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Lalli aims for breaking news
Bets
Elián
cover will
drive newsstand sales
By Jeff Bercovici
If,
in passing by a newsstand, you were to mistake the May issue of George
magazine for Time or Newsweek, you could hardly be blamed.
All three have Elián Gonzalez on the cover this week
following a harrowing pre-dawn raid on Saturday.
The difference is the George cover, with a lurid headline promising "The
Untold Elián Story" and an "exclusive" photo of the boy
with his now-deceased mother, was planned out weeks ago.
Whether through flawless instincts or dumb luck, editor
Frank Lalli picked the Elián story for the newsstand cover of George's
May issue.
It's part of his ongoing effort to reinvent the
magazine as a timely, news-driven vehicle--an unusual strategy for a
monthly, to be sure, but a promising one if Lalli can keep guessing right.
The issue is the first produced solely
under the editorship of Lalli, who joined George in December after a
long search following the death of founder John F. Kennedy Jr.
Though George was widely thought to be a
lost cause when he took it over, with his fresh editorial vision Lalli
seems to be executing something of a turnaround with the magazine.
"The numbers have gone up and gone up
markedly since last summer," says Lalli, speaking at a recent
teleconference to discuss the new issue.
Total paid circulation was up 38.3 percent in the
second half of last year, to 558,549, according to the Audit Bureau of
Circulations. Newsstand sales were up even more, rising 148.3 percent to
225,583.
Overall, the magazine delivered a 40 percent bonus in circulation. The
surplus helped inspire a 12.5 percent rate base increase to 450,000,
effective with the February/March 2000 issue.
It was Lalli who, after months of deliberation and
casting about, was named to replace founding editor John F. Kennedy Jr.
Lalli notes that it was in large part the tragic
circumstances of Kennedy’s death that led to widespread sampling of the
magazine by consumers last summer and continuing through the rest of the
year.
A special October tribute issue dedicated to JFK
Jr. also did much to drive single-copy sales, says a company spokeswoman.
Meanwhile, the subscription renewal rate during that
time was 68 percent, according to numbers supplied by the company. It
continues to exceed 60 percent, says Lalli.
The magazine’s advertising revenues had fallen precipitously in the
months of indirection following the founder’s death in a plane crash
last July.
However, there are signs that advertiser
confidence in George is slowly being restored. The May issue of the
magazine has 35 ad pages, up from 33.5 in last May’s issue.
Lalli’s reconception of the magazine as a
news-driven publication will allow it to take advantage of its newfound
strength at the newsstand.
The editor says his goal is to break more
news while at the same time offering more perspective and a stronger focus
on politics and pop culture than news magazines.
The Elián cover is only on newsstand copies; subscribers will receive a
cover advertising an Election 2000 story entitled "Will the Biggest
Liar Win?"
Lalli says the Gore-Bush story was originally slated to
be on 100 percent of the covers.
However, three weeks before the issue went to press, the Elián
story began
to heat up. Lalli decided to have 15,000 copies printed with the Elián
cover for newsstand distribution in Miami.
A week later, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elián’s father, made his trip to the
U.S.
Though many thought that would be the end of the
controversy, Lalli says he sensed otherwise.
"I said to myself, ‘That father may think he’s just coming here
and picking up his kid, but that’s not going to happen.’" He
ordered a press run of 100,000 issues with the Elián
cover.
Lalli says he has no reservations about covering
a story that has been so sensationalized elsewhere in the media. "I
can’t control what others do with a story," he says.
He acknowledges that the May cover is evocative of a tabloid, but says
that was the intention.
"That’s a purposeful newsstand cover, a
bold, graphic newsstand cover."
-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.
