Former Westar exec resurfaces - Westar Media L.P.; Sloane Citron

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, June 1, 1993 by Erika Isler

Sloane Citron, the former president and COO of Westar Media, L.P., who abruptly resigned last fall, recently re-emerged on the Northern California publishing scene with a new company called 18 Media and two very localized bimonthlies, both using the name Gentry, but with separate, community-specific editorial and different covers.

The first publication, which appeared in April, targets San Francisco's affluent South Bay area. The second, scheduled to launch in September, will go to upscale markets within the city. Some 20,000 copies of each edition will be delivered door-to-door by an alternate-delivery system. "The idea is to saturate very affluent communities in very targeted areas," Citron says. Editorially, he views Gentry as "somewhere between Town & Country and Vanity Fair, only with a local flavor," he notes.

"The magazines will be community-oriented as opposed to issue-oriented," he adds. "Our first issue went about 37 percent |38 ad pages total~ over our advertising goals."

With a staff of 12, Citron plans to keep 18 Media small and efficient. "We want to get rid of all the things that make publishing an ordeal," he says. Two mandates: No negotiating rates or going off the rate card, and do without a circulation department.