• by September 8, 2003

What is it about TV/publishing synergies that makes one magazine spin-off of a TV property succeed, while others fail miserably? That's what the folks at Hearst, ABC and NBC surely are pondering these days as they pull their aborted Biography magazine off the newsstands and relegate it to fan club 'zine status. While the fact that A&E's "Biography" franchise has a fan club is in itself noteworthy, we're left wondering how those TV powerhouses failed to leverage a title with so much built-in cross-promotional power. Based on the success rate of Hearst's and ABC's publishing joint ventures, we can only imagine NBC was the spoiling factor. Hearst and ABC, you may recall, launched the wildly successful ESPN Magazine, which capitalized on its built- in promotional base of avid male sports fans. And now the team is poised to try it again with women's lifestyle pub Lifetime Magazine. Will Lifetime last a lifetime, or will it have a relatively short bio? We will know soon enough, but based on recent history, other TV/magazine spin-offs seem to be doing well, including Viacom's Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. magazines, as well as PBS' This Old House magazine. And let's not forget the grand dame of such line extensions, Oprah Winfrey's Oprah magazine. We'll chalk up the demise of Rosie magazine to the extensively reported creative differences and leave it that magazine spin-offs of TV franchises have fallen overwhelmingly on the successful side. But what about the reverse equation: TV spin-offs of magazine franchises? Based on recent results, we'd also have to say they've essentially been success stories. Even battered Martha Stewart Living's namesake TV series appears to be performing better than the title that spawned it. While the magazine is hemorrhaging ad pages, the syndicated TV strip still has strong TV station clearances, not to mention a late-night double-run on CBS stations in major markets. Another magazine-into-TV foray, the advertising-free Playboy Channel also appears to be outperforming its namesake publication. Meanwhile, another publisher-gone-TV has earned another measure of success. The New York Times, which is more recognized for its Pulitzers, just bagged two of the TV industry's Emmy awards for "Mortal Enemies," a documentary about Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon that New York Times Television produced for the Discovery Channel. We take that as a very promising indicator for the Discovery Times Channel, a joint venture of The New York Times Co. and Discovery Communications.

What exactly are the marketing wizards at Sidney Frank Importing Co. drinking these days? It's bad enough that the spirits marketer's ad claim for Grey Goose vodka - "Rated the No. 1 Tasting Vodka in the World" - is ungrammatical, but now it's also lost an important ruling from the National Advertising Review Board, which found the claim unsubstantiated. Duh, we could've told them that. Everyone knows vodka doesn't taste like anything. That's the point. But that apparently has not deterred Sidney Frank, which is opting to continue the campaign anyway. And now the case is headed for an unusual review by two government agencies: the Federal Trade Commission and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

Who, What, Where, But Why No When? That's what magazine publishers were wondering Monday morning, when the Magazine Publishers of America issued a press release about an upcoming event on, of all things, public relations. Moments after transmitting the press announcement, the PR staff of the MPA issued an "URGENT-RESEND." What was wrong with the original version? It left out the date of the event, which will be held Nov. 11 at the Harvard University Club in New York. As for the topic, "Mastering Magazine PR," the MPA might want to pay apt attention itself to the pearly wisdoms of keynoter Howard J. Rubenstein.