TEXTBOOK: Ch. 5: History of Magazines
*Custom publishing* *brand magazine* *magalogue*
Custom Magazines: Another trend finds its roots in the magazine industry's response to an increasingly crowded media environment. *__________________________* is the creation of magazines specifically designed for an individual company seeking to reach a very narrowly defined audience, such as favored customers or likely users or buyers. If you've ever stayed at an Airbnb home-sharing location, for example, you might well have come across Airbnb Magazine, distributed for free to member hosts. WebMD, the medical information website, distributes for free to 85% of all American doctors' offices a magazine of the same name. -Its monthly print circulation of 1.4 million is read by more than 10 million people, a number further expanded by its 78 million digital readers and the more than 53 million unique monthly mobile visitors. 41% of business-to-customer marketers use custom print magazines, as do 36% of business-to-business marketers. Naturally, such specifically targeted magazines take advantage of readers' engagement with and affinity for magazine advertising. There are 2 broad categories of custom publishing. A *______________________* is a consumer magazine, complete with a variety of general interest articles and features, published by a retail or other business for readers having demographic characteristics similar to those of consumers with whom it typically does business. These publications carry ad pages not only for the products of their parent business but for others as well. Costco Connection has the highest print circulation - its 8.74 million subscribers make it the largest-circulation print monthly in America (the two AARP publications ranked above it are not monthlies). For example, energy drink maker Red Bull publishes Red Bulletin; Kraft has been publishing Food & Family for more than 20 years; and among others, Dodge, Hallmark, Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Crunch Fitness, and Sea Ray boats all have successful brand magazines. A small but growing number of brand magazines, for example Enterprise Car Rental's Pursuits with Enterprise, are digital-only. Brand magazines recognize two important contemporary realities of today's media environment: (a) The cost of retaining existing customers is significantly lower than that of recruiting new ones, and (b) in an increasingly hypercommercialized and cluttered mass media system, advertisers who want to connect with their customers can rely on the engagement and affinity inherent in a good magazine to overcome growing consumer cynicism and suspicion. Closely related is the *____________________*, a designer catalog produced to look like a consumer magazine. Abercrombie & Fitch, J. Crew, Harry Rosen, Saks Fifth Avenue, Net-A-Porter, Asos, Frank & Oak, Bergdorf Goodman, and Diesel all produce catalogs in which models wear for-sale designer clothes. Designers, photographers, writers, and editors from major fashion magazines typically contribute to these publications, and they are occasionally available for sale at newsstands.
*complementary copy*
Advertiser Influence over Magazine Content: Sometimes controversial is the influence that some advertisers attempt to exert over content. This influence is always there, at least implicitly. A magazine editor must satisfy advertisers as well as readers. One common way advertisers' interests shape content is in the placement of ads. Airline ads are moved away from stories about plane crashes. Cigarette ads rarely appear near articles on lung cancer. In fact, it is an accepted industry practice for a magazine to provide advertisers with a heads-up, alerting them that soon-to-be-published content may prove uncomfortable for their businesses. Advertisers can then request a move of their ad, or pull it and wait to run it in the next issue. Magazines, too, often entice advertisers with promises of placement of their ads adjacent to relevant articles. But *________________________________*— content that reinforces the advertiser's message, or at least does not negate it— is problematic when creating such copy becomes a major influence in a publication's editorial decision making. This happens in a number of ways. Editors sometimes engage in self-censorship, making decisions about how stories are written and which stories appear based on the fear that specific advertisers will be offended. Some magazines, Architectural Digest, for example, identify companies by name in their picture caption copy only if they are advertisers. But many critics inside and outside the industry see a growing crumbling of the wall between advertising demands and editorial judgment. This problem is particularly acute today, say critics, because a very competitive media environment puts