Mag Bag: 'LA Magazine' Shuttered -- Again

by Erik Sass, May 17, 2012, 12:28 PM

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LA Magazine Shuttered -- Again

The Los Angeles Times is closing LA, Los Angeles Times Magazine, yet again. The company’s management is citing the continuing weakness in print advertising demand and broader economic uncertainty as the reasons for its demise. The magazine will cease publication at the beginning of June.

Times COO Kathy Thomson announced the decision in a letter to LAT employees which read in part: “Many of you have been involved in the various incarnations of The Times’ Sunday magazine -- it has taken on several different titles and wonderful forms over the years. However, the entire magazine industry has been faced with a very challenging environment. We are not immune to the challenges and have made the decision that LA, Los Angeles Times Magazine will publish its final issue on June 3rd.”

The most recent version of the LAT magazine was launched in July 2008, after the previous version was shuttered and responsibility for production transferred from LAT editorial staff to the business side, under the Los Angeles Times Media Group.

This decision was not without controversy. At the time, LAT editor Russ Stanton asked that the publication not be called the “Los Angeles Times Magazine” for ethical reasons, but was apparently overruled.

Nor is this the last we’ll hear about an LAT magazine.

Thomson also revealed that the newspaper is planning to create a quarterly glossy publication covering luxury, design, fashion and style, highlighting “seasonal trends and occasions with print, digital and mobile iterations intended to further enhance our feature coverage and deepen our connection with our members and advertising partners.”

GfK MRI Debuts “Risk Manager”

Magazine research outfit GfK MRI has created a new service, the “Audience Risk Manager,” which allows advertisers to make magazine media buys with more certainty about the results. Publishers using ARM can back up promises to advertisers with historical data and effectively make guarantees including the number of people who will read a certain issue of a magazine; the number of people who will recall a specific ad in a specific issue of a magazine; and the number of people who will take action as a result of seeing that ad.

(Presumably these guarantees will be backed with promises of make-goods if audience and response targets aren’t met.) ARM draws on data from GfK MRI’s Survey of the American Consumer, its Issue Specific Study, and response data from Starch Advertising Research.

Kathi Love, president and CEO of GfK MR, stated that ARM fulfills the longstanding desire of many advertisers and agencies,: "That magazines transition from guaranteeing a certain level of circulation to offering performance metrics closer to those used by television and other major media. The flexibility and transparency offered by the Audience Risk Manager provides a level of comfort to publishers who have been reluctant to embrace audience guarantees."

Intel Unveils Digital Magazine

Intel has created an innovative social publishing platform, Intel iQ, which essentially functions as a digital magazine focused on the impact of technology on the modern world. The magazine, curated by Intel employees, “serves as a discovery tool that narrates technology’s influence and effect on ‘Media,’ ‘Life’ and our ‘Planet,’ according to the company. Intel iQ’s format resembles Flipboard, in that content is presented in a browse-able page-by-page format; readers can vote stories up or down the publication, with the most popular stories landing on the front page.

Chief Executive Group Buys Chief Executive Network

Chief Executive Group, which publishes Chief Executive magazine and operates ChiefExecutive.net, is expanding its reach among the eponymous C-suite target audience with the acquisition of Chief Executive Network, a member organization that helps executives make connections and share information about best practices, leadership and related subjects. Bob Grabill, CEO of CEN, will remain with the business in his current role, along with the entire CEN staff.

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