Interview and Family Circle magazine.

Monday Magazine News Round-Up

Last week the board of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which audits the readership of many magazines, announced that it changed its definition of what a digital magazine is in the U.S. and Canada. This change of course, is meant to accommodate e-readers like the Apple iPad.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations press release, "the new standards state that a replica digital edition must include a print edition’s full editorial content and advertising, but it no longer needs to be presented in a layout identical to the print version. Replica digital editions will continue to be included in a magazine’s circulation guarantee, or rate base."

The Audit Bureau of Circulations also confirmed that Wired magazine was the first magazine to seek review of its iPad version, which will qualify as a digital replica edition under the bureau’s new guidelines. In addition, GQ magazine has offered an ABC-approved replica app for the iPhone and iPod Touch since December 2009.

In an effort to boost poor sales, Folio reported that Wakeboarding magazine features a 2-D barcode in the lower right-hand cover on its April cover that reads “Watch Clay Ride.” The magazine's readers can scan the barcode using internal cameras on smartphones and are directed to an online video of the same athlete in the cover image, riding the same wakeboard.

And finally, not only was Jay Leno a flop on TV, but his Time magazine cover was one of the worst-selling magazines of last year. In case you were wondering what the rest of the worst-selling magazine covers of last were, here they are.

National Magazine Digital Media Awards: Separate but Equal?

Last October when the American Society of Magazine Editors decided to include 12 new digital awards--for the first time ever--to their National Magazine awards categories we assumed they were adding the categories to the prestigious industry awards ceremony slated for April 22. Well, you know what happens when you assume.

So Yesterday we were surprised when ASME announced the winners of the National Magazine Awards for Digital Media at a separate event. We wondered why ASME separated the awards into the two categories in the first place. Does it really matter if editorial excellence is achieved in a print magazine or on a blog? Is there really a difference (besides the medium) between journalism and digital journalism? For us, the answer is no.

For more clarity on the situation, we examined the digital award categories. While some of them reflect those of the print award categories including general editorial achievement, design and photography, others are interactive digital/online categories like mobile media, video, podcast and interactive tools.

The categories we find the most interesting are blogging, which ASME defines as "online reporting, commentary and criticism in the form of a blog" and Community, which ASME describes as "honors the use of proprietary content, interactive technology and social media to establish and sustain user communities." One award for journalism...the other for use of journalism? What?

Just like the print (real?) National Magazine awards, New York magazine and National Geographic were the big winners announced. Some other award winners were Billboard.com, Foreign Policy, Men’s Health, Sports Illustrated, Virginia Quarterly Review and three online-only publications: Epicurious, Tablet Magazine and Yale Environment 360.

Of the 37 magazine websites and online-only magazines that were nominated only six of them (Epicurious, The Daily Beast, LIFE.com, Slate, Tablet Magazine and Yale Environment 360) are online-only. Still, only three of those--Epicurious, Tablet Magazine and Yale Environment 360--took home awards.

What do you think? Should the digital media awards be separated or included in one awards ceremony?



 

Shelter Magazine Genre Growing

Despite the many depressing closings of shelter magazines lately--Domino, Southern Accents and Metropolitan Home, RIP--the newest edition of The Standard Periodical Directory reports that home design and decorating magazines have experienced more growth than any other magazine genre in the last five years. In 2005 123 shelter magazines existed; this year there are 337.

Real Simple Magazine Celebrates 10 Years

Finally! It's here. Our 10th anniversary issue of Real Simple magazine. We've been anticipating the arrival of our copy since we read an article regarding the issue's cover design featuring clocks a couple of weeks ago.

As Managing Editor Kristin Van Ogtrop mentions in the Editor's Notes, to celebrate the occasion, the anniversary issue offers readers the gift of more time. In fact, the entire them of the issue is time with features and tips on smart ways to save it and spend it including "10 Years of Beauty, Fashion, Health and Home Time-Savers,"Your Money or Your Time" and "10 Years of New Uses for Old Things."

And in this era of frequent magazine closures, we're excited that Real Simple magazine is not just surviving 10 years but is thriving. The magazine recently made design changes and launched another line of branded home-products with retail partner Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Magazine News Round-Up

Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel magazine reached its 100th issue with its March issue.  According to MediaPost, the 100th issue was put together with the help of magazine and focuses on making dream vacations a reality.

Time magazine has promoted two veteran staffers: International Editor Michael Elliott will be the new deputy managing editor, second in command to Managing Editor Rick Stengel. Longtime Time magazine contributor Nancy Gibbs, who penned the magazine's award-winning 9/11 coverage, will be executive editor.

The Internet and daytime TV are abuzz today over GQ magazine's revealing interview of Rielle Hunter and Hunter's regret over the "repulsive" photos that accompany the interview. Hunter is blaming photographer Mark Seliger for the racy photos in which she appears wearing only a white dress shirt and underwear.