additional pressure on magazines to bow to advertiser demands. For example, a Sears marketing executive suggested that magazines needed to operate "in much less traditional ways" by allowing advertisers to "become a part of the storyline" in their articles. Lexus, for example, asks the magazines it advertises in to use its automobiles in photos used to illustrate editorial content. But most troubling are advertisers who institute an ad-pull policy, the demand for an advance review of a magazine's content, with the threat of pulled advertising if dissatisfied with that content. The advertising agencies for oil giant BP and financial services company Morgan Stanley shocked the magazine industry by demanding just that— in the case of BP, insisting that it be informed "in advance of any news text or visuals magazines plan to publish that directly mention the company, a competitor, or the oil-and-energy industry". Events like this moved Advertising Age to editorialize against what they saw as an attack on magazines' independence and editorial integrity. Ad-pull policies damage trust between readers and magazines, they argued, "the very thing that gives media their value to advertisers to begin with". This concern is overwrought, say many industry people. When the American Society of Magazine Editors announced in 2008 that it would revise its guidelines to protect magazines' editorial integrity, there was significant pushback. "As long as it's interesting to the reader, who cares?" argued one editor, speaking for the dissenters. "This ivory-tower approach that edit[ orial] is so untouchable, and what they're doing is so wonderful and can't be tainted by the stink of advertising just makes me sick". The critics' question, however, remains, "How can a magazine function, offering depth, variety, and detail, when BP and Morgan Stanley are joined by scores of other advertisers, each demanding to preview content, not for its direct comment on matters of importance to their businesses, but for controversy and potential offensiveness? What will be the impact on the ideals of a free press and of free inquiry?" Equally controversial and far more common is sponsored content, articles paid for by advertisers.
*split runs*
Magazines are often further specialized through *____________*, special versions of a given issue in which editorial content and ads vary according to some specific demographic or regional grouping. "People", for example, will sell A-B splits in which every other copy of the national edition will carry a different cover, regional splits by state and by major metropolitan area, and splits targeting the top 10 and top 20 largest metropolitan areas. Magazines work to make themselves attractive to advertisers in other ways, especially as the industry, like all traditional media, deals with tough economic conditions. One strategy is "single-sponsor magazines"— having only one advertiser throughout an entire issue. Health publication "Walk It Off" uses this technique exclusively, and even venerable titles like "The New Yorker" (Target stores) and "Time" (Kraft foods) publish single-sponsor issues on occasion. Another strategy is to make "accountability guarantees". -"The Week", for example, promises that independent testing will demonstrate that its readers recall, to an agreed-upon level, a sponsor's ad; if they do not, the advertiser will receive free ad pages until recall reaches that benchmark.
mass medium *muckraking* Theodore Roosevelt muckrakers unify advertising
Magazines were truly America's first national ___________________. Like books, they served as an important force in social change, especially in the *_______________* era of the first decades of the 20th century. ______________________ coined this label as an insult, but the muckrakers wore it proudly, using the pages of The Nation, Harper's Weekly, The Arena, and even mass circulation publications such as McClure's and Collier's to agitate for change. Their targets were the powerful. Their beneficiaries were the poor. The mass circulation magazine grew with the nation. From the start there were general interest magazines such as "The Saturday Evening Post", women's magazines such as "Good Housekeeping," pictorial magazines such as "Life and Look", and digests such as "Reader's Digest", which was first published in 1922 and offered condensed and tightly edited articles for people on the go in the Roaring Twenties. What these magazines all had in common was the size and breadth of readership. They were mass market, mass circulation publications, both national and affordable. As such, magazines helped _______ the nation. They were the television of their time— the dominant ___________________ medium, the primary source for nationally distributed news, and the preeminent provider of photojournalism.
