The new Maclean's

The only people Maclean's has to please are a) its current readers, b) its potential new readers and c) the national agencies and advertisers. The only way we'll know if it has achieved liftoff with a), b) and c) is when hard, objective results come in the form of audited circulation numbers and ad page counts. It's redesign (the way it reads and the way it looks) released to the public yesterday and being unveiled to a gala evening tonight, is the principal tool by which a), b) and c) are to be won over. And that is not a sure thing.

My first copy of the new magazine was thrust in my hands about 4 p.m. Monday on Wellington Street in Toronto by a very nice young woman (who was giving it to everyone she met; presumably similar young women were doing the same all over the downtown). The issue has 84 pages with about 25 pages of revenue ads (plus a bunch of the usual Rogers house ads and PSAs), a paid ratio of 30%.

The new cover has web-pagish elements, principally the series of "sky boxes" above the unchanged logo, with page numbers. Nicely kinetic and likely to get people to turn inside. Once there...

• Not surprisingly (if only as a marketing ploy), it leads with a blockbuster cover story, about being able to buy the Privacy Commissioner's phone records over the Internet. The story inside is something of a letdown, however. It simply thunders about the practice and then shrugs when it comes to doing anything about it.
• Clearly, it has been decided that white space is old hat, because there ain't none. The magazine is crammed from head to foot with type and (mostly) tiny pictures, with lots of web-ish and tab-ish slashes, call-outs, strips and stripes.
• Columns, look and feel quite tight, at two columns. Each head shot is highlighted in a cute li'l red box. The only exception is Paul Wells's lead column which is a full page after the letters pages.
  
• The new upfront section 7 days runs for three pages of one paragraph items; the first of the three pages sub-divided into "Good News" and "Bad News", which is kinda fun, if perhaps hard to sustain
• The Q & A interview, to be conducted in alternative weeks by Editor-in-Chief Ken Whyte and Columnist Linda Frum, doesn't quite work because I went right past it. It starts on a left hand page and looks like a turn page. I flipped back to see where the interview started.
• The feature story has got so much going on visually that it's a bit distracting. The Privacy Commissioner must have refused to have her picture taken, else why would they take two dozen grab shots to make her appear furtive. After all, the story was about the irony of shadowy bad guys who stole and sold her data, not that a public official who submitted to an interview was being uncooperative about a picture.
• The magazine is nicely flagged, with National, World and so on.
• The "Newsmakers" innovation provides lots of gossipy items, with pics keyed to the items. No heavy lifting for readers.
• Bylines are tucked into the first paragraph of each story; a nice touch.
  
• The Back Pages is the runaway success of the new look, giving more of the lifestyle and glamour quotient that Maclean's has always struggled to achieve. It leads with a piece on glam actor slash producer George Clooney, and has an interesting mix of smaller features and columns, including the eternal Bestseller list and a contribution by Scott Feschuk which was actually very funny. Plus a "Recommended" miscellancy about movies, books, discs and so on.
• The little, light "basements" at the bottom of most features are amusing and a nice brightener. Quoting from American talk show hosts (to take one example) is not particularly innovative, though. The New York Times has been there, done that.
  
• One of the Back Page items, a story about Jason Logan's new book, inexplicably fails to identify him as being on Maclean's' masthead, referring to him as "an art director and freelance illustrator". If you're going to plump for one of your own, at least be upfront about it.
• As reported earlier, the last editorial page is now something called The End, which was an obituary. I read it. I still don't get it.
  

Ken Whyte was quoted as saying that the magazine's new look has adapted elements of the old Playboy. Other than running several pictures atop the interview, there is no evidence of the kind of elegant, airy design that magazine had in its heyday. There is lots of homage, however, to US magazine and OK and some trashy tabloidish touches imported from celebrity titles and British glam books.

Over all, the magazine has a good, strong Canadian feel. Politics got short shrift in this particular issue, though it's impossible to say whether that's simply the nature of the week. (It consisted of one, good story by John Geddes exploring how the opposition parties will choose to tear each other to shreds in the imminent election). Including the 4-page cover feature, there are 8 pages of national coverage out of 54, not a very high count for the "core" of the magazine (to use Whyte's term).

Maclean's staffers have been notoriously thin-skinned about comment on what they do: furious when nobody pays any attention; equally cheesed off when somebody notices and criticizes. The proof of the magazine's success with its readers and advertisers will lie in measurement, not commentary. But if you don't want people to comment on your magazine, don't hand it out on streetcorners.