RIP Glamour Magazine

[MTM]

Glamour to Cease Publishing Regular Print Mag in Condé Nast’s Latest Digital Shift

George Costanza is devastated

 

[Vombatus]

Glamour to Cease Publishing Regular Print Mag in Condé Nast’s Latest Digital Shift

George Costanza is devastated

Great pull!

 

[typefitter]

Why is it glamour and not glamor? Why the "u" exception?

 

[The Big Ragu]

Why is it glamour and not glamor? Why the "u" exception?

I'd guess it has to do with how the word was used in the 1930s, when the magazine was founded. There was a Hollywood glamour culture at the time, I think.

This was an 80-year-old magazine. As someone who once really loved magazines, just everything about them from the business, production, printing to the unique editorial voices each had, and then had to get used to their inevitable death. ... this news made me sigh. It's not so much that I loved Glamour magazine back in the day, obviously. But this is an 80-year-old institution that died. It's basically the story of magazines overall.

 

[Azrael]

Why is it glamour and not glamor? Why the "u" exception?

No idea.

But as is the case with most great things, it comes to us from Scotland. And meant "to cast a spell."

And even having known this was coming, it's still a sad moment in the glossy magazine business.

 

[typefitter]

I'd guess it has to do with how the word was used in the 1930s, when the magazine was founded. There was a Hollywood glamour culture at the time, I think.

This was an 80-year-old magazine. As someone who once really loved magazines, just everything about them from the business, production, printing to the unique editorial voices each had, and then had to get used to their inevitable death. ... this news made me sigh. It's not so much that I loved Glamour magazine back in the day, obviously. But this is an 80-year-old institution that died. It's basically the story of magazines overall.

Yeah, they're in trouble, for the most part. The ones that aren't—The Atlantic, The New Yorker—are so high-brow, they're almost niche. Luxury news vehicles, essentially.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Yeah, they're in trouble, for the most part. The ones that aren't—The Atlantic, The New Yorker—are so high-brow, they're almost niche. Luxury news vehicles, essentially.

I don't know enough about The Atlantic. But what the New Yorker has done the last few years is extraordinary. Similar to the small handful of nationally-focused newspapers that have really done well, the New Yorker blew its paid circulation through the roof. It was essentially a Trump bump (not to make this into a political conversation, though, it's just what happened and what the New Yorker has benefited from). So unlike the traditional magazine model, it doesn't have to worry as much about the ups and downs of advertising revenue. I believe it is bringing in more revenue from subs than it is from advertising now. And subscriptions to the magazine aren't cheap or heavily discounted to try to juice the circulation numbers for ad purposes, so they bring in enough revenue to offset whatever cost there is to bring in new subscribers and retain old ones. Although I think their re-up rates are crazy good. Always have been. They don't need to spend as much for subscribers as a lot of magazines traditionally did.

It's the same story as it is with anything. You need demand for something to make a business out of it. And in this case, content is really king, because the New Yorker is so damned good and is feeding a need right now for a segment of people, that there is a million plus people out there making it thrive. Unfortunately, most magazines stopped attracting that kind of demand when other things started providing what they did via other mediums.

 

[typefitter]

I don't know enough about The Atlantic. But what the New Yorker has done the last few years is extraordinary. Similar to the small handful of nationally-focused newspapers that have really done well, the New Yorker blew its paid circulation through the roof. It was essentially a Trump bump (not to make this into a political conversation, though, it's just what happened and what the New Yorker has benefited from). So unlike the traditional magazine model, it doesn't have to worry as much about the ups and downs of advertising revenue. I believe it is bringing in more revenue from subs than it is from advertising now. And subscriptions to the magazine aren't cheap or heavily discounted to try to juice the circulation numbers for ad purposes, so they bring in enough revenue to offset whatever cost there is to bring in new subscribers and retain old ones. Although I think their re-up rates are crazy good. Always have been. They don't need to spend as much for subscribers as a lot of magazines traditionally did.

It's the same story as it is with anything. You need demand for something to make a business out of it. And in this case, content is really king, because the New Yorker is so damned good and is feeding a need right now for a segment of people, that there is a million plus people out there making it thrive. Unfortunately, most magazines stopped attracting that kind of demand when other things started providing what they did via other mediums.

Right. I think the problem comes when you seek to be a "pleasant distraction," which is what a lot of magazines were and are. They were a way to pass time on the plane. There are easier, cheaper ways to be distracted anymore, and it's hard to compete with iPads and the Internet. You have to strive to make your magazine an "essential part of intellectual life." Because that, you can't get so easily anywhere else. If a certain segment of people sees you as essential, then you're golden. The Wall Street Journal. The Times and The Post. The Economist. The Atlantic. The New Yorker. It's something the people who cut the **** out of newspapers never seemed to grasp. Wire copy delivered inefficiently? Who's going to buy that?

 

[WriteThinking]

Our family has ties to Glamour magazine, and there is someone who really will be devastated by this. My mother's cousin's wife was the managing editor of the magazine for many years. They still live in the heart of New York City proper, and I'm sure she's feeling this.

 

[Slacker]

But as is the case with most great things, it comes to us from Scotland.

You're alluding to golf, right?

"I whack a ball, it goes in a gopher hole!"

 

[britwrit]

The thing of it is that the magazine has a 2.2 million circulation (or at least that's what the articles I've read said.)What are the economics of switching to a free web-site? Does that really make them more profit?

