Mag Bag: 'TV Guide' On Upswing

tv guide magazineTV Guide On Upswing

After 15 consecutive quarters of losses, TV Guide magazine returned to profitability during the first quarter, according to publisher Scott Crystal, who noted that the milestone came alongside substantial increases in total audience, as measured by MRI, as well as ad pages at the magazine.

The first-quarter results mark the title's emergence from a decade-long rough patch, following its demise as a digest-sized guide and reinvention as a full-sized entertainment magazine.

"I don't think anybody has ever done this before," Crystal boasted of the magazine's extreme makeover. "I can't think of any magazine that has scrapped the core product and rolled out an entirely new one, with a completely new editorial form and a different audience profile."

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The switch to a full-sized magazine came in October 2005, following a 7.2% decline in ad pages in 2004 and a 20.1% decline in the first nine months of 2005. Increasingly overwhelmed by the proliferation of TV options--including cable, satellite and Internet video--the magazine's owners decided to jettison most of the listings and remake the title as a gossipy full-sized glossy covering the goings-on of the TV world.

They also drastically reduced the rate base, from 9 million to 3.2 million, with greater emphasis on newsstand sales versus subs.

This move also reflected a strategic shift to a core audience of younger women. Women currently constitute 59% of readers, according to Crystal, who believes that figure will stabilize around 65%. The shift seems to be paying off. Building on a small base at first, ad pages continue to grow by double digits almost three years later. In 2007, they rose 23% to 1,138, and in the first quarter of 2008 they grew 10.9% to 281.

This Old House Goes All-UGC for First Issue

This Old House magazine turned the June issue's editorial content entirely over to its audience, featuring stories and photos submitted by readers or viewers of the show. Aspiring home-repair mavens submitted their content to a Web site created especially for this purpose; significant editorial decisions, including the choice of cover story and photo, were made by online votes.

According to Scott Omelianuk, editor of the magazine: "The editors sure learned a lot about you while sifting through the thousands of emails and photos... I think this is the best issue of This Old House I've ever read." The all-audience-created issue of TOH hit the newsstands May 27, just a few weeks after Budget Travel said its June issue would also be created almost entirely by readers. The reader-generated content includes virtually all the articles and photos in the magazine, from 324 contributors--selected from among 2,800 reader pitches.

New Launch: The Hip Hop Business Journal

Vincent Carroll is launching a new magazine, The Hip Hop Business Journal, according to Folio, which first reported the news this week. The new magazine's target audience of hip-hop entrepreneurs wields potential spending power of $500 billion to $600 billion, Carroll says. The magazine will launch with a circulation of 150,000 and a bimonthly publication schedule.

Forbes.com Launches New Markets Channel

Forbes.com has redesigned its Markets channel home page to include more coverage of stock and financial markets. The new coverage will include stocks, bonds, commodities, and currencies and will highlight perspectives from Forbes.com's global team of reporters on various market trends. There's also a new Editor's Watch List, and video market bulletins from Forbes studios in New York and London.

Wellington Leaves Reader's Digest

After just seven months on the job, publisher Jeff Wellington is leaving Reader's Digest, according to Women's Wear Daily. No specific reason was given for the abrupt departure, but Wellington hinted that it was a clash of personalities as well as editorial approach. Wellington was hired by Eva Dillon--herself a recent appointee of Mary Berner, who took over as CEO after Reader's Digest Association was bought by a private equity firm, Ripplewood Holdings, last year.

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