• by John Gaffney , April 22, 2003

Rolling Seventeen: I think there's probably Seventeen reasons Wenner Media should buy Seventeen magazine, as has been rumored. I won't be so glib as to list all of them. But I think Wenner deserves a lot of credit for taking a demographic and lifestyle approach to magazines. Example: Us Weekly profited by appealing to the ultra-celeb culture of younger women that People left out. Rolling Stone got away from its scattered rock'n roll focus and is now doing well by hitting the Avril Lavigne crowd with shorter, more edgy pieces. Now Wenner has a chance to grab a critical demographic: true teens. The kids that read Seventeen are well under 17. Kids want to read about stuff that's a few levels older. So Wenner, if it buys Seventeen has a chance to grab kids early, keep them through Rolling Stone and then send the women to Us and the men to Men's Journal. Pretty neat package. Expensive, too.

And Read All Over: That sound you just heard may have been the media properties of the world waking up to market themselves. The Washington Post is preparing to break a new TV commercial that will feature the tension and drama of its newsroom during its coverage of the war in Iraq. Fortune magazine, sources say, is preparing a new campaign as well. I think all media properties that have a good story to tell have a lot to gain by reintroducing themselves to consumers. And if you lasted through the depression that marked the past two years, you more than likely have a good story to tell.

At The Buzzer: I'm boycotting Drudge (and I was a pretty active Drudger). He went out of his way to trash Susan Sarandon on Monday because her lame but politically correct TV movie bombed in the ratings. Never has a bad TV movie had such a big headline in Drudge. He is criticizing Sarandon's anti-war stand with an illegal head slap. Poor Drudgement, even for a loose cannon like Drudge. I'm disappointed.