Magazines In The Age Of Specialization Chapter 9

Magazines in the Age of SpecializationChapter 9

The Story of Cosmopolitan“The story of how a ’60sbabe named HelenGurley Brown (you’veprobably heard of her)transformed anantiquated generalinterest mag calledCosmopolitan into themust-read for young,sexy single chicks ispretty damn amazing.”-Cosmopolitan magazine

Nearly all consumermagazines depend onadvertising. In fact, the U.S.consumer economy, forbetter or worse, owespart of its great growth tothe consumer magazineindustry, which has bothchronicled and advertisedconsumable lifestyles andproducts for more than acentury. By the turn of the 19th century,advertisers increasingly usednational magazines to captureconsumers’ attention and builda national marketplace. Throughout that time,magazine pages havegenerally maintained an evenbalance of about 50 percenteditorial content and 50percent ad copy. But now, for fashionmagazines in particular, theline between editorial contentand advertising is becomingincreasingly less important.

The Development of the Early U.S. Magazines The idea of specializedmagazines devoted tocertain categories ofreaders developedthroughout the nineteenthcentury. Literary magazines alsoemerged. The NorthAmerican Review, forexample, established thework of important writerssuch as Ralph WaldoEmerson, Henry DavidThoreau, and MarkTwain.

The Rise of General-Interest Magazines In 1821, two young Philadelphiaprinters, Charles Alexander andSamuel Coate Atkinson, launchedthe Saturday Evening Post It was the first major magazine toappeal directly to women, startingthe “Lady’s Friend,”—a column thataddressed women’s issues. During the 1800s, the weekly Postbecame the first important generalinterest magazine aimed at anational audience. longest-running magazine inU.S. history.

The Rise of General-Interest Magazines Saturday Evening Post When Cyrus Curtis bought thePost in 1897 for 1,000, it had acirculation of approximately tenthousand. Curtis’s strategy forreinvigorating the magazineincluded printing popularfiction and romanticizingAmerican virtues throughwords and pictures (a Posttradition best depicted in thethree-hundred-plus coverillustrations by NormanRockwell).

The Rise of General-Interest Magazines Reader’s Digest The most widely circulated generalinterest magazine during this periodwas Reader’s Digest. Started in 1922 by Dewitt Wallace andLila Acheson Wallace for 5,000 in aGreenwich Village basement, Reader’s Digest championed one ofthe earliest functions of magazines:printing condensed versions ofselected articles from othermagazines.

The Development of Modern American Magazines Postal Act of 1879 Loweredpostage rates Increased magazinecirculation Advertising revenuessoared.Advertisers Usedmagazines tocapture attention andbuild a nationalmarketplace

The Development of Modern American Magazines One magazine that tookadvantage of these changeswas Ladies’ Home Journal,begun in 1883 by CyrusCurtis. Prior to LHJ, many women’smagazines had been calledcookie-and-patternpublications because theynarrowly confined women’sconcerns to baking andsewing. Ladies’ Home Journal First with a circulation of onemillion in 1903

The Development of Modern American Magazines Launched in 1886 as a magazinefor “first-class families,”Cosmopolitan began as a literarypublication, offering both generalinterest articles and fiction. McClure’s Magazine inauguratedthe era of muckraking in 1902 withIda Tarbell’s investigative series onthe Standard Oil Companymonopoly.

The Development of Modern American Magazines Time During the general-interestera, national newsmagazinessuch as Time were also majorcommercial successes. Begun in 1923 by Henry Luceand Briton Hadden, Time developed a magazinebrand of interpretive journalism,assigning reporter-researcherteams to cover stories while arewrite editor would put thearticle in narrative form with aninterpretive point of view.

The Development of Modern American Magazines General-interestmagazines Prominentafter WWIthrough the 1950s Combinedinvestigativejournalism with broadnational topics Photojournalism Gave magazines avisual advantage overradio

The Fall of General–Interest Magazines In 1970, Life’s circulation peakedat 8.5 million, with an estimatedpass-along readership of nearly50 million. Life’s chief competitor,Look, founded by GardnerCowles in 1937, reached 2 millionin circulation by 1945 and 4million by 1955. It climbed toalmost 8 million in 1971. Dramatically, though, bothmagazines suspendedpublication. The demise of thesepopular periodicals at the peak oftheir circulations seemsinexplicable, but their fallillustrates a key economic shift inmedia history as well as a crucialmoment in the conversion to anelectronically oriented culture.

