Set your TiVo: Jeff Jarvis is scheduled (now, at least) to be on Aaron Brown’s program (CNN) between 10 and 11 eastern (or, for those of us in fly-over America, 9 and 10) to talk about Fahrenheit 911. The program tonight is being promo’d with the tag line, “Fahrenheit 911: Hot stuff or hot air.” From his blog-review (”propaganda too unsubtle for the cheapest tin-horn demagog.”), this weblog is guessing Jeff will be speaking on behalf of hot air…and we would never say hot air is a topic on which our friend Jeff is an expert even if the opportunity for such a cheap-joke ever presented itself.
Later: There he was, introduced as creator and editor of the weblog buzzmachine.com. Aaron Brown, Jeff Greenfield and our Jeff Jarvis. “I’m not a Bush voter,” he said, and then went of to lay down a convincing argument why the movie sucks. I had a hard time following what he was saying as I was too preoccupied with thinking, “Hey, that’s really Jeff Jarvis and he’s graduated from blogger to the TV punditry class. Dude.
Living for the weekend: MediaPost’s Michael Shields reports Time Inc. has begun “pitching advertisers on an innovative new weekend magazine reach package that combines just resurrected Life with People magazine.”
Quote:
Both titles have a Friday newsstand date and the combination of People’s mega circulation with Life’s initial rate base of 12 million will deliver the kind of reach that can compete effectively with the weekend traffic-building of top network TV series….it’s likely to be attractive to buyers hawking weekend-shopping fare such as movies, DVDs, or just about anything retail.
Just a question: Has People magazine ever in its history been marketed as a “friday publication”? Does Time really want to tie its cash-cow People weekly brand to a day of the week? More likely, if Time is combining the two publications’ pitch, it means “bonus” or “added value” or some other euphemism for deeply discounting space in the new publication.
That observation aside, this weblog believes that new-Life may work, but it will take lots more than the reported $20 million to get it to profitability. (Our guess: $200 million.) For starters, a publication in Friday’s newspaper should be an attractive place for the far-flung entertainment interests of Time-Warner to advertise (as long as shareholders understand how the flow of money is working). It would be a sweetly ironic development if a magazine carrying the Life brand becomes the lynchpin of a strategy that finally brings success to the whole synergy theory on which the current corporate iteration of the parent company was created.
(Disclosure: This weblog’s I.R.A. contains Time-Warner stock purchased the day it was announced Ted Turner sold his and another block purchased on the day the company announced Steve Case would be leaving.)
Into thick air: This weblog’s invitation to the Outward Bound publisher junket adventure obviously has been lost in the mail for the past 20 years:
The first media trips, more than 20 years ago, were initiated by John Mack Carter—the Hearst exec who at various points edited Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, and McCall’s—and by Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel co-founder Don Welsh. These expeditions remain one of Outward Bound’s few invitational events. Media mavens from all reaches of the industry meet and network while hiking through jungles and paddling down rivers in all reaches of the globe. In turn, the Outward Bound organization is given a friendly reception in its guests’ advertising offices and often receives pro-bono or discounted ad placements in an impressive number of magazines. The sleek ads make a happy fit with publications as diverse as National Geographic and Maxim. Last year, a two-page spread appeared in ESPN The Magazine.
Call me. We can work out a deal.
(via mediabistro.com)
