Summary of Lecture on Magazines

Last week’s lecture on magazines covered the state of magazine publishing today, the big issues facing print publishing, aspects that make a magazine successful, and a brief look at publications that are recognized as classics.

There are more magazines published today than ever before (estimated at more than 6000), yet many have a niche readership. The trend in magazine publishing has been to design content for special interests and the associated targeted buying power of those audiences.

Generally, readership is down for all three major news magazines (Time, Newsweek, and US News). Over the last ten years these publications have lost thirty percent of their readership. The main challenge for these weeklies is to find a way to regain the lost audiences while at the same time cultivating new audiences. A key concern for these magazines is the competition from online news sites and from cable television for content and for advertising dollars. Young audiences 18-21 almost exclusively turn to online news sources for their information (evidenced also by the class surveys at the start of the semester).

Production costs for print publications keeps going up. The cost of paper, inks, coatings can be high when environmental regulation is factored into the printing process. Labor costs increase as well as bargaining unit employees call for sustainable wages. Add to that delivery (trucking costs of magazines) and mailing (postal rate to the subscriber base).

Despite these issues, many magazines are enormously successful and enjoy a growing niche audience base. Lifestyle magazines and celebrity-centered magazines are two categories that have done very well in recent years and their ad pages keep increasing.
Other publications that lead growth in the industry: The Economist, The New Yorker, and The Week (all three have excellent online presence as well).

But what makes a magazine great? Ad pages are only part of the equation. Without a doubt, one key component of a great magazine is great editorial leadership and vision at the helm. Everything flows from that leadership: A magazine with a strong perspective that offers its readers topics of interest and relevance written by good writers will find loyal audiences. Other components of great magazines: A signature design that blends photography, illustration and layout in a manner that complements the content of the publication.

We examined several publications that are notable for the distinguished vision of their founder. Among these is Life, the glossy general interest weekly, which kept us informed about world events through powerful photo essays by noted photojournalists for 36 years.
(Founded by Henry Luce, who also founded Fortune and Time). We also noted Esquire, the Sixties years, when New Journalism and the personalized approach to reporting offered us the works of Tom Wolfe (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers) and Gay Talese (Frank Sinatra Has a Cold) among others. (Under editor Harold Hayes). We looked at magazines distinguished by great reporting: The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, the Economist (and the long- defunct Collier’s). We noted that men’s magazine’s such a Playboy once published the works of some of the best writers of their time (in the Fifties and Sixties). Not to be overlooked, Rolling Stone, whose cover stories have included everyone famous and infamous in music from Janis Joplin to Amy Winehouse (see info on Jann Wenner and Greil Marcus). Also discussed: Ebony (founded by John Johnson); The Atlantic (founded by Emerson and Longfellow); Details (Annie Flanders); National Geographic; Vogue; and Mademoiselle (now defunct).

The lecture covered another dozen or so magazines distinguished by great editorial leadership.