People Puts Life Back into Magazines In March 1974, Time Inc. launchedPeople, the first successful massmarket magazine to appear indecades. Instead of using a bulky oversizedformat and relying on subscriptions,People downsized and generatedmost of its circulation revenue fromnewsstand and supermarket sales. For content, it capitalized on ourculture’s fascination with celebrities.Supported by plenty of photos, itsarticles were short, with about onethird as many words as those of atypical newsmagazine piece.

The Domination of Specialization The general trend away from mass marketpublications and toward specialty magazinescoincided with radio’s move to specialized formats inthe 1950s.With the rise of television in that decade, magazinesultimately reacted the same way radio did: They adapted, trading the mass audience for smaller,discrete audiences that could be guaranteed toadvertisers. Two major marketing innovations also helped ease theindustry into a new era: the development of regional anddemographic editions.

Table 9.1: Top 10 Magazines

Regional Editions As television advertisingsiphoned off national adrevenues, magazines beganintroducing regional editions: national magazines whosecontent is tailored to the interestsof different geographic areas. Forexample, Reader’s Digest foryears had been printing differentlanguage editions forinternational markets. Other magazinesadapted this idea toadvertising variationsand inserts. Often called split-runeditions, thesenational magazinestailor ads to differentgeographic areas. Most editions of Time,Newsweek, and SportsIllustrated, for example,contain a number ofpages of regional ads.

Demographic Editions Another variation ofspecialization includesdemographic editions, whichtarget particular groups ofconsumers. In this strategy,market researchers identifysubscribers primarily byoccupation, class, and zip code. In an experiment conducted in1963, Time pioneereddemographic editions by carryingadvertising from a drug companythat was inserted into copies ofits magazine. These editionswere then sent only to 60,000doctors chosen from Time’ssubscription rolls. By the 1980s, aided bydevelopments in computertechnology, Time had alsodeveloped special editions for topmanagement, high-income zipcode areas, and ultrahigh-incomeprofessional/managerialhouseholds. Certain high-income zip-codeeditions, for instance, wouldinclude ads for more expensiveconsumer products.

Convergence: Magazines Confront the Digital Age Magazinesembrace digitalcontent. WebzinesOnline-onlymagazines such asSalon and Slatepioneered theWebzine format,making the Internet alegitimate source fornews as well asdiscussion of cultureand politics.

Convergence: Magazines Confront the Digital Age Although once viewed asthe death knell of printmagazines, the industrynow embraces theInternet. Magazines move online. Magazine companionWeb sites ideal forincreasing reach ofconsumer magazines Feature originalcontent

The Domination of Specialization Magazines groupedby two importantcharacteristics Advertiser ConsumerBusiness or tradeFarm Target typedemographicsGender, age, or ethnicgroupAudience interest area(sports, literature,tabloids)

The Domination ofSpecialization (cont.) Magazines are alsobroken down bytarget audience. Menand women Sports, entertainment,and leisure Age-group specific Elite magazines aimedat cultural minorities Minorities Supermarket tabloids

The Domination of Specialization (cont.) With increases inHispanicpopulations,magazinesappealing toSpanish-speakingreaders havedeveloped rapidly.

Magazines in a Democratic Society Contemporary commercial magazines provide essentialinformation about politics, society, and culture, thus helpingus think about ourselves as participants in a democracy. Unfortunately, however, these magazines often identifytheir readers as consumers first and citizens second.With magazines’ growing dependence on advertising,controversial content sometimes has difficulty findingits way into print. More and more, magazines define their readers merely as viewersof displayed products and purchasers of material goods.In the midst of today’s swirl of images, magazines and theiradvertisements certainly contribute to the commotion.But good magazines also maintain our connection to words,sustaining their vital role in an increasingly electronic anddigital culture.

Reader's Digest The most widely circulated general-interest magazine during this period was Reader's Digest. Started in 1922 by Dewitt Wallace and Lila Acheson Wallace for 5,000 in a Greenwich Village basement, Reader's Digest championed one of the earliest functions of magazines: printing condensed versions of