Antique Monthly's owner expands his collection

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Jan 1, 1992

Atlanta, Georgia-based Trans World Publishing owns Antique Monthly, and these days its president, Douglas Billian, is acting a lot like an antique collector. After scouring the market for magazine acquisitions for months, Billian recently picked Art & Antiques. Despite plummeting ad sales on upscale titles (through October, ad pages on Art & Antiques were off 36.1 percent) Billian was impressed with the magazine's editorial and is betting that this will drive in more ad dollars when the economy turns around.

"It's a lot better to buy a book when it's down and reformat it. Then when the economy rebounds, you're ready to go with it," he says. While Billian expects the editors of his two antique titles to share plenty of ideas, he has no plans to tie the titles together in joint ad programs. Art & Antique's entire 23-person staff has been retained and will continue to operate out of New York City.