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Years ago, there was a joke about the article most likely to be found in
the relentlessly upbeat Reader's Digest magazine: "New Hope for the
Dead." Today, it is magazines and other print media that are widely
perceived to be hopelessly at death's door.
Even so, some publishers deem the reports about print's demise to be
premature. Among them is the Gannett Company, the nation's largest
owner of newspapers, which this week introduced a spinoff of its
magazine supplement, USA Weekend.
The spinoff, titled USA Weekend HealthSmart, was distributed by 76 of
the 600 newspapers that carry USA Weekend, including The Chicago
Sun-Times, The Detroit Free Press, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and
Newsday. The 76 newspapers have an estimated circulation of 7.5
million; the total USA Weekend circulation is 22.7 million.
The 32-page issue of USA Weekend HealthSmart carries a cover date of
June 19-22 and is billed as "a special midweek edition of your favorite
weekend magazine." It includes articles on topics like allergies,
asthma, A.D.H.D. (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder),
cholesterol and migraines. "We do our own research and focus groups on
editorial content, and what comes up No. 1 or No. 2 is health," said
Charles Gabrielson, publisher at USA Weekend in New York. "Consumers
want more information, in a way they can understand, and they want to
see it, read it, touch it.
"And the newspaper reader is still a primary target for pharmaceutical
advertisers," he added, particularly those that market prescription
drugs directly to consumers and need the print media to disclose and
describe side effects.
Executives at USA Weekend initially considered the issue to be a test.
But after seeing the results - more than 16 advertising pages, from
marketers like AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, bringing
in more than $3 million in revenue, Gabrielson said - they are already
looking at publishing HealthSmart again, perhaps as soon as the fourth
quarter.
Additional spinoffs on other subjects are also being considered, said
Rob Harrison, senior vice president for advertising at USA Weekend,
including food, the other most popular reader interest.
Through the first five months of 2006, publishers brought out 338 new
magazines, compared with 395 for the period a year ago, according to
Samir Husni, chairman of the journalism department at the University of
Mississippi, who tracks start-ups on his Web site (mrmagazine.com). But
this May brought the first increase from the year-ago period, he
reported, 78 compared with 64.
"The first time I heard print was dead was 1980, when I was a student,"
Husni said in a telephone interview yesterday. The difficulty
confronting the print media as online media grow in popularity "is not
a problem of ink on paper," Husni said. "It's a problem of creating
relevant content."
"As long as the content is compelling, the readers will follow," he
said.
The magazines introduced this year include Travel & Romance, from
American Express Publishing and The Knot Inc., which operates an online
wedding-information portal (theknot.com). Five hundred thousand copies
were distributed, carrying ads from marketers like Fairmont Hotels and
Resorts, Lancôme and Liberty Travel; a second issue is planned for next
year.
"Our Web sites do well, but it all starts with the respect the brand
has from the magazines," said Ellen Asmodeo-Giglio, publisher at Travel
& Leisure in New York and its extensions. They are, in addition to
Travel & Romance, Travel & Leisure Family, which is soon
increasing its frequency to six issues a year from three; and Travel
& Leisure Golf.
Just as radio did not bring the death of newspapers, and television did
not bring the death of radio, the online media will not kill off the
print media, said Ms. Asmodeo-Giglio, whose magazines are owned by the
American Express Company and managed by the Time Inc. division of Time
Warner.
That opinion was echoed by an executive of a new-media company, Flytxt,
which specializes in mobile marketing services and works for
advertisers like Procter & Gamble and Target.
"It's a changing world, but the classical media are crucial still,"
said Carsten Boers, president at Flytxt in New York, which includes
Time Inc. as a client. "You want to create the critical awareness to
drive the interactive channels through the broad reach of magazines,
TV, even posters."
USA Weekend competes against magazine supplements distributed each week
through newspapers that include American Profile, owned by the
Publishing Group of America; Life, from Time Inc.; and Parade, part of
Advance Publications.
Husni noted that the Publishing Group of America recently introduced a
sibling for American Profile, called Relish, a monthly that covers food
and is also distributed through newspapers.
Ad pages for USA Weekend through the first five months of the year
totaled 300, the Publishers Information Bureau reported, up 6.4 percent
from 282 in the period a year ago. The trade publication Mediaweek,
which maintains its own database, reported that ad pages for USA
Weekend through the issue dated June 16-18 totaled 339.5, up 4.9
percent from 323.6 in the period the year before.
Health is the No. 2 ad category for USA Weekend, Harrison said,
trailing only direct-response marketers. Two such direct-response
advertisers, Bose and Dell, also appear in USA Weekend HealthSmart, he
added.
The spinoff was named after HealthSmart, a weekly column in USA Weekend
written by Dr. Tedd Mitchell. The title USA Weekend HealthSmart may be
confusing in that the issue is being distributed not during the weekend
but in newspapers coming out Monday through today. "We wanted to
reinforce the brand" of USA Weekend, Gabrielson said, rather than use a
reference like "midweek."
It is not unlike the problem faced by another Gannett publication when
its readers ask each other, "Did you see USA Today yesterday?"
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