The Nation and National Review meet in the middle to sell ads

Though they're at opposite poles politically, The Nation magazine and National Review (left and right, respectively) have collaborated on creating the "Purple Network" to jointly sell the two magazines as a deep-discounted ad buy. The two magazines both pursue "opinion leaders" and, according to a story in Folio:, by joining forces they hope to allay nervousness among national advertisers and corporate marketers about aligning with only one side of the political spectrum, even though both magazines offer attractive, engaged audiences. 

"When we sell this audience to people separately, we run into the same hurdle," says Scott Budd, executive publisher of National Review. "They love who these people are, but they can't put a publicly traded company into such partisan magazines."

By joining forces, the thinking goes, marketers can buy both magazines, reach the desired demographics and sufficiently neutralize any political backlash. 

"Political magazines are always up against this with advertisers. This goes back a hundred years," adds Teresa Stack, president of The Nation. "They're skittish about advertising on one side or the other, and this mitigates it because they're talking to both sides."

Combined, the two magazines offer a rate base of 300,000 and a 50 percent discount off the standard 4-color page rate.