'Life' Will Go On, Fridays

By: Jennifer Saba When Time Inc. decided to raise Life magazine from the dead ? again ? the company wasted no time in building instant circulation. Instead of depending on newsstand and subscription sales, Time turned to newspapers, a first for the publishing company. "We tried to come up with a way to have a mass-reach product with a weekly magazine, and how do you do that?" Andy Blau, president of Life, wondered. "The newspaper idea came about because we looked at supplements and thought, that's a distribution system that was reaching readers with topical news. Why not deliver to them a high-quality weekly magazine?"

On Oct. 1, Life will be joining Parade and USA Weekend as a major magazine-distributed-through-newspapers product. Blau says Life distinguishes itself with its unique format. It looks like a mix of the old incarnation of Life, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and even a little Entertainment Weekly.

In keeping with its heritage, photography will play a large role in the magazine. The content leans toward features but new elements will be weaved in, including a section that lists weekend activities. There's also a section that features chefs recalling their favorite Sunday dinners made by their grandmothers.

"A great deal of our strategy is about Friday distribution," Blau told E&P in his spacious office in the Time & Life Building in Manhattan. With the exception of New York's Daily News, which will carry the magazine on Sundays, Life plans to be distributed through about 70 papers on Fridays. Terms of contracts were not disclosed, but Life arranges distribution based on paying a fee, getting paid a fee or having no financial transaction.

Both Parade and USA Weekend have staked their claim on Sundays. Roughly 13% of USA Weekend's circulation runs in Friday or Saturday papers with the rest on Sundays, says Marcia Bullard, USA Weekend's President and CEO. The Daily News will run both USA Weekend and Life on Sundays along with its newly launched pub 25 Hours.

Parade is Sunday-only distributed in 340 newspapers throughout the country. "The addition of Life will be good for the category and will bring more attention to all the things we've got going on at Parade," says Randy Siegel, Parade's president and publisher.

Blau, along with Bullard and Siegel, insists that there's enough advertising to go around. Life, he claims, is going after some categories that the other two are not. Blau asserts that ads from consumer packaged goods, auto, pharmaceutical, and apparel companies will run in upcoming issues.

Competing supplements aside, Life is venturing on newspaper turf. Gary Pruitt, chairman, president, and CEO of McClatchy, who would not disclose the terms of his deal with Life, did say that contracts were arranged to avoid advertising conflict: "It is a potential issue, but we feel comfortable with the resolution."

Kirk McDonald, CEO of the Denver Newspaper Agency, doesn't foresee any problems: "We haven't had that experience with Parade or USA Weekend, and we don't anticipate it with Life, either."