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Major titles intensify drives to build readership
By Jeff Bercovici
With the media economy struggling as the nation awaits a recovery, more publishers these days are talking in terms of survival than growth.
The mantra: Get through this thing, hopefully without losing market share.
There is one notable exception: the Spanish-language magazines.
Here all the talk is about growth, and very rapid growth, to win over an audience that is expected to grow to 18 percent of the U.S. population within a generation.
All three of the dominant players in the category, Time Inc., Reader's Digest Association and American Media, are pumping resources into reaching this demographic sector.
Reader's Digest Association's Selecciones, long an afterthought, is surging after a redesign last year. Time Inc. will publish an eleventh issue this year of its five-year-old people spinoff People en Español. And American Media has plans to launch a Spanish-language edition of fashion magazine Style 24-7 as Mira, its celebrity gossip title, boosts its ad sales.
Reader's Digest Association has had its flag in the market for more than 30 years in the form of Selecciones. But up until last year, Selecciones was little more than an American redux of content from the 13 Latin American editions of the title.
In preparation for a 2001 relaunch, RDA hired an editor in chief, Carmen Alicia Fernandez, formerly of The Wall Street Journal's Latin American editions, and a publisher, Luisa Fairborne, who came from Time Inc.’s People en Español.
Around 30 percent of the editorial that runs in Selecciones now is created specifically for the U.S. edition.
The intention is to increase the proportion, says Elizabeth Bradley, who became publisher last fall when Fairborne was named associate publisher of Reader's Digest. Bradley also came from People en Español, where she was associate publisher.
"Selecciones is basically a new entity for advertisers," says Bradley, noting that the magazine didn't have its own sales staff prior to the relaunch.
Unlike its closest competitors, Selecciones focuses not on entertainment news but on general-interest service pieces aimed at helping Spanish-dominant readers, especially immigrants, adapt to life in the U.S.
"Hispanics are incredibly underserved when it comes to basic household information--finance, health, education," says Bradley.
Selecciones’ total paid circulation was up 21.7 percent in the second half of last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, and the magazine will raise its rate base from 250,000 to 275,000 with the April issue.
People en Español, the biggest Spanish-language magazine in the U.S., recently raised its rate base from 325,000 to 400,000, according to publisher Lisa Quiroz.
Both magazines were basically flat in newsstand sales in the second half of 2001, however.
Quiroz attributes the lack of single-copy growth primarily to ongoing consolidation among magazine wholesalers, a situation that has made it particularly difficult for smaller magazines to gain traction. Bradley says that Selecciones has only just started to worry about its newsstand distribution.
"We've been in a situation where retailers historically know they sell six copies every month so we provide six copies," she says.
Both publishers agree, however, that the low visibility of the category makes selling newsstand copies harder for everyone.
"Even with great placement, it’s tough because your consumer doesn't expect to find you there," says Bradley. "The more we’re out there en masse, as a category, the better."
"The problem is I'm not sitting there with a category of magazines where the consumer easily knows where to find me," echoes Quiroz. "I wish I would see my competitors out there more."
Perhaps they will be cheered to see Style 24-7, American Media's new celebrity style magazine, return to newsstand this may, bringing with it a Spanish-language edition.
Style 24-7 was originally intended to be a weekly, but tentative plans call for it to return at a six-times-a-year frequency.
Mira, American Media's biweekly Spanish-language entertainment and gossip title, is selling about 200,000 copies per issue, says a spokesman.
The company, which publishes supermarket tabloids including the National Enquirer and the Star, had announced plans last year to launch a raft of new magazines aimed at Spanish speakers, but those launches have been postponed indefinitely while the company searches for new headquarters, says a spokesman.
American Media was forced to abandon its offices in Boca Raton, Fla., after its building was contaminated by an anthrax-laced letter last fall.
On the advertising front, all three titles have been making headway despite the slack economy.
Selecciones, a monthly, finished last year up 15.4 percent in ad pages, with 301.42, and it is up 65 percent in pages in the first quarter of 2002, according to a spokesman.
"When I meet with advertisers, I tell them, Don't let the current size and scope of the market fool you. There's nothing special interest here," says Bradley.
Mira has tripled its ad pages, from six to 18, over the last three issues, says its spokesman.
People en Español, which will publish 11 issues this year, finished 2001 a sliver off in ad pages, with 691.4, but it was up 14.8 percent in revenue, with $19.4 million, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.
Quiroz says advertisers in some categories, especially beauty, have been very responsive to the idea of reaching Spanish speakers, but others, notably those in packaged goods, have yet to break open, although she says Procter & Gamble has been an exception to this.
"Convincing people of the value of the market--that continues to be our biggest impediment."
February 22, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.
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