While magazine publishers see signs of a slight advertising lift, quite a few marginal publications are still limping along and, in some cases, barely breathing.
There will be more casualties, and one publication, European Travel & Life, is calling it quits.
European Travel & Life, a former Murdoch monthly, was acquired in June by K-III Communications. This publication, founded in 1984, is being terminated as a title, it was disclosed Wednesday.
Conde Nast Publications is acquiring the circulation list of 376,000 subscribers from K-III for an undisclosed price. European Travel & Life`s subscription list will be merged into that of Conde Nast`s Conde Nast Traveler, a monthly founded five years ago.
There is some duplication in the two subscription lists; a Conde Nast official estimates the figure at around 10 percent.
Even so, Conde Nast Traveler, which is said to be profitable, is bumping up its circulation guarantee for advertisers to 675,000 from 600,000, effective July 1. Conde Nast Traveler says it`s been delivering 750,000 circulation recently.
How many of those total subscribers of European Travel & Life will hold for Conde Nast won`t be determined for some time.
K-III, which acquired such other titles as Seventeen, New York, New Woman, Premiere, Daily Racing Form and Soap Opera Digest in its $650 million buyout last year, wasn`t making any money with European Travel & Life, and the prospects were very bleak.
As one magazine industry observer told this column, ”Unless your circulation is very strong and showing increases, you`re going to have problems surviving in this economy. Ad revenues are up a bit, but not enough to get excited about yet.”
K-III, which is majority-owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., in recent months had been shopping European Travel & Life, and the firm was close to a deal with a diversified holding company called Sea Containers Ltd. of Great Britain, whose properties include the Oriental Express rail service. Sea Containers would have continued publishing European Travel & Life, but the deal never went through.
The Conde Nast deal to acquire European Travel`s subscription list isn`t the first time this Newhouse operation has gone outside to strengthen one of its publications. For example, Conde Nast acquired Gourmet in 1983, then a year later bought the subscription list of Cuisine. It did the same thing with Cook`s magazine in 1990. Conde Nast also publishes such titles as Glamour, Vogue, Mademoiselle and GQ.
European Travel & Life joins a flock of other publications that for economic reasons expired in the recession, including Connoisseur (merged in part with Hearst`s Town & Country), Memories, Woman, Taxi, Business Month and Savvy Woman. It`s a list that no doubt will have more company, even if better times surface in what has been a dreadful period for media over the last two years.
Busch barrels along
Beer kingpin Anheuser-Busch appears to have gained a new head of steam with a pretty decent first-quarter report. Shipments to wholesalers increased 2.4 percent, or 487,000 barrels, to 20.9 million barrels from the same period a year earlier. A-B in all of 1991 finished with 86 million barrels, but that was down 0.5 percent from the previous year`s total of 86.5 million barrels. Last year was the first time since a strike-ridden 1976 that A-B had an annual decline. Analyst Manny Goldman of PaineWebber-San Francisco thinks sales of all A-B beer labels might have increased as much as 5 percent in the first quarter. There are indications the regular Budweiser brand, which had a soft 1991, boasted a sales increase in the quarter. However, the best percentage gain might have been posted by Bud Light, observers believe.
On the move: Denise Kalfayan, an account supervisor at DDB Needham Chicago, appointed a VP. . . . Jack Hanrahan, a media director at Leo Burnett Co., promoted to a senior VP. . . . Ron Buoniconti named market manager for Chicago and Downstate Illinois for Brown-Forman Beverage Co. . . . Donald Bergeson and David Demers appointed senior account directors at Thomas A. Schutz Co., Morton Grove. . . . Rick Bayley joined Wunderman Cato Johnson as VP-business affairs director.
Strictly Personal: Birthday greetings to Mike Brezette, Peter Dangerfield, Jean M. Tremblay, Teri Gidwitz, Gail Augle, Jim Mezilson and Dart Wadsworth.
– Longines-Wittnauer, the New Rochelle, N.Y.-based watchmaker, assigned advertising for the Wittnauer brand to Campbell-Mithun-Esty New York. Wittnauer is expected to be a modest seven-figure budget, perhaps $2 million, at its new agency.
On Tap: Grocery Manufacturers Sales Executives of Chicagoland honors Henry ”Hank” Greenberg, president emeritus of Certified Grocers Midwest Inc., at a Monday luncheon at the Ambassador Banquet Hall in Elmhurst. For information, contact the group at 708-741-1080.
Polly Perkins, who only joined Bon Appetit magazine as publisher seven months ago, is leaving the Knapp-owned monthly. The New York sales staff was advised of the move this week. Bon Appetit general manager Ray Sachs, to whom Perkins reported to, presumably will take over the post for the time being. Perkins had come from Elle Decor.
Chicagoan Elizabeth Harrington, who joined Grand Met`s Pillsbury Co. unit in late 1990 as VP of market development, has left the Minneapolis-based firm. She had been working primarily on Pillsbury`s Green Giant brand.
Oops, it should be Cathie Black instead of Cathy as reported in this column Wednesday. She`s president-chief executive of the newly formed Newspaper Association of America.
