portlandville.com

More catching up: Media guy Keith Kelly of the New York Post recently covered a merger in the regional luxury magazine field. (See earlier post, below.) Expect a version of this soon in Portland, then expect that to be bought out by someone like these guys, then, well, we’re finally there. Just like everybody else.

Whoa, wait a minute: I’m not sure the same results will show now, but when I sampled a few news sites at 5PM on Thursday the 7th, I found these top stories:

Google (new local news feature): Embattled Sheriff Giusto says he will retire at the end of this year (link from KATU)

KGW: Embattled Mult. Co. Sheriff to retire

LocalNewsDaily: Giusto announces retirement

And then…OregonLive:   Portland man admits to drunken brawl in Tualatin

If this is any indication, the O has plenty of catch-up to do with or without Google in the game.

Feed aggregators like Netvibes make it easy for anyone to build and use a customized online news service, tailored to your own interests. Now Google is fine tuning a local news search tool. According to the Google News Blog:

While we’re not the first news site to aggregate local news, we’re doing it a bit differently — we’re able to create a local section for any city, state or country in the world and include thousands of sources. We’re not simply looking at the byline or the source, but instead we analyze every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located.

Here’s a sample search result for Portland

Compare that to local news sites OregonLive, LocalNewsDaily and KGW

What do you think? Is there added value to the search of “thousands of sources”? How will local media be affected?

Portland may soon have its own edition of the Northern California magazine LUXLIFE, according to recent intelligence reports.

What is the value proposition for a new magazine aimed at Portland’s elite? Well for one thing, according to a recent recruitment ad, it is produced in “stunning keepsake editions.” Promotional copy on the site tells us more:

LUXLIFE, as its name implies, is a publication designed to enhance the target reader’s lifestyle. It is as rich in beauty as it is in solid, high-end consumer information. Delivering fresh and intelligent content as unique and diversified as the discerning persons who read it, LUXLIFE is a mirror image of the growing sophistication of design in the region. LUXLIFE magazine is published as a service for residents … who have high discretionary income and want to spend it. Content is a potpourri of local finds, international haunts, wellness, the arts and consumer tips…With a steady and cohesive minimal full-time staff, LUXLIFE has established an army of experts in a variety of endeavors that provide information to professional freelance writers.. They then tell a story that is concise, a pleasure to read, and always informative…In a world of fragmented consumer resources, LUXLIFE is a publication where the affluent can gather with the high-quality resources they are seeking.

Who is behind this concept? According to the site:

It takes a visionary to perceive an opportunity that no one else can. In the case of LuxLife Media, Founder/CEO Anthony Glover is that visionary…

Welcome, monsieur. We’ve been saving your table. Right over there, next to Ultimate Northwest.

While I was away from the desk, Portland Spaces hit the stands.

I don’t have much to add to the conversation (supportive and otherwise) already underway
on various blogs, but here are a few late observations:

• It’s a very nice magazine, interesting to read, well written, well designed and thoughtfully organized.
• OK, Jack Bogdanski (link on otherwise, above) deems the magazine pretentious. And I’ve heard more than one reader use the word academic in describing the overall feel of the content. But Spaces isn’t a  formulaic regional home and garden magazine. It breaks the mold by including a unique mix of content. That makes it interesting, and possibly ground breaking, as a regional magazine prototype. Anyone know of similar titles in other metro markets?
• Down the road some point/counterpoint arguments on public spaces issues might mitigate any  creeping editorial conceit. Give Bogdanski a column. Just kidding. Well, maybe not just kidding.
•  It’s not hard for me to visualize Spaces’ audience. Educated curious upscale urban metro area adults who are interested in architecture city planning gardening and decorating. That includes me, I think. But are there tens of thousands of us in Portland? Or at least, will advertisers believe that? And  will the advertising ROI bear out the belief? We’ll see.

I enjoyed the magazine. I subscribed. I look forward to the next issue.

Upon moving to the city from a 12 acre patch of woods, meadow and water in Vermont, I had no interest in mastering the art of picking up after the Labradors with delivery bags from the NY Times or the Oregonian. Eventually, after a couple of years of prodding and a steady drip of mild derision from my wife, I picked up the basics, so to say.
Here’s a new development, for anyone who has canceled his or her print subscriptions. It’s worth a look for the video and music alone. The score is all pre-disco/Philly sound, and the actress is excellent. I think I saw her in I’m Not There. (But then, I also thought I spotted Kim Gordon, Marianne Faithful and Sally Kellerman.) Link

I Love It! Picking up after my little Yorkie is actually fun! Everything is so neat and simple. I don’t feel any more embarrassment. — A satisfied customer

Via Springwise

Have you checked out the opbmusic site?

The site features good programming including local bands, handy real-time playlists, a blog, an archive of studio sessions by Blitzen Trapper, The National, The Shaky Hands and many more. Also occasional live sets. Isn’t it great to have something new and good in Portland media?

Where else can you have breakfast with The Jicks?

Newspapers all over the country are entering the magazine business. I wrote in an earlier post about some of these. The trend goes on. USA Today just announced plans to launch Open Air, an Outside-ish magazine.
The NY Times now publishes magazines on sports, style and real estate in addition to its own weekly general interest magazine.
Our own Oregonian has launched three so far: Mix on food, Ultimate Northwest on the good life and now Homes + Gardens Northwest.

But let’s back up a moment.

Is free, unrequested distribution good enough for advertisers?
I should change the wording in the first sentence from “…are entering the magazine business” to “…are launching magazines.” As publisher and blogger Rex Hammock points out, a magazine is just a format. Now publishers employ all kinds of business plans involving the magazine format. Back in the old days, ten years ago, the term “magazine business” implied, among other things, that paid, requested, or affinity circulation (as in association magazines or custom publications) were elements of the plan. Sure, the glossy format was and remains an attractive showcase for advertising. But more than that, advertisers once prized magazines’ ability to attract and hold on to an engaged readership. Engagement was measured using subscriber surveys and subscription renewal rates.

These days, in regional regional and newspaper-published magazines, publishers and advertisers seem to prize the format over the reader relationship. X number of copies are distributed, unrequested, to outlets and homes in selected locations. Probably, the reasoning goes, a good number of desirable readers wait at the other end. Renewal rates are not relevant because the recipients have no choice about receiving it or not.

One extreme example of this approach is what I call porch bombing. Early in it’s business life, the Portland Tribune employed this method. A lot of unread copies ended up in the shrubs.

Certainly free distribution is easier for publishers. And advertisers don’t seem to mind that they are not hitting the bullseye; they can shoot a whole quiver of arrows in the general direction of the target.

Is this kind of circulation sustainable as advertisers find much more efficient media? Who knows. On the other hand, magazines such Martha Stewart Living, say, or Vanity Fair, can plan on delivering an engaged readership into the future, as long as readers vote with their wallets by subscribing, renewing, or buying at the checkout. In the case of the NY Times, it’s a good bet that subscribers and Sunday buyers have come to expect the new magazines as part of what they pay for.

[Aside: Business plans built around free content are not bad per se as anyone who spends time on the web knows. Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, is writing a book about free content, titled Free, to be published in 2008. Meanwhile, for anyone interested in this stuff, check out some of the posts on his blog. This promises to be an important idea for publishers to consider as we develop strategies for the future.]

OK. As I was saying, our hometown paper is launching magazines.

The latest, Northwest Homes+Gardens, jumps into what is now a crowded field.

Here are some thoughts on the first issue:

Homes+Gardens Northwest (HGNW) debuts with a 116-page issue including 43 pages of ads. About ten advertisers appear twice in the issue. It appears from promotional materials a former (successful) Oregon Home sales person is spearheading sales efforts.
Ad rates are low, at roughly $2000 a page (depending on discounts) for roughly 40,000 claimed circulation.

The magazine is airy and nice-looking. Pictures and white space appear to take up more space on the pages than the writing. Like its sister publication, Mix, HGNW employs an over-sized, perfect-bound format.

5,000 copies will be distributed for sale at retail locations around the state — the HGNW media kit calls these extra copies. My local Fred Meyer had 10 copies on display with hundreds of other titles on the main magazine rack (mainline, in magazine talk) deep in the middle of the store. (Aside: It may not fit in a standard checkout rack, should the publishers ever decide to pursue checkout stand sales.)

According to promotional materials, 40,000 copies will be delivered (as inserts in papers? tossed on the porch?) to “upper income families and some couples, who own homes in suburbs and small communities near Portland.” It’s unclear whether Portland residents are on the list.

The cover includes the catch phrase “Real Homes, Real People, Real Solutions.” There is no mention of the Oregonian anywhere on the cover, although there is a tag in small type on the spine.

[Aside: For years, Oregon Home used the phrase “Real Homes, Real People” in its promotions. Hmm. What’s that about? Related: Just one article featured a real, visible home-owning family. Designers and architects are featured more prominently than homeowners and artisans. Real Homes, Real Tradespeople?]

It’s nice to see a whole section related to regional gardening. Now there’s an under-served editorial niche in this region. Although the ad market is a tough one.

Lots of magazines “repurpose” their editorial as web features or in print anthologies. The O runs some articles simultaneously in both the magazine and its HGNW newspaper section. This Thursday’s section repeated a books feature and decorating feature. Saves money, for sure. There are a few other rationales that I can think of:

1. Totally different audiences: few read both the O and the magazine
2. Readers read both but won’t notice/mind the duplication
3. Shared editorial staff is stretched too thin

I’m baffled.

Separated at birth:

Actually, come to think of it, it might be a positive thing for the magazine if the newspaper article prominently identified the magazine as the original source and told readers where to get a copy. I couldn’t find a promotion for the magazine in the newspaper section.

As for the crowded field I referred to earlier (and have blogged about before)…

Oregon Home is doing well in the “shelter” space.
Current issue is 116 pages with more than 40 pages of ads.

The issue comes bagged with a 100-page buying guide for household goods and services. Dubbed The Get Guide, it includes another 30-40 pages of ads.

Ad competition
Very few advertisers bought ads in both OH and HGNW. Looking back at last year’s November OH, only two or three regular advertisers appear to have “jumped” from OH to HGNW magazine’s premier issue.

Portland Monthly’s new Portland Spaces jumps into the fray next month. Last we heard, Oregon Home’s former sales manager is spearheading sales efforts at Spaces, making competition interesting all around.

Also meanwhile, Portland Monthly seems to be thriving. The current issue is 228 pages, with more than 100 pages of ads.

All of our local magazines seem to be overlooking some very basic interactive opportunities on the web, but that’s another story, and there are rumors of new sites in the works.

HGNW has a simple website showing some content, but it is surprisingly hard to find unless you already have the magazine and spot the address on the bottom of the masthead. Try searching for it on OregonLive. (maybe they’ve fixed that by now) Portland Monthly has a tired-but-utilitarian city directory site. Oregon Home has no site as of this writing.

(Disclosure: I was a part of the original Oregon Home publishing team.)

Our friend and former colleague Gillian Floren has landed in a new position as vice president of marketing and business retention at Greenlight Greater Portland, a primarily private-sector group devoted to promoting the economic vitality of the greater Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region. She will join CEO Tim Priest and Steven Pedigo, vice president of research and business attraction, as a member of the leadership team. Until recently, Gillian served as publisher (and before that, editor) of Oregon Business Magazine. Her strong relationships with regional business leaders and policy makers, developed during ten years with the magazine, should serve her well in the new role. [Great timing department: Oregon Business is running an interview with Priest in the November issue.]

We picked up a copy of the Oregonian’s free Spanish-language paper the other day, a few weeks after its launch. Here are some unofficial stats, all based on our perusal of the issue and various promotional materials:

The cover look

Vital statistics

• 32 Pages, color, newsprint, weekly
• 20,000 print run
• 500 distribution locations including bright green plastic street boxes in selected neighborhoods
• Free

Content produced by the Oregonian

• About a page and a half of Oregon-related editorial content consisting in this case one sports story, four news briefs and a few calendar items

Content supplied by Grupo Reforma (the O’s Mexican partner in the venture)…

• About three pages of starlet/supermodel/pin-up coverage
• Lots of Mexican football (soccer) coverage, about 12+ pages
• About two pages of Mexican entertainment coverage

Advertising

• 6+ pages of display ads, not including house ads
• 20 display advertisers, average size about a third of a page
• Display ad revenue this issue (rough guestimate): $5,500-6,500
• 7 pages of (English-language) classified ads, appear to be pick-ups of existing Oregonian classifieds

By design, Cancha is devoted more to Mexican homeland content than it is to local news. According to Brian Johnson of the Oregonian (as quoted here) Cancha is already a well-read and respected tabloid in its home country. Last year, Grupo Reforma, the Mexican publisher behind Cancha, partnered with the Hearst-owned San Antonio Express-News to publish a version of the paper for that market. We’re not sure what the partnership model is. Flat content licensing fee? Ad revenue share?

What the heck, let’s see how this might play out…

Revenue $6000

Printing -$2000 .10 each

Commissions -$780 @13%

License -$2000 about $100K/yr to Grupo Reforma

Distribution -$600 @ 3 cents a copy not including boxes

Local content -$200 @ $10K a year

Gross Profit $420 or $22k a year

But of course, we could be totally wrong…