Above The Radar

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 1, 2003

Byline: MICHAEL LEARMONTH

Radar

Launch date: April 15 for (May issue)

Company: Radar Media, LLC

Frequency: Monthly, becoming biweekly in September

Target audience: Young urbanites ages 25 to 35

Subscription: $15 for 10 issues

Newsstand price: $3.50

Ad rates: $8,500 for full page, four-color

Editor: Maer Roshan

Copublishers: Larry Burstein and Elinore Carmody

Weeks before the launch of Radar, Maer Roshan is on a crash schedule of meetings with editors, writers, advertisers, and potential backers. "I've been sleeping like two hours a night," he says.

It's been a long draught for big magazine launches, especially for general-interest titles, and Roshan's Radar has been the focus of intense, even obsessive, media attention since last year. But this month, debates over the Radar concept will finally end, and the critique of Roshan's execution begins. The magazine is set to debut on newsstands April 15, but Roshan allows that date may get pushed back at least a week.

Radar has landed an impressive coterie of advertisers, including Calvin Klein, Target, and Henri Bendel. But it is still searching for a major investor outside of Roshan himself, chief operating officer Paul Fish, and former HBO chairman Michael Fuchs. Meanwhile, in late February, the business side of the magazine underwent a management shake-up: publisher Aaron Sigmond was replaced by two industry veterans, Larry Burstein, formerly of MBA Jungle and The New Yorker, and Elinore Carmody, who was the launch publisher of George. Roshan, a former editor at New York and Talk, admits the business side of the enterprise has been a learning experience for him. "This wasn't my world," he says. "It was crucial that we have people that know their way around."

Radar is going after the elusive young and relatively affluent urban demographic - college-educated, post-boomer readers in their 20s to mid-30s). The mag promises to mix lowbrow celebrity coverage with high-end cultural and literary journalism. It's an editorial mix pioneered by New York and Vanity Fair and then reinterpreted by Tina Brown's failed Talk magazine. To make his case, Roshan is making the rounds with his business plan: 20 million people fit the demographic profile, it says, and they spend $8 billion on alcohol and $35 billion on entertainment. "No one has to prove they exist," he says. "I have to prove that this magazine will speak to them."

Whether or not Roshan manages to strike the right edit tone remains to be seen, but everyone knows that his target demo is platinum. "There's not a corporation in the U.S. not trying to figure out how to speak to 18- to 35-year-olds," says Lou Ann Sabatier, a magazine consultant who works with urban titles XXL and Urb. "It's a group that's very skeptical of marketing in general. I think the [Radar] concept is right."

The magazine will start as a monthly and then, in September, become a biweekly. "Monthlies find it hard to keep up in a world that's running at Internet time," Roshan says. And it should open doors to categories of advertising that require a more immediate street date, such as movie and CD releases.

The magazine will distribute 100,000 to 125,000 copies of its first issue. By September, according to the business plan, circulation is expected to reach 175,000. Fish says he expects the circ to grow to 700,000 by the end of 2008.

Unlike Talk, where Roshan spent 10 months, Radar is not lashed to a big-media anchor. At presstime, Fuchs was the only major investor; Steve Brill considered backing the magazine but passed. Recently, Radar signed with Curtis Distribution, which plans a newsstand-heavy strategy, targeting hip neighborhoods in Los Angeles and New York.

Roshan feels confident the marketplace is eager for a new idea. "After a long lag of launches, there's a lot of goodwill in the marketplace," he says. "This project has a narrative. It's hard to hate. We banded together and made something happen."

On the Launchpad

Chow Jane Goldman. The former Industry Standard editor is cooking up a downtown food mag for all those folks whose highfalutin options are dot gone. Fall.

The Magazine Not Know as Good Music Good Music Media and World Publications. Alan Light and John Rollins are working on a groovy new title that will focus on "music for grownups." September.