Executives from the News Corp.’s Wall Street Journal held a breakfast today at Manhattan’s Morgan Library to introduce WSJ., a luxury supplement to the paper. (And, no, that's not a typo--the magazine has a period finickily appended to its title.)
While somewhat reworking previous plans for a magazine that will accompany the Journal’s Saturday editions, News Corp. is still making a play for the high-end of its high-end demographic. That sub-segment of the the magazine industry has held up better than others even as the business continues to go through protracted tough times. But, as executives at the event conceded, it’s a crowded niche; newcomer chains like Modern Luxury and lots of local efforts have glommed onto the free-glossy-for-the-very-wealthy category. (With luck, that category will hold up better than the teen category, which went through a boomlet of new entrants last decade but has since seen several titles cease publication.)
Hmmm, wonder why this comes out on a Friday, in August, just as the Olympics start?
(You mean they timed this for when people would be paying less attention? Geddouttahere!)
So Edwards owns up, ABC gets the big get, and everyone else is left sort of standing around flatfooted. I’ve had a number of interesting exchanges re media bias because of all this, and quite a few people telling me I’m just another lefty media stooge. But the head of a pin that USA Today/New York Times/Washington Post/Wall Street Journal/big broadcast networks/everyone else were dancing on was this: We didn’t get the story ourselves. We don’t have photos or reporting on it--and while we might pick this up if we could source the story and photos to USA Today/New York Times/Washington Post/Wall Street Journal/the big broadcast networks, we ain’t gonna if it’s the National Enquirer.
I'm on vacation until around the 19th of August, so things are going to be pretty quiet around here until then.
I will still be approving comments, so keep 'em coming, and I reserve the right to weigh in should something fascinatin' cross my transom.
But! I also reserve the right to remain silent.
PS: My new column is just up and on newsstands now. It plumbs why GE won't be selling all or parts of NBC Universal anytime soon, even though it doesn't make a lot of sense for them to still own it.
There is now a case to be made for Time Warner to hold onto AOL’s dial-up subscriber business and sell the troubled online unit’s advertising and content businesses.
As they say on lousy sitcoms: it’s a crazy idea, but it just might work!
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