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Nelson replaces Coop
The question we all ask: Will it be lad-ified?
By Jeff Bercovici
Faced with a decision between an $800 Italian crocodile-skin shoe and a comfortable old slipper, GQ, rather uncharacteristically perhaps, has chosen the slipper.
Jim Nelson, GQ’s executive editor and a six-year veteran of the Conde Nast men’s magazine, has been selected as its next editor in chief.
He replaces Art Cooper, the longtime boss who's retiring -- involuntarily, by several accounts -- at the start of June.
News of Nelson's appointment will come as a surprise to those who had predicted that Conde Nast would bring in a hotshot outsider, preferably one with a proven newsstand sense, to shake things up at GQ.
Hiring from without, however, runs the risk that the new guy will have too many ideas of his own. (Not that Conde Nast didn't try: Men's Health editor David Zinczenko reportedly turned down several offers to jump ship. He was said to be the favored candidate of GQ publisher Ron Galotti.)
An internal candidate like Nelson, on the other hand, is a known quantity, making it that much easier for Conde Nast editorial director James Truman to keep a strong hand in the magazine's direction.
Truman is said to favor shortening GQ's articles and beefing up its fashion and other service. Less known is to what extent he and Conde Nast chairman Si Newhouse will push Nelson to emulate lad magazines like Maxim and FHM in a bid to increase newsstand sales, which have declined by some 30 percent since 1997.
Cooper reportedly resisted pressure to laddify GQ, although he did appropriate some of the genre's elements.
One obvious advantage that Nelson has over his predecessor, from the standpoint of Conde Nast executives, is his age: At 40 (versus Cooper's 65), he's more in touch with the young demographic GQ tries to target.
Nelson's background reflects GQ's mix of easy-to-digest pop culture and serious literary journalism.
A former TV comedy writer and CNN producer, Nelson, whose duties at GQ include reviewing new music, previously worked for highbrow monthly Harper's.
GQ's total paid circulation increased 5.9 percent to 803,652 in the second half of last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Its single-copy sales rose 5.3 percent to 212,601.
Advertising pages were up 13.7 percent in the first two months of the year, totaling 107.7, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. Ad revenue was reported to be up 23.1 percent to $7.7 million.
March 26, 2003© 2003 Media Life
-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.
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