FAREWELL TO THE GAY NINETIES

By: Mark Fitzgerald Gay, Lesbian Newspapers Struggle To Survive





Buff Carmichael never wanted to be a newspaper publisher. But when he moved to Abraham Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, there was no paper to tell him what was happening among other gay people in the small Farm Belt cities of downstate Illinois. So Carmichael started Prairie Flame. Over the next four years, he got a crash course in the realities of the gay-newspaper business.



And when he folded Prairie Flame last month with a final cover that listed advertisers who had faithfully supported the paper (and the deadbeats who had stiffed it), the bitter end seemed to symbolize problems gay papers face in places far beyond southern Illinois.



Just a couple of weeks before, the Windy City Times had published its final issue - not among the corn and soybeans of rural America but in the nation's third-largest market. Chicago is home to a gay community so large and politically influential that City Hall erected rainbow-colored gateways to the entrance of a neighborhood that residents affectionately call Boys Town. And Windy City Times was no flighty startup: When it folded, it had 15 years under its belt, a circulation of 20,000, and a reputation as one of the best gay weeklies in America.



In the past year, the bell has tolled for other significant gay papers across the nation. Missouri lost its last news-oriented gay paper in January when the News Telegraph in St. Louis folded. In May, Au Courant closed after 16 years in Philadelphia. Last month, This Week in Texas expired. Gay papers have failed in Minneapolis, as well as in California's Long Beach and Silicon Valley. Others survive, but were hurt badly by the sudden closing last December of Mulryan/Nash Advertising, a newspaper rep firm that went out of business owing substantial sums to gay papers.



What's gone wrong? A couple of years ago, talk among some publishers centered on forming the first true gay newspaper chain. Since then, gays and lesbians have become more visible than ever in America - and more openly targeted by mainstream advertisers. So what is happening to a niche newspaper business that once seemed ascendant in a market repeatedly described as affluent, educated, and loyal to advertisers who use gay media?



The fact is, the gay newspaper business these days is both more perilous - and better - than ever.



The niche gets niches



"Local gay and lesbian papers are booming," declares Todd Evans, founder of Westfield, N.J.-based Rivendell Marketing, the major national ad rep firm for gay newspapers. "At our last count, there were 237 local gay and lesbian publications, and when we started out [in 1979], we counted 25. So there's a plethora of gay and lesbian papers out there."



The niche has spawned its own niches: In addition to papers aimed at African Americans and

Latinos, there is now one for gay and lesbian senior citizens. The Networker, a paper just launched by the Pride Senior Network in New York, distributes in doctor's offices and restaurants.



Although gay bars remain an important cog in the distribution network, gay papers these days are just as likely to be found in mainstream bookstores, coffee shops, and, especially, drugstores in big cities. "We're going to places that even five or 10 years ago would never have let us drop off a gay paper," says Don Michaels, publisher of The Washington Blade and New York Blade News.



Even this year's rash of closings should not be a cause for alarm, says David Bianco, publisher of Q Syndicate, a content provider for gay papers. "I think this is par for the course," he argues. "Papers are always expanding and going out of business. We're more aware of it now, because now we have a journal that follows it nationally," he says, referring to Q Syndicate's electronic newsletter on gay publications, PressPass Q.



Rivendell Marketing's Evans says that, in any given year, about 10 papers will come and go. The turnover this year, he says, is not exceptional: "According to our count, seven have folded and three have started up."



There is, however, a strong sense that the business environment is harsher for gay papers now. "It used to be that all you needed to get into this business was a dream and a dollar," Evans observes. "It's not so cheap anymore. And of 10 new papers, one makes it and nine don't."



No chain to come?



Tracy Baim has seen the change in her 13 years as a Chicago gay-newspaper publisher. "Most of the gay papers of the last decade were started by businesspeople and not by community activists," she says. "In the 1970s and '80s, it was the activists and the bar owners who started papers." The change in ownership type could mean even more turnover in gay papers, she warns. "The question is," she says, "if they're only in it for the money, will they be there for the long haul if the return is not what they expect?"



So far, though, the rigorous bottom-line publishers from the mainstream press - the ones who are driving the consolidation of dailies - have not emerged in the gay press. Publishing a gay paper remains something of a cause, says Chris Crain, whose Window Media properties emphasize professionalism in both business and editorial.



