Magazine Marketplace: A highly selective industry chronicle

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Oct 1, 2002

THE DEALS

M&A activity picked up a mite in August and early September, signifying a tacit acceptance that despite the current flat economy - which will likely last well into 2003 - business must go on. "Deals aren't closing, but there's business, which hasn't happened in a long time," says Mark Edmiston, managing director at AdMedia Partners. "People are accepting that it's a flat environment. Those who were holding out for better times are realizing that's not going to happen in the short term, so they're considering their options." - Sarah Gonser

HOMESTYLES MEDIA ACQUIRES WASHINGTON MARYLAND VIRGINIA HOME & DESIGN MAGAZINE FROM MARYLAND HOME PUBLISHERS

Homestyles Media is a new company created by a publishing entrepreneur (who has requested anonymity). Building on the acquisition of this 75,000- paid-circ interior design and furnishings magazine, Homestyles Media plans to expand the franchise with the acquisition/launch of related properties, says Roland DeSilva, partner in DeSilva & Phillips, the media investment bank that handled the transaction. "This could mean local shows, Internet components, and consumer and trade shows," DeSilva says. Home & Design serves the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area.

AURELIAN COMMUNICATIONS CORP. ACQUIRES HORTICULTURE MAGAZINE FROM PRIMEDIA FOR $2.4 MILLION

The 98-year-old Horticulture magazine, published eight times a year with a circulation of 213,350, targets gardeners who are into ornamental design. Aurelian CEO William Reilly acquired the property without an intermediary. "It's very much in keeping with Reilly's strategic plan - special-interest publications for baby boomers," says Joel Novak, managing director at media merchant bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson. "He's building properties that look at the interests of a mature readership. He's capitalizing on a demographic trend." (Primedia is the parent company of FOLIO.)

THE DEVELOPMENTS

BUSY BUNNIES

September was an eventful month at Playboy Enterprises. The excitement began on the 3rd with the launch of Playboy Radio, a premium subscription channel carried on XM Satellite Radio. But the big news came a week later, when James Kaminsky was named editorial director of the company's venerable flagship mag. Kaminsky was previously executive editor of a different sort of men's magazine, Maxim, and he replaces Arthur Kretchmer, who's been Playboy's editorial director for a whopping 30 years - longer than any other top editor at an American consumer magazine. So what happens when a youngish beer-and-babes editor - Kaminsky is 41 - gets his hands on the original lad magazine, still stuck in a martinis-and-bunnies era? "Jim has ideas on ways we can do that and balance it with long-form editorial and maintain the high-quality pictorials," says Michael Carr, president of Playboy Publishing. "We're going to do some things differently, but the fabric of Playboy will not change." Still, the freedom Kaminsky will have to tweak edit and design is a matter of legitimate inquiry, since the still-virile Hef remains numero uno on the masthead. OUR TAKE: Playboy 's single-copy sales were down 25.8 percent for the first half of the year, according to ABC. The mag needs a boost, so look for Kaminsky to generate newsstand heat. - Geoff Van Dyke and Susan Thea Posnock

PALLETABLE ARGUMENT

Sick of being pushed around by the United States Postal Service? Uncle Sam is finally offering an olive branch to publishers - a new periodicals classification that creates discounts for co-palletizing. The Postal Board of Governors was to put the proposal before the Postal Rate Commission in mid-September. As of press time, details concerning the discount had not been worked out. Small publications that haven't palletized stand to benefit the most, since most large publishers already use pallets. Final approval isn't expected to take place until next year, according to ABM postal counsel David Straus. OUR TAKE: It's a nice gesture from Uncle Sam, but don't expect huge short-term dividends. - Mark Miller

THAT'S SHOWBIZ

The long arm of John Huey reached into the managing editor's office of Entertainment Weekly, where it gently removed James Seymore and replaced him with Rick Tetzeli, a star at Time Inc. sibling Fortune. Huey, Time Inc.'s editorial director, has been accused of not leaving well enough alone in the top editorial ranks of the company, especially after he replaced Sport Illustrated's Bill Colson with outsider Terry McDonell. Tetzeli, only 41, had been groomed to eventually replace Fortune managing editor Rik Kirkland. But Tetzeli put his hat in the ring for the EW job and aced out longtime EW executive editors Peter Bonventre and Richard Sanders. The former at least received a consolation prize, a newly created editorial director spot under Tetzeli. It remains to be see whether Sanders and other editors will stick around. Seymore, meanwhile, will stay in the fold as a Time Inc. editor-at-large. OUR TAKE: EW may benefit from Tetzeli's considerable talent, but a stream of defections to rival titles could negate that potential advantage. - Greg Lindsay