Magazine Audience

Unlike the news magazines, the entertainment kind aren’t just seeing growth, but staggering growth. It seemed to many a few years ago that this field was fully mature and had no more room for growth in titles or audience. But the last few years have seen the rise of not just one but two new titles: In Touch and OK! As with the news magazines, the emerging star here brings a new approach to the content. But the success of the new and different titles has not (as yet) hurt the mainstays.

OK! s the newest entry in a field already crowded with the likes of People, Us and The Star. The jury is still out on its fall 2005 debut, but the magazine, which has sister publications of the same name in the United Kingdom and Canada , has a format that has been successful elsewhere and a publisher, Northern and Shell, with deep pockets. OK! brings a different approach to celebrity journalism: much of the content has been openly bought — from the celebrities themselves. The tactic, which the magazine calls “relationship journalism,” has in the past granted the title exclusive access to stories such as the wedding of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones — to which American magazines have later bought the rights. There have long been suspicions that a certain amount of this checkbook journalism goes on in the entertainment world. The editors of the magazine maintain, however, that they actually pay only a fraction of the title’s content— about 5%, according to editor Sarah Ivens.13 Ivens says the magazine is “pro-celebrity,” not interested in gossip or hearsay, and that is why it gets the interviews and exclusives it does. One celebrity’s positive story, of course, can be another’s gossip, particularly where breakups are concerned.

Whatever one calls it, in some ways OK!’s pay-for-access approach is a merging of the tabloid and entertainment forms of journalism. That merging has been growing in recent years in the launching of In Touch and the relaunching of the tabloid Star as a glossy magazine.

In Touch is already a huge success, with much less of a “pro-celebrity” approach. It often carries cover stories about whether celebrity rumors are true or not. The magazine, which began publishing in late 2002, grew to boast a regular circulation of 887,000 by the end of 2004.14

Meanwhile the former tabloid Star, which remade itself as a glossy in 2004, has a circulation of about 1.3 million.15 Despite its re-launch, the magazine isn’t that different from what it was when it sat next to the National Enquirer at the supermarket cash register —who’s dating whom remains a hot topic.

And all of that has not crippled the rest of the celebrity market.

Consider, for example, People magazine, the godfather of the celebrity genre. In 1999, People had an average circulation of 3.59 million. By 2004, even with all the increased competition, it had grown slightly, to 3.7 million.16 Other titles have fared even better. Since 2000, Us Weekly has gone from 837,000 on average to about 1.4 million.17

Why do these magazines continue to do so well, seemingly immune from the pressure of the Web? Photos may be a key part of the answer. Reading about celebrity weddings on a computer screen is one thing, glossy pictures another, and many readers would rather hold them in their hands. It’s also worth noting that these titles’ scoops and exclusives (which often come from the celebrities themselves) are part of a larger public relations plan that has an interest in keeping exclusives exclusive. That is to say, if you are a celebrity with a deal with Us regarding your wedding pictures (big events have often operated by checkbook journalism rules), you are not likely to leak them elsewhere. The immediacy the Web provides can’t do anything about such deals — at least without risking lawsuits.

But the primary reason these titles thrive, particularly the new ones that blend a tabloid approach with the old celebrity magazine, may be that they tap a different audience. Two key elements, price and point of purchase, suggest that the new magazines have different readerships than old-line titles like People. People and Us Weekly have a newsstand price of $3.49.18 In Touch rings in at $1.99.19 And while about 39% of People’s circulation comes from the newsstand — not bad in an era of declining newsstand sales — that figure is low when compared with the Star’s 71% and In Touch’s astronomical 97%.20 Those numbers seem to indicate that the new titles are impulse buys made at the cash register. And many of those purchases are from younger readers. Marc Pasetsky, general manager of Life & Style Weekly, still another celebrity title, says the average age of his magazine’s readers is 30, while the average age of tabloid readers is 50.21

Is there a limit to how many titles this field can support? Presumably the answer is yes — it may even be reached soon — but the time is decidedly not here yet.