Magazine Renewal: Fortune vs. Playgirl

Two magazines (among others, I know) have had their revamped editions on the stands this season, and they couldn't be more different -- not just in content, which you'd expect, but in quality, ambition, and integrity.

First, Time, Inc., has released the redesigned Fortune magazine, an old legend in the magazine industry. The redesign is clean and smart. My personal preference would be for the previous iteration of Fortune's design (it had more of an executive look to it), but nonetheless the new design isn't bad. This is still a magazine of content and quality.

Second, there's the release of the new edition of Playgirl, the one featuring Levi Johnston, and it's a huge letdown. Let's be more clear: This is a waste of paper. Not because of the nudity; hey, I'm gay, so print all the naked guys you want. But Playgirl is almost nothing but nude layouts. People buy magazines to read something, so why not a few more actual words of text? This iteration of Playgirl is, simply and brutally, crap crap crap, and the people who put it out are clearly out of their league in the magazine world.

Two new/old magazines. Couldn't be more different.

Media Roundup: Life & Style Magazine, Bunny Icons, People People, & More

Oh, the fun continues:

• CNN has a report on the maybe/maybe-not romance stories that are slathered over the covers of the gossip-sisters mags at the checkout stands. The latest film to fuel this game? The New Moon franchise. The first to play the game? Life & Style magazine.
  
• Reuters has its take on the current news flare-up over a possible sale of the 56-year-old Playboy business. Reuters decides that the bunny icon -- the logo, that is -- is more valuable than the magazine, or the web sites, or the mail-order business, or the Chinese clothing stores, or the grotto. Mebbe, mebbe not.
  
• Would you like 45 million readers? Then get your keister over to Time Warner and buy People magazine -- the company, not the individual magazine copy. That's because Folio:'s reporting that People recorded a readership of a mind-boggling 45.1 million readers (counting pass-along readership; that's not its paid circulation). That's the kind of number that should only be recorded by like the official publication of the Chinese Communist Party or something like that. You know, the kind you can't unsubscribe to. Must be all those New Moon romance stories.
• Oprah's O magazine is in trouble? I bought my first-ever issueof O recently because, well, Ellen Degeneres was on the cover and she told me to buy it. It confirmed that I don't need to buy it ever again, but gay men are hardly O's prime demographic. But anywho, Keith Kelly over at the New Yawk Post makes out that the magazine is in dire straits and Hearst, the publication's owner, is making big changes to try to save it. I think he's over-stating the case, but it's interesting even if only partly true. I mean, does this suggest that Oprah can't do everything right? At least it lasted longer than Rosie magazine.
• I'm not sure I understand this. If the entire point of having Alaska boy-toy Levi Johnston pose nude was to help relaunch the print edition of Playgirl magazine, why are so many of the photos appearing online long before the magazine hits the stands? Let's face it: I'm sure the magazine's not going to be so full of scintillating prose by John Updike and exposes on Washington skulduggery that people will want it for any other reason.
  
• Fox News is flipping out over a magazine that answers teenagers' questions about sex and is actually available where teenagers can read it. Shocking.
• And, finally, we unveil the NUMBER ONE MOST NOTABLE MAGAZINE LAUNCH of the year (I got sick of doing the caps). It's Mr. Magazine's choice. Curious? Hungry to learn more? Salivating?
  

My previous media roundup.

Media Roundup: Guest Editors, Clueless Owners, & More

The latest from the worlds of media:

• A while ago, I shared my thoughts on why guest editors of magazines are a silly gimmick we would be better off without. Obviously, my tremendous influence throughout the magazine publishing industry has resulted in ... yet more guest editors. Will Young will be guest editing an issue of Attitude, a gay lifestyle magazine. And a recent issue of the UK edition of Esquire has no less than four guest editors (including Ricky Gervais)
  
• The news about Playboy Enterprise's possible sale to one of two potential buyers has stirred the usual excitement in the media, though the Chicago Tribune's Greg Burns asks why, considering the company's rather poor performance. I was also surprised to read a number of lame articles, such as Reuters' report, which reads more like a canned obituary than a report on a pending company sale. That might be expected, considering the paucity of information available about the sale options, both of which would take the public company private, with as-yet-unspecified effect on the magazine. Still, don't these people have sources?
  
• The former managing editor of Playgirl has a behind-the-scenes take on what went wrong at that magazine and why she's ... well, annoyed, it seems to me, by the current talk about a revival of the print magazine, led by the modeling of Levi Johnston. She puts a lot of the blame on the corporate sex-industry owners of the magazine, saying they understood neither how to market to women nor to gay men.
  
• And, finally, proof I wasn't lying about that 300-year-old magazine.
  

My previous media roundup.

Magazine News Roundup: Levi Johnson, Creepy, Gay GOPers, Obamas on Covers, & More

Oh, what a week in magazines!

• Levi Johnson, the father of Sarah Palin's granddaughter, wrote an article in Vanity Fair that manages to surprise us even more -- and we thought we were immune to further Palinalia.
• Oh, and Levi Johnson is reportedly going to pose nude or semi-nude for Playgirl (presumably for its web site, because it ceased printing issues last year).
• Meanwhile, "actress" Linday Lohan has turned down nearly $1 million offered to her to pose nude for Playboy.
• The Obama takeover of America's publishing industry continues. One of the Obamas will be on covers of a number of Rodale magazines, including the newly launched Children's Health. President Obama will be the cover man of Men's Health's October issue. They will not be nude.
• Print magazines are dead, eh? Then why did a record 75 new titles launch in August? Huh, Mr./Ms. Smarty-Pants?
• Disgraced South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's wife Jenny does a tell-all in the September issue of Vogue. And it doesn't look good for him.
• Also, bad-boy Sanford is being tipped as the culprit behind rumors that Andre Bauer, his lt. governor and fellow Republican, is gay. It doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure this out: If Sanford is behind it, he's pretty clearly trying to scare off the easily-scared conservatives in the state government from forcing him out of office, because his position would then be filled by the presumably unfit-to-redecorate-the-governor's-mansion Bauer.
• Dark Horse Comics launched its new comics-size edition of former magazine-sized comics magazine Creepy. It's got all-new material; it's still continuing to publish its excellent hard-bound reprint editions collecting all of the original Warren Creepy magazines (and separately the Eerie magazines).