"All of us were in more lucrative professions, such as public relations or law, so this was not done for financial reasons," he says. "We're a gay paper writing for the gay community. We see providing a professional, accurate paper with reliable information as an engine for the civil-rights movement."



Not long ago, Atlanta-based Window Media was considered a leading candidate to establish a gay newspaper chain. Beginning with Southern Voice in Atlanta, it bought papers in Houston and New Orleans, began a regional entertainment guide, and talked of growing to five or more papers. Instead, last month, it merged the New Orleans paper into its Atlanta flagship and positioned Southern Voice as a regional weekly for the South.



When The Washington Blade started the New York Blade News, many thought Publisher Michaels would try to take his well-respected brand to other cities. He laughs at the idea now. "We just don't have the deep pockets," he reports.



One reason chains haven't emerged, says Q Syndicate's Bianco, is the size of gay papers. "Compared to alternative papers, we're talking about a much smaller pie," he observes. "There are no obvious economies of scale in consolidating." Rivendell's Evans says chains may emerge one day, but not now: "You need both a strong national and local advertising base, and that is still quite small for gay papers. They're not profitable enough for the big guys to go after them yet."



Certainly, gay papers themselves are not big buys. The biggest ones, such as Michaels' Blade papers in New York and Washington, each distribute a little more than 40,000 copies a week.



A problem for gay papers is that mainstream publications are also targeting their audience. "As more and more mainstream papers cover gay and lesbian issues, there is less of a niche for gay and lesbian newspapers to fill," says Fred Fejes, a communications professor at Florida Atlantic University who is an expert on gay marketing. Fejes warns that gay papers may be about to encounter a problem mainstream newspapers have long faced: difficulty attracting young readers, who seem to identify less with their "community."



But gay publishers scoff at the idea that daily papers will take their readers or gay advertisers. Mainstream papers and media are picking up on their issues, the Blades' Michaels says, "but they will never be interested in covering them with the depth you get in gay papers. Our readers will read those stories in The [Washington] Post, and still turn to the Blade to get more of an overview on the story." As for advertising, he says no mainstream paper can beat the cost-efficient targeting to a gay audience that gay papers can offer.



But changes among gay and mainstream businesses - and audiences - are changing the advertising mix considerably. For one thing, advertisements fit for the whole family are replacing sexually oriented categories.



"Gay papers used to publish page after page of headless male torsos," Southern Voice Co-Publisher Crain says. "The trend is definitely away from sexual content. The headless male torso is going away."



One reason is that sexually oriented advertisers have moved much of their business to the Internet. But it's also a choice gay papers make because many mainstream advertisers will not appear in a paper with sexually oriented content.



Gay papers, whose readerships tend to be overwhelmingly male, are also dumping the ads, which offend many lesbians, in an effort to attract more female readers.



Local gay businesses, though, can be a shaky ad foundation for smaller papers, as Carmichael discovered with Prairie Flame. Gay bars, in particular, left him with uncollectible debts. "If there's one thing I learned from being in the gay newspaper business," Carmichael says with a small laugh, "it's that I don't ever want to own a gay bar."



'Flame' still burns



But if the August closings of Prairie Flame in southern Illinois and Windy City Times in Chicago symbolized the problems gay papers confront, their just-announced revivals could just as well symbolize the resilience of the business.



Windy City Times hit Chicago streets again two weeks ago, after Lambda Publications founder Tracy Baim bought the paper. Baim's own gay Chicago weekly, Outlines, is now a section inside the new 20,000-distribution Windy City Times. It's an ironic return for Baim, who helped Jeffrey McCourt create Windy City Times in 1985, then left with other staff members two years later to create Outlines.



The newspaper faces competitive pressure from Chicago Free Press, which was formed by ex-Windy City Times staffers who left in a mass exodus in August 1999. Baim is convinced the city can support two general-interest gay papers.



Carmichael, meanwhile, is re-starting the Prairie Times. He's hoping his gay paper will, literally, play in Peoria (and other downstate towns). Community activists from across the region convinced him to give Prairie Flame another try.



"I never wanted to get into this business, but once I got in, I - well, to be honest - I still wanted to get out," Carmichael says. But he adds he cannot let Prairie Flame be snuffed out: "Yes, I am burned out, but I'll give it another shot."





Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is editor at large for E&P.





Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher.