Publishers get classroom-conscious

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March 15, 1996 by Cris Beam

Remember the long afternoons spent in class reading Weekly Reader and your Scholastic magazines? Well, these days, teachers have more titles to choose from as publishers compete for the truly captive audience of school kids.

The market's biggest newcomer is Time for Kids, an ad-free newsmagazine launched last fall for children in grades four through six. Published every week by New York City-based Time Inc., the current-events title is shaking up the market, already boasting a circulation of 775,000 while running on pretty much the same schedule as its parent magazine.

"Scholastic probably had a heart attack when we came out," says Time for Kids general manager Lisa Quiroz, noting that most teachers usually have the resources to subscribe to only one magazine.

Scholastic senior vice president and publisher Hugh Roome acknowledges that circulation for the weekly Scholastic News has suffered somewhat since the arrival of Time for Kids. But, he adds, the newsprint title, which is also ad-free, has shortened its own lead time in an effort to hold its ground against the new challenger. Roome also notes that Scholastic News is only a small part of a very large product offering. Scholastic produces 50 magazines--with a combined circulation of 11 million--for kids in grades one through 12. (The company won't reveal specifics, but Scholastic News makes up about a third of that total.)

Roome claims that teachers use the magazines for a lot more than just studying current events. And with tight budgets, teachers often have to use one vehicle to teach many skills and convey varied information. In addition, direct marketing, fulfillment and distribution have to be tailored to an environment where pay-up is slow and purchasing scenarios differ from the single-subscriber model.

"These are unique orders because they're government sales, and to succeed you need a unique marketing setup," Roome says. "For a company like Time, [Time for Kids] gives them bragging rights, but it's not a path to profitability."

Time for Kids managing editor Claudia Wallis admits that a subscription price of $3.95 for 26 issues doesn't leave much room to operate. "There's not a ton of money to be made in classroom publications, because you can't go high with the price, you can't do advertising, and it's a small margin," she points out. "Why would anybody want to go into this?"

That's why some other publishers are focusing on what happens outside the classroom. One example is h.s. Sports, a twice-annual title for girls spun off from Boulder, Colorado-based Women's Sports Fitness. The publication, launched in the fall of 1994, is marketed to coaches at 2,000 preselected high schools for free distribution to 200,000 girls nationwide. Because young female athletes are often overlooked, h.s. Sports gives advertisers like Nike and Reebok a chance to tap a new market.

"People are hungry for this kind of information because most sports magazines are geared toward boys, and women's magazines reinforce negative stereotypes," says Mary Duffy, editor in chief of both Women's Sport Fitness and h.s. Sports. "If you have the right niche, it can work."

In step with advertisers

Executives at SafeSteps think they've found the right formula. The title, launched in December, is an ad-driven quarterly designed to get preschoolers and their parents thinking about safety. For seven years, marketers have been reaching elementary and high-school students by advertising on textbook covers--a program established by SafeSteps' parent company, Cover Concepts Marketing Services in Braintree, Massachusetts. But when advertisers expressed interest in targeting younger students, Cover Concepts CEO Michael Yanoff decided to start a magazine.

"We did a few surveys," he explains, "and parents' number-one concern was safety." Yanoff distributes SafeSteps, which is published for Cover Concepts by Boston-based Working Media, to both daycare facilities and preschools. The 16-page title has a circulation of one million and carries ads from McDonald's, Mott's, Cheerios and Plymouth Grand Voyager, among others.

Yanoff says daycare facilities generally don't mind the ad sponsorships because they're used to getting free products, and the preschools are housed in elementary schools, where Cover Concepts already has established ties. "You have to have the distribution in place for such a large volume," he notes, "and then you need the reputation and the credibility to get in there."

Or, if you're really lucky, the schools will come to you. That's what happened with New York City-based Kids Discover, a four-year-old, theme-based learning magazine for kids ages six to 12. The 410,000-subscriber title is mailed to kids at home ($16.95 for 10 issues). So publisher Mark Levine was surprised to find teachers coming to him and ordering multiple copies of a single issue. Last year, in fact, teachers ordered 475,000 copies, a figure Levine expects to increase by 50 percent this year.

Levine says he isn't surprised by heightened competition in the schools market: "There are hundreds of thousands of classrooms out there, so if the right product is presented to the right teacher, it could work. Then again, you'll need the resources."