internationalization technology subscriber lists; marketing
Meeting Competition from Cable Television: As we've seen, the move toward specialization in magazines was forced by the emergence of television as a mass-audience, national advertising medium. But television again— specifically cable television— eventually came to challenge the preeminence of magazines as a specialized advertising medium. Advertiser-supported cable channels survive using precisely the same strategy as magazines— they deliver to advertisers a relatively large number of consumers who have some important demographic trait in common. Similar competition also comes from specialized online content providers, such as ESPN's several sports-oriented sites and the Discovery Channel Online. Magazines are well positioned to fend off these challenges for several reasons. -First is _________________________, which expands a magazine's reach, making it possible for magazines to attract additional ad revenues for content that, essentially, has already been produced. Internationalization can happen in one of several ways. -Some magazines, Time and Monthly Review, for example, produce one or more foreign editions in English. -Others enter cooperative agreements with overseas companies to produce native-language versions of essentially U.S. magazines. -For ex: Hearst and the British company ITP cooperate to publish British and Middle Eastern editions of Esquire, two of the 18 international versions of the men's magazine. ITP and Hearst also team up on the Dubai version of the fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar and 75 other titles in the Middle East and India. -Often, American publishers prepare special content for foreign-language editions. -Elle has 42 local-language versions of its magazine, including countries like Argentina, Serbia, Poland, Thailand, and Turkey. -Vogue offers 19 in locales such as China, Greece, and Portugal. -Cosmopolitan alone has 64 international editions. The internationalization of magazines will no doubt increase as conglomeration and globalization continue to have an impact on the magazine industry as they have on other media businesses. Second is ___________________. The Internet and satellites now allow instant distribution of copy from the editor's desk to printing plants around the world. The result— incredibly quick delivery to subscribers and sales outlets— makes production and distribution of even more narrowly targeted split runs more cost-effective. Third is the sale of __________________ and a magazine's own direct ________________ of products. Advertisers buy space in specialized magazines to reach a specific type of reader. Most magazines are more than happy to sell those readers' names and addresses to those same advertisers, as well as to others who want to contact readers with direct mail pitches. Many magazines use their own subscriber lists and Web visitors' details for the same purpose, marketing products of interest to their particular readership. Some magazines meet television's challenge by becoming television themselves. Fox Television Studios, for example, produces Web-based programs based on Hearst publications CosmoGirl and Popular Mechanics. Allure, Maxim, and Vanity Fair maintain video channels; Teen Vogue alone has five. Vice, which began in 1994 as the 16-page free publication Voice of Montreal, has an Emmy Award- winning news show on HBO and more than 50 video series across the Internet. Condé Nast has long had interests in film and video. -Its Condé Nast Entertainment division produces films (No Exit; Argo; Eat, Pray, Love) and several scripted and reality TV shows for a number of networks (The New Yorker Presents on Amazon Prime and Whale War on Animal Planet), and it maintains video channels for 19 of its titles.
1741
A Short History of Magazines: Magazines were a favorite medium of the British elite by the mid-1700s, and 2 prominent colonial printers hoped to duplicate that success in the New World. In _____ in Philadelphia, Andrew Bradford published "The American Magazine, or a Monthly View of the Political State of the British Colonies", followed by Benjamin Franklin's "General Magazine" and "Historical Chronicle, for All the British Plantations in America." Composed largely of reprinted British material, these publications were expensive and aimed at the small number of literate colonists. Without an organized postal system, distribution was difficult, and neither magazine was successful. "American Magazine" produced 3 issues; "General Magazine" produced 6. Yet between 1741 and 1794, 45 new magazines appeared, although no more than 3 were publishing at the same time. Entrepreneurial printers hoped to attract educated, cultured, moneyed gentlemen by copying the successful London magazines. Even after the Revolutionary War, U.S. magazines remained clones of their British forerunners.
*controlled circulation*
A third form of circulation, *_________________________*, refers to providing a magazine at no cost to readers who meet some specific set of advertiser-attractive criteria. Free airline and hotel magazines fit this category. Although they provide no subscription or single-sales revenue, these magazines are an attractive, relatively low-cost advertising vehicle for companies seeking narrowly defined, captive audiences. United Airlines' Hemispheres, for example, has 12 million monthly readers with an annual household income of $ 146,600, the highest of any American print magazine. They're well-educated, too, as half have a college degree.
