Mirror, mirror … up against the wall? New Times Mirror chief, bent on revitalizing stalled company, has no time to reflect on past

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept 1, 1990 by Tony Silver

NEW YORK City-Few septuagenarians take readily to change. Still, as the average age of its magazines hits 70 years, Times Mirror Magazines, Inc., is determined to rejuvenate itself. The twin goals are to create new revenue sources for the magazines and streamline the company's operations.

The attempt may ultimately include a corporate restructuring, employee retraining and even layoffs, according to Times Mirror president and CEO Francis P. Pandolfi.

The New York City-based company remains the largest publisher of male-oriented leisure titles. Its nine magazines, which include Field & Stream, Golf Magazine, Home Mechanix, Popular Science, Skiing and Yachting, have a combined circulation of nine million, 9 percent of which is single-copy sales.

For three months ending in June, consultantcy Coopers & Lybrand studied Times Mirror's operations to recommend efficiencies to help the company deal with declining newsstand sales and advertising, coupled with increasing postal rates.

"Our feeling last year when we started working on this was that things were changing, and it behooved us to be ahead of the game," Pandolfi says. "Let's not be acted on by outside forces. Let's be in charge of them."

A key objective, he says, is developing "brand extension." For example, the company might find that producing cable television shows or establishing catalogs offering outdoor merchandise makes sense, he notes.

"The fundamental premise is that we want to take advantage of the brand names. The value of the franchise is paramount. Under no circumstances are we going to take emphasis off the magazines," Pandolfi adds. He declined to say which ideas might be adopted. Disposing of outdated practices

The study revealed some out-of-date and redundant internal practices, such as the storing of a generation of unused reports and replicative record keeping.

Pandolfi says some of these practices developed as Times Mirror Magazines grew. In 1967, there were two titles: Popular Science, which is 118 years old, and Outdoor Life, which is 92. Two more were added in 1972, and, at the end of 1987, four additional magazines were acquired from Diamandis Communications Inc.: Field & Stream, Home Mechanix, Skiing and Yachting. Salt Water Sportsman was added in 1988.

"The study is the linking of different corporate cultures, and taking a look at how to do business," Pandolfi says. "It's much more than a traditional time and motion kind of a study. We felt that we had to take a look at more effective organizational structures in a dramatically changed environment."

"Retraining is an option that we're looking into," he says, and layoffs are "always a possibility, although we haven't made any decision on that. " Observers approve

Magazine industry sources say the Times Mirror move is a good one. "Certainly it makes a lot of sense for any multi-magazine company that has acquired publications to consider restructuring for greater efficiency in these times," says Hershel Sarbin, a consultant. I'd be surprised if a lot of companies are not doing the same thing, given these times in the publishing industry. " Taking a studied approach to integrating cultures also makes sense, notes circulation specialist Ron Scott.

"I think building on their magazines' franchises is something all magazines have to do," stresses Martin S. Walker, president of the consulting firm Periodical Studies Service. "I mean, Sports Illustrated is even marketing a credit card." See "Can affinity cards work for publishers?" FoLIO:, August 1990, page 30.)

While giving Pandolfi credit for taking the initiative to put Times Mirror back in the swing of things, some in the industry say it's unfortunate the momentum did not build sooner. David H. Foster, Times Mirror circulation planning director until 1982, when he left to become a magazine consultant, blasts what he sees as the company's poor past track record of exploiting its magazines' potential.

Missed opportunities?

"I take my hat off to Francis Pandolfi, but the corporate culture of Times Mirror Magazines has always mitigated development of franchises," he maintains. "It's my opinion that Times Mirror corporate has never understood what it takes to run magazines."

Foster terms Popular Science "the most undermanaged franchise in publishing, " adding, "It's unbelievable that Popular Science magazine, which was the first to discuss home computers, missed the entire home computer revolution. They first started writing articles on home computers in 1976 and 1977. But management was so dense that they were not able to understand what they were writing about."

He adds, however, that, "in fairness to prior management, it may well be that they were dealing with a political situation from Times Mirror corporate that made it impossible for them to act."

In response, Pandolfi will say only, "As far as where we go from here, as opposed to where the company should have been 10 years ago, the work that we're doing right now should develop an entrepreneurial culture, so we can take advantage of opportunities in the future."