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Archives: May 2010

W Hires New Design Director, Ends Fairchild Column

w_magazine05282010.jpgThe revolving door keeps spinning in the early months of the Stefano Tonchi era at W. Women’s Wear Daily reports that Tonchi has brought Joseph Logan on board as design director. Says WWD:

Logan, 38, succeeds W’s longtime group design director, Edward Leida, who was shown the door soon after Tonchi came into power. Logan — who has also worked at French Vogue and Arena Homme Plus — will report to W’s new creative director, Jody Quon. In a conversation with Tonchi and Quon, Logan told WWD, “What we’ve talked about is making something extremely refined and something in line with, or maybe built around, the interests of the first W that existed under Mr. Fairchild.”

In another editorial changeup, 83-year-old John Fairchild will no longer be penning his society column under the pseudonym Countess Louise J. Esterhazy, the New York Post reports.

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Gossip Gossip: Frank DiGiacomo Heading To The Daily News

gatecrasher_logo_5.28.10.jpg

Frank DiGiacomo will be returning to his former beat as he takes over the Daily News‘ gossip column. DiGiacomo, who contributes to Vanity Fair and has formerly covered celebrity and entertainment gossip for Page Six, is taking over the Gatecrasher column as the section’s current writer, Amanda Sidman, moves on to become a features writer at the paper.

DiGiacomo’s hire comes in in the wake of fellow gossip scribe George Rush‘s decision to take the buyout package offered to Daily News staffers. In fact, DiGiacomo co-edited Page Six with Rush’s wife, fellow Daily News columnist Joanna Molloy, who most recently co-wrote Rush & Molloy before her husband’s departure.

FishbowlNY Newsstand: Your Morning at a Glance

This Is The Anthem | Flattery | Food ‘N Booze

FishbowlLA: I sing this softly to myself every morning while in a fetal position.

FishbowlDC: Is TPM being a copygato?

The L Magazine: Twenty-four hours of eating and drinking in NYC. Starting… Now!

Twitter: Gary Coleman is in critical condition in a Utah hospital. And, so. Now you know what everyone’s talking ’bout.

More.com Launches Story Contest With Barnes & Noble, Voice Books And Author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Chitra_5.27.10.jpgMore.com is launching a new contest they’re calling “One Amazing Thing,” running from May 24th until June 30th. They’re asking readers to tell their stories (which must be both “amazing” and “true life”) in 700 words or less for a chance to be published on More.com and Barnes & Noble’s “More-In-Store” web portal. Furthermore, they’ll have a chance to meet with author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, whose new novel inspired the contest, for a one-on-one writing session.

More.com visitors can vote for their favorites online and judges from More magazine and Voice Books will ultimately choose the winner from among the top 25. Women can enter the contest online here.

The winner will be announced on September 15, 2010.

Time Inc. Is Introducing Several New iPad Apps For Their Magazines, Boasts Industry Leaders Among Titles

Time Inc. is launching a slew of new apps for their various titles. At today’s Time Warner investor day, Time Inc. chairman and CEO Ann Moore told the audience about some of new products we have to look forward to: Real Simple, for instance, will introduce apps for $4.99 that will tackle issues relating to cooking and cleaning and will be made available at the end of this year on a number of devices, including the iPad, iPhone and Android.

According to Mediaweek, there are “skeptics who question the business benefit e-readers will bring magazines, despite the hope that they’ll help the industry offset its advertising declines and capture circulation revenue,” but Moore remained enthusiastic about the role e-readers will play for magazines in the very near future.

In her presentation to Time Warner investors today, the company happily shared the fact that it is a leader in its industry, boasting $3.7 million in magazine revenue in 2009 and, in the same year, 105 million U.S. magazine readers and 48 million U.S. online visitors. Additionally, it showed that lifestyle title readership is up 18 percent since 2003, with Real Simple and Cooking Light poised as top titles in women’s lifestyle magazines and top epicurean magazines, respectively.

The powerpoint also shows how the recession impacted several titles, with total group PIB ad revenue in 2008-09, with style and entertainment dropping 2 percent between those two years, lifestyle experiencing a 7 percent drop and news and sports seeing a drop of 19 percent.

On a positive note, however, magazine advertising, which had, obviously experienced a decline, is either holding steady or seeing a boost across different magazine titles.

Online Ad Sales Are Up for Newspapers; That Hasn’t Happened Since 2008

Another glimmer of hope on the ad-sales front: online ad revenue for newspapers rose 4.9% in the first quarter to $730.4 million, breaking a two-year streak of losses, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

The NAA’s results weren’t all gravy, though; print sales dropped 11% to $5.25 billion. National print ad revenue fell 8.3% to $1.04 billion and classified revenue dropped 14% to $1.25 billion.

“While broad, macroeconomic factors indicate we are not out of the woods yet, NAA is encouraged by the improvements we are seeing in newspaper ad spending. At the core of these latest statistics is the fact that declines are moderating across the board and, in some instances, have turned positive,” said NAA CEO John Sturm in a statement.

The NAA study follow’s yesterday’s report by Kantar Media that overall ad spending climbed 5.1% in the first quarter.

Cheers: Introducing The New York Times‘ “Tipsy Diaries”

God (or chance or the one religious / earth-based deity of one’s choice) bless the New York Times: It truly has something for all of us, even those who find ourselves at happy hour at Lakeside Lounge, listening to country music and watching Bruce Lee films while the bartender offers more whiskey because “it’s good for your epidermis,” or savoring the perfect whiskey cocktail (it is, in fact, the “Improved Whiskey Cocktail”) at the Clover Club. That is to day, now the New York Times has a section for the drinkers (and the drunks) among us. Say hello to the “Tipsy Diaries” — a new column on city bars, lounges, dives, speakeasies and pubs (and, most importantly, the people who love them) that will run every other week.

So far, the Diaries, which is penned by the Times restaurant critic and Choco Taco connoisseur Frank Bruni, have introduced us to Doug Quinn, P.J. Clarke’s talented bar tender. Here’s how Bruni himself describes his new column:

[I]t will sometimes profile interesting people who are part of the New York drinking scene. Other times it will look at special bars or special rituals or special drinks. Anything and everything that celebrates the drinking life: that’s what the column is about.

Bruni’s pretty excited about it and, we’ll admit, so are we.

Kate Berg Named Communications VP For Hachette Filipacchi

Hachette Filipacchi Media, publisher of Elle and other titles, today announced that Kate Berg will assume the role of vice president of corporate communications effective June 1. She replaces outgoing SVP Anne Janas, who will continue to do consulting work for HFM U.S. through the end of the year.

Berg has also worked for Gartner, KPMG Consulting and Jupiter Research. She has also created early social network Avenue B and launched mobile advertising startup Mojiva.

“A few years ago, Kate Berg worked for us on a project basis in the Corporate Communications department, and we had had the opportunity to experience her impressive skills first hand,” said HFM U.S. CEO Alain Lemarchand in a statement.

Press release after the jump.

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Wired App Racks Up 24,000 Downloads on Its First Day

wired05272010.jpgWired New York bureau chief John Abell has tweeted that Wired‘s new iPad app (which costs $4.99) has sold 24,000 copies in its first 24 hours. That’s 1,000 apps an hour, and a much higher rate than that of fellow Conde Nast publication GQ.

In a post concerning the 24,000 figure, Wired says that The Business Insider had predicted first-day sales of around 3,000 units, that Popular Science has moved about 18,000 units since April 3 and that Wired‘s print mag sells about 82,000 issues every month.

Looks like magazines may be able to milk the iPad for much-sought-after subscription revenue after all.

(h/t paidContent)

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