Redisigns aren't a panacea

Major magazine makeovers don't make as big a difference as their publishers may think, according to a story in MediaDaily News.

Writer Eric Sass, whose hook is the forthcoming March 26 launch of the revamped Time magazine, looks at the past five years of visual or structural renovations at major titles and says that the results are "minimal, at best", at least in terms of success in the marketplace. He places a lot of emphasis on single copy sales and illustrates his thesis with ABC FAS-FAX data.

The redesign has taken place in the shadow of the second half of 2006, in which Time's newsstand sales in the U.S. shrank by 8.3%.

Acknowledging the reality of shrinking paid circulation, in January, Time began offering advertisers the choice of buying space using a much-reduced rate base of 3.25 million--down from 4 million--or a "total audience" figure of 19.5 million per issue, based on figures from Mediamark Research Inc.'s (MRI) new issue accumulation study. However, the choice between these rate models is unlikely to distract from the decline at the newsstand--and if other recent magazine redesigns are any indication, Time's new look won't be much help there, either.

Sass looks at three examples, from within the Time Inc. stable:

• Sports Illustrated -- Editor Terry McDonell in 2002, faced with competition from the newly launched ESPN Magazine, made SI younger and hipper, including shorter, more opinionated articles. "But the redesign did not produce a lasting increase in readership or ad pages. Aside from an 8.1% increase in ad pages from 2003-2004, SI has experienced three years of declines--including a disastrous 16.8% drop in 2004-2005, and a more modest 3.5% drop in 2005-2006."

• Parenting -- which Time Inc. recently sold -- ws redesigned by Editor in Chief Janet Chann in May 2003. The magazine was repositioned to target women more exclusivelyand its redesign won it the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence, among other honors. There was 12.2% growth in ad pages from 2003-2004 to end at 1,468. "But as with SI, in the long run the redesign did not shift Parenting's fortunes substantially: Growth slowed in 2004-2005, with a 4.5% increase in ad pages to 1,533--and then crashed in 2005-2006, with ad pages plummeting an alarming 20.1% to 1,225. ABC recorded fairly consistent declines in newsstand sales and paid circulation. Average newsstand sales sank 65%--from 66,440 in June 2003 to 23,342 in December 2006--as total paid circulation declined 10% from 2,088,162 to 1,877,421. The title's weak performance was doubtless a factor in Time Inc.'s decision to sell the Time4Media group of titles."

• Field & Stream -- Also sold this year, it was redesigned in May 2003, increasing the physical dimensions of the magazine by half an inch, while introducing new departments and a new graphic design concept. "However, aside from a short-term bump, the redesign failed to produce long-term gains by ABC and PIB measures. Ad pages did indeed rise 9.8% in 2003-2004--but this was followed by a 4.8% drop in 2004-2005 and a 13.3% drop in 2005-2006, for a decade low of 605. In that time, newsstand sales and total paid circulation have remained stagnant."