Rolling Stone Magazine To See Format Change
Posted by Dan Haggerty on 08.12.2008
Iconic music magazine changing with the times...
Rolling Stone magazine unveiled plans on Monday for a major design overhaul, scaling down its signature large-format pages to a standard magazine size in a bid to bolster advertising and sagging newsstand sales. The U.S. pop culture magazine will end the oversized look that for more than 30 years has distinguished it from rival publications starting with an issue set to hit newsstands on October 17. "It feels to me just like a natural step for us to take," said Will Dana, managing editor at Rolling Stone. "It's always exciting to shake things up a bit and to grow and to do things differently."
Officials with Wenner Media, the magazine's publisher, said Rolling Stone's circulation has grown to an all-time high of nearly 1.5 million. But single-copy sales on news racks slumped to 115,644 for the first six months of 2008, down from 119,735 for the same period in 2007. "We've been challenged at the newsstand recently, which is an industry-wide trend, and the decline pretty much mirrors where we are vis-à-vis our competitors," Dana said.
The company expects the new format will boost single-copy sales because in the past the magazine's size has proved somewhat unwieldy for retailers to prominently display. Also, with the new format, the magazine's pages will be glued together instead of stapled, making it easier to include advertising supplements, said Beth Jacobson, a spokeswoman for Rolling Stone.
"The U.S. pop culture magazine will end the oversized look that for more than 30 years has distinguished it from rival publications."
Sagging sales? Make yourself less unique so you can blend in with your competitors!!
"[T]he magazine's pages will be glued together instead of stapled, making it easier to include advertising supplements."
Also, make your magazine a lot more annoying to attract those hard-to-come-by subscriber dollars!!!
Posted By: Seany D (Guest) on August 12, 2008 at 11:10 AM
Here is an idea Rolling Stone.. Stop printing all your political garbage in your magazine. Rolling Stone is so grossly left wing liberal its ridiculous. There is nothing wrong with being left wing but for Christ sakes its A MUSIC MAGAZINE!! They put Barrack Obama on the cover with the Tag line "A New Hope" like he is Luke Skywalker here to save