Trade; Professional; Business Industrial; Company; Sponsored Consumer
Scope and Structure of the Magazine Industry: In 1950 there were 6,950 magazines in operation. The number now exceeds 20,000, some 7,200 of which are general-interest consumer magazines. Of these, 800 produce 3/4 of the industry's gross revenues. Contemporary magazines are typically divided into 3 broad types: _________, _________________, and ___________ magazines carry stories, features, and ads aimed at people in specific professions and are distributed either by the professional organizations themselves (American Medical News) or by media companies such as Whittle Communications and Time Warner (Progressive Farmer). ______________, _____________, and _________________ magazines are produced by companies specifically for their own employees, customers, and stockholders, or by clubs and associations specifically for their members. Boy's Life, for example, is the magazine of the Boy Scouts of America. VIA is the travel magazine for AAA auto club members in eight Western states. ______________ magazines are sold by subscription and at newsstands, bookstores, and other retail outlets, including supermarkets, garden shops, and computer stores. Ex: The New Yorker; AARP Magazine; AARP Bulletin
*quick response (QR) codes* *near-field communication (NFC) chips*
Smartphones, Tablets, and e-Readers: As with books and newspapers, mobile digital media are reshaping the relationship between magazines and readers. In 2012, a group of major magazine publishers came together to create Next Issue, basically a Netflix for magazines. Now called Texture, a relatively low monthly fee gains readers full access to more than 300 magazines. Then in 2015, Magzter, which already offered a "newsstand" of apps that allowed users to buy single issues of more than 5,000 magazines, expanded its service to include the sale of full subscriptions to more than 8,000 titles. Today, there are a number of other digital subscription services operating. Zinio offers access to more than 5,000 magazines. Amazon Prime, through a feature called Prime Reading, gives its members access to a number of high-profile magazines. Although app subscribers make up only 4% of overall magazine circulation, many publications have very sizable mobile readership, for example ESPN the Magazine's 65.5 million monthly unique readers, Forbes's 36.2 million, and WebMD's 31.5 million. And interestingly, smartphones and tablets now make hard-copy magazines more attractive to readers and advertisers now that *_____________________________* appear on virtually all consumer magazines. When readers use a scanner app on their smartphones to capture the image of these square barcodes containing smaller squares and rectangles inside, they are instantly directed to a publisher's or marketer's website, increasing engagement. QR code use, while not overwhelming— the average mobile user makes just over 4 scans a year — nonetheless contributes to the industry's economic stability. Even easier to use are *______________________________________*, tags embedded in magazines that connect readers to advertisers' digital content when they simply hold their smartphones near an ad; there is no need to have the correct app or to take a picture of a code.
elite Civil War
Still, these early magazines were aimed at a literate ______ interested in short stories, poetry, social commentary, and essays. The magazine did not become a true national mass medium until after the _____________.
Cheaper; literacy social movements specialist
The Early Magazine Industry: In 1821 "The Saturday Evening Post" appeared. Starting life in 1729 as Ben Franklin's "Pennsylvania Gazette," it was to continue for the next 148 years. Among other successful early magazines were "Harper's" (1850) and "Atlantic Monthly" (1857). _______________ printing and growing ____________ fueled expansion of the magazine as they had for the book. But an additional factor in the success of the early magazines was the spread of _______________________ such as abolitionism and labor reform. These issues provided compelling content, and a boom in magazine publishing began. In 1825 there were 100 magazines in operation; 25 years later there were 600. Because magazine articles increasingly focused on matters of importance to U.S. readers, publications such as the "United States Literary Gazette" and "American Boy" began to look less like London publications and more like a new and unique product. Journalism historians John Tebbel and Mary Ellen Zuckerman called this "the time of significant beginnings"; it was during this time that the magazine developed many of the characteristics we associate with it even today. Magazines and the people who staffed them began to clearly differentiate themselves from other publishing endeavors, such as books and newspapers. The concept of ________________ writers took hold, and their numbers rose. In addition, numerous and detailed illustrations began to fill the pages of magazines.
