• June 2, 2003

Dennis Publishing's two-year-old music title Blender has upped its rate base to 525,000, from 410,000. The move is effective with the mag's January 2004 issue. The title, which increased to a ten-times-per-year schedule this year, has also seen its circulation numbers surge exponentially. According to last month's Publishers Information Bureau data for the year-to-date period, Blender nearly doubled its ad pages and saw a 146% spike in ad revenue over 2002 levels.

Publisher Malcolm Campbell, while clearly enthused about the recent successes, refused to get carried away when discussing them. "I think the reason that readers and marketers have responded to us is that we have a simple premise: we're a music magazine that has a lot of fun," he states matter-of-factly. "It's not especially difficult to understand." Though he respectfully dubs Rolling Stone as the "gold standard" of music mags, Campbell says that he counts the 35-year-old title as his primary competition. "They're in our crosshairs," he admits. And while Campbell does not specifically address the pros and cons of his competitors, he does offer the following withering assessment of other music titles: "The category is open because established music titles aren't focused on music. They're off doing stories on sex and whatever else. Our consumer loves music and at the end of the day, we'll define ourselves as being the music magazine for them."