New-look Chatelaine seems to have dispensed with substance altogether
The magazine is, in print and in its web-exclusive content, a steady parade of recipes and food, sex and diet tips, fashion and cosmetics and so on. In other words, pretty much what any garden-variety women's magazine on the continent carries. Which is a shame, essentially dispensing with the content that had kept generations of Chatelaine readers loyal and engaged. It proclaims "Our fresh, new look". But looks aren't everything.
Related posts:
- New team at Chatelaine reminiscent of the late Wish
- Chatelaine shows six staffers the door
- Style at Home editor Jane Francisco named editor of Chatelaine
Labels: Chatelaine, redesigns
posted by D. B. Scott at
1:26 pm
26 Comments:
I completely agree - I settled down to read the new issue, looking forward to the "new look/new content" and only one word can sum up how I felt about this issue - blah. Blah content, blah creative, blah design.
Sad!
The substance is there, you just have to open the magazine.
Nice try. I did, before writing the post. And, having read it off and on for years, I think I've got some standard of comparison. However, you don't even have to open it; just look at the list of contents (print and web) online. They speak for themselves.
What else did you expect from Ms. Francisco? She basically jumps from magazine to magazine giving them all the same look. I predict that Chatelaine will mutate into Wish.
Agree with you D.B. The only thing with weight is in the form of a photo essay that probably came via the Maclean's team. Eveything else is lite 'n' brite to the extreme. Who's in charge of the words over there anyway? Seems like they fired all the features editors.
Feature on the new Chatelite forthcoming from The Globe's James Adams. Hopefully, someone will explain the vision and business motive for abandoning the one thing that set the magazine apart from a very crowded field – a category crammed with so much international talent that Jane Francisco can only hope to adequately imitate.
It's a magazine, what do you expect Shakespeare? Coke???
People won't pay for this, they can already get if for free anywhere on the internet. Wake up publishers!
Just throwing it out there, but it could be their audience research suggests this is what the readers want, not the Chatelaine of yore. Whatever the case, the true test of whether they're doing the right thing will be gauged by renewals, new subscriber numberss, newsstand sales and, of course, PMB 2012.
"...will mutate into Wish".
...and then mutate and regress to ape Jane's original Glow effort... essentially a vehicle to support advertising content (rather than the desired form of advertising supporting a vehicle).
One must wonder, with the magazine industry in tailspin, why a publisher would misguidedly opt for non-content and stress a lack of purpose.
Chatelaine has met retirement as a pseudo multi-custom magazine... with a newsstand price tag.
At least with Glow, if you buy enough diapers or eye shadow you'll not have to pay for an issue.
The most recent issue is amazing! Chatelaine looks and reads the best it has in years. Seems like all the negative comments are coming from pretentious, bitter unemployed writers. Wake up, targets change and nobody takes the time to read any magazine unless it is contemporary, visually engaging and well designed.
Just throwing it out there, but underestimating one's readers is a pretty classic f*ck up. So you go, girl, and dumb it down and have fun playing catch-up with all of the US and UK pubs that are light years ahead of you.
Not bitter. Not unemployed. Not a writer - and I still think the "new" look/format/content sucks.
I don't think you give AMERICAN women's mags enough credit when you write: "The magazine is, in print and in its web-exclusive content, a steady parade of recipes and food, sex and diet tips, fashion and cosmetics and so on. In other words, pretty much what any garden-variety women's magazine on the continent carries."
American mags like Women's Health offer an insane amount of valuable info, fluff-free in their trademark chart-icle format, and then go above and beyond by publishing feature-length pieces on stuff that matters to me, ie the environment, girls' sports and society, women's health and so on. Glamour and Marie Claire both include one substantive, global or continental women's issue feature per issue alongside fun and fluffy fashion/beauty/sex/etc.
Canadian women's mags have always been defined by humourless earnestness. It looks like the new eds at Chats just decided to trim down a bit.
I'd say it's just "different" not better or worse. Francisco isn't going to turn it into anything great, but it wasn't anything great anyway. Not for a great many years anyway.
Check out the new Canadian Family (under editor Jennifer Reynolds). It's actually a very, very good read with substantive features beyond parenting, that put Chats, C Living and others to shame.
Just because someone isn't one of Jane's girls, fond of words like "amazing" and exclamation marks (!) - "such an amazing hot mess!!!" – doesn't mean that they're bitter content providers with no outlets to provide content to. Learn to take it on the chin, ladies. Ken will show you the way.
Janes girls? It's 'amazing' how people who have never met or worked with Jane are so quick to judge her.
I've been subscribing for two years, and I am so disappointed in the new Chatelaine. I had high-ish hopes, because the new recipe spreads were gorgeous beginning in April, but now recipes have been relegated to the backpages (and mostly have to do with creative ways to serve crab). Katrina Onstad's smart and funny column is conspicuously absent (as is any smart and funny). I think that 40+ pages of "Health" might be overkill. Why is everything featured as taking "30 minutes or less!"? How useful is the idea of "re-doing your backyard with the help of an architect"? There is a project about building a picture frame that is meant to take "less than 10 minutes!", but begins with a trip to a lumberyard. The linen closet reorg piece made me want to die. There was only one remotely intelligent feature in the entire magazine. Would be nice to read something that wasn't in point form?
Anyway, I sound bitter because I am. Chatelaine clearly thinks I'm an idiot, but I'm not one, which is why I'm not going to subscribe anymore.
I do miss Maryam Sanati. I thought the magazine was great in her hands.
I wonder how the last commenter knows that the other anonymous commenters don't know and have never met Jane Francisco.
I miss Maryam. I also think they should call the new magazine Chatelaine Light or Miss Chatelaine or Chatelaine for Dummies. Any other suggestions?
Also, how much influence does Francisco have over the French edition? (I may brush up on my French depending on the answer.)
Thanks to the new issue of Chatelaine I just landscaped my backyard, organized my linen closet and had an 'amazing' crabfest dinner party. The rest of you can read back issues of Chatelaine, miss Maryam and eat peanut butter sandwiches.
Has anyone noticed that on the cover they totally photoshopped out the cover model's right elbow...look at where her right hand is and then where her shoulder is...hmmm something seems to be missing or she is quite the contortionist.
Is it really impossible for Chatelaine to return to its gory era of the 1970s, when it was popular, profitable, *and* substantial? Or have we Canadian women devolved into such mindless idiots that a magazine will actually *strategically* avoid substance? Perhaps we should be more worried about why Canadian women are perceived as wanting such piffle....or--god help us-- if that perception is accurate.
Is it really impossible for Chatelaine to return to its gory era of the 1970s, when it was popular, profitable, *and* substantial? Or have we Canadian women devolved into such mindless idiots that a magazine will actually *strategically* avoid substance? Perhaps we should be more worried about why Canadian women are perceived as wanting such piffle....or--god help us-- if that perception is accurate.
I mourn the absence of Katrina Onstad's column. Her essays were the first thing I look for in the magazine prior to the latest revamp...
We totally agree. That's why we started a reader Facebook campaign. Tell Chatelaine you're not a cupcake! http://bit.ly/bJ57Zq
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home