television television timeliness novelty advertisers
The Era of Specialization: In 1956 "Collier's" declared bankruptcy and became the first of the big mass circulation magazines to cease publication. But its fate, as well as that of other mass circulation magazines, had actually been sealed in the late 1940s and 1950s following the end of World War II. Profound alterations in the nation's culture— and, in particular, the advent of ______________— changed the relationship between magazines and their audience. No matter how large their circulation, magazines could not match the reach of ________________. Magazines did not have moving pictures or visual and oral storytelling. Nor could magazines match television's ________________. Magazines were weekly, whereas television was continuous. Nor could they match television's ______________. In the beginning, everything on television was of interest to viewers. As a result, magazines began to lose _________________ to television.
women's literacy Postal Act of 1879 cost
The Mass Circulation Era: The modern era of magazines can be divided into two parts, each characterized by a different relationship between medium and audience. Mass circulation popular magazines began to prosper in the post- Civil War years. In 1865 there were 700 magazines publishing; by 1870 there were 1,200; by 1885 there were 3,300. Crucial to this expansion was the ___________ magazine. Suffrage— women's right to vote— was the social movement that occupied its pages, but a good deal of content could also be described as how-to for homemakers. Advertisers, too, were eager to appear in the new women's magazines, hawking their brand-name products. First published at this time are several magazines still familiar today, for example Good Housekeeping. There were several reasons for this phenomenal growth. As with books, widespread __________ was one reason. But the _____________________, which permitted mailing magazines at cheaper second-class postage rates, and the spread of the railroad, which carried people and publications westward from the East Coast, were two others. A fourth was the reduction in _____. As long as magazines sold for 35 cents— a lot of money for the time— they were read largely by the upper class. However, a circulation war erupted between giants "McClure's, Munsey's Magazine", and "The Saturday Evening Post." Soon they, as well as "Ladies' Home Journal" "McCall's," "Woman's Home Companion," "Collier's", and "Cosmopolitan", were selling for as little as 10 and 15 cents, which brought them within reach of many working people.
specialization
The audience changed as well. As we've seen, World War II changed the nature of American life. The new, mobile, product-consuming public was less interested in the traditional Norman Rockwell world of "The Saturday Evening Post" (closed in 1969) and more in tune with the slick, hip world of narrower interest publications such as "GQ" and "Esquire", which spoke to them about their new and exciting lives. And because World War II had further urbanized and industrialized America, people— including millions of women who had entered the workforce— had more leisure and more money to spend. They could spend both on a wider array of personal interests and on magazines that catered to those interests. Where there were once "Look" (closed in 1971) and "The Saturday Evening Post", there were now "Flyfishing", "Surfing", "Ski," and "Easyrider." The industry had hit on the secret of success: ____________________ and a lifestyle orientation. All media have moved in this direction in their efforts to attract an increasingly fragmented audience, but it was the magazine industry that began the trend.
circulation; reputation industrialization
This 1870s price war was made possible by the newfound ability of magazines to attract growing amounts of advertising. Social and demographic changes in the post- Civil War era— urbanization, industrialization, the spread of roads and railroads, and development of consumer brands and brand names— produced an explosion in the number of advertising agencies. These agencies needed to place their messages somewhere. Magazines were the perfect outlet because they were read by a large, national audience. As a result, ________________— rather than ________________, as had been the case before— became the most important factor in setting advertising rates. Magazines kept cover prices low to ensure the large readerships coveted by advertisers. The fifth reason for the enormous growth in the number of magazines was _______________________, which provided people with leisure time to read and more personal income to spend on that free time.