 

[PaperDoll]

I've been a Glamour subscriber for a while, and was an admirer of former editor Ruth Whitney. Glamour used to delve into politics and investigations, far beyond the stereotypical women's magazine.

But it's slid the other way, particularly with the most recent masthead change.

I haven't gotten any communication regarding the status of my subscription. If there's no print product, I plan to ask for a refund for the remainder of the term.

 

[Danwriter]

1. "Glamour" is the Anglicized (sorry, Anglicised) spelling, which for what I'd guess to be a large segment of its readership connoted class. By comparison, "Glamor" would be downmarket, if not outright trashy.

2. Tina Brown saved the New Yorker in the 1990s, as it plodded its way through dense 15,000-word pieces on the Trilateral Commission, etc. In addition to broadening its brief, she also brought in color (colour?) and a more modern layout.

3. If we were to look at all of the careers and ad boosts that Trump has (unintentionally) wrought, from sustainable spikes in subs and circ for the NYT to Stephen Colbert's ratings, it would equal the GDP of a small nation.

 

[The Big Ragu]

1. "Glamour" is the Anglicized (sorry, Anglicised) spelling, which for what I'd guess to be a large segment of its readership connoted class. By comparison, "Glamor" would be downmarket, if not outright trashy.

2. Tina Brown saved the New Yorker in the 1990s, as it plodded its way through dense 15,000-word pieces on the Trilateral Commission, etc. In addition to broadening its brief, she also brought in color (colour?) and a more modern layout.

3. If we were to look at all of the careers and ad boosts that Trump has (unintentionally) wrought, from sustainable spikes in subs and circ for the NYT to Stephen Colbert's ratings, it would equal the GDP of a small nation.

On number 2, I'd say it is a bit more complicated than "Tina Brown saved the New Yorker." She was the biggest celebrity, big ego editor at the time those kinds of editors could still have fiefdoms. But the economics of magazines were already changing, and in the case of the New Yorker, she lived ridiculously large, even by the standards of a Newhouse magazine. She spent like crazy. It was great for the young writers she brought in, because they earned really well. But the magazine itself lost a lot of money with her as the editor, and it was an issue.

In terms of where the New Yorker is today, though, she really changed things there and brought in a lot of new talent to replace some of the stodgy older writers who were hanging on. And many of them built the magazine into what it has become now. Even after she left, David Remnick really benefited from the talent she had brought in. She brought Remnick in, himself.

This is a matter of opinion, but I think Remnick did as much, or more, to save the magazine than she did. He has a sensibility she didn't, and can run something in a way more profitable manner. For everything she did, too, she had dumbed down the magazine a bit for some people's tastes, and I thought Remnick made it slightly smarter again. But, yeah, when you look at many of the people who became mainstays for the magazine, from Remnick, to Jane Mayer to Anthony Lane to Malcom Gladwell (whatever you think of what he turned into) and lots of others, it was Tina Brown who recognized the talent and hired them. So I get what you were saying.

 

[Danwriter]

On number 2, I'd say it is a bit more complicated than "Tina Brown saved the New Yorker." She was the biggest celebrity, big ego editor at the time those kinds of editors could still have fiefdoms. But the economics of magazines were already changing, and in the case of the New Yorker, she lived ridiculously large, even by the standards of a Newhouse magazine. She spent like crazy. It was great for the young writers she brought in, because they earned really well. But the magazine itself lost a lot of money with her as the editor, and it was an issue.

In terms of where the New Yorker is today, though, she really changed things there and brought in a lot of new talent to replace some of the stodgy older writers who were hanging on. And many of them built the magazine into what it has become now. Even after she left, David Remnick really benefited from the talent she had brought in. She brought Remnick in, himself.

This is a matter of opinion, but I think Remnick did as much, or more, to save the magazine than she did. He has a sensibility she didn't, and can run something in a way more profitable manner. For everything she did, too, she had dumbed down the magazine a bit for some people's tastes, and I thought Remnick made it slightly smarter again. But, yeah, when you look at many of the people who became mainstays for the magazine, from Remnick, to Jane Mayer to Anthony Lane to Malcom Gladwell (whatever you think of what he turned into) and lots of others, it was Tina Brown who recognized the talent and hired them. So I get what you were saying.

To use a taxonomy that Gladwell might appreciate, Brown was the disrupter ("disruptor" in NYer spellings) while Remnick has been the incrementaler, building on what she wrought. Brown did spend like mad, but now and then you need that kind of crazy. I'm glad they didn't take away her AmexPlat card too soon. We could use more talented crazy. Instead, we get Vice.

 

[Azrael]

Tina Brown deserves credit for breathing life into two very old, grand antiques. She managed to drag both Vanity Fair and The New Yorker out of the 1950s and into the 1980s. This she did in the 1990s.

But Newhouse was the one writing the checks.

Left to her own devices, and with an unlimited budget, Ms. Brown created Talk, one of the great modern magazine failures.*



*rivaled only by Portfolio, overseen by . . . Newhouse.

 

[User 149557]

My wife still got Glamour. When they changed the logo and changed tone earlier in 2018, I figured it was a last-gasp effort to save the magazine.

 

[stix]

I suppose George will have to find something else to entice him to treat his body like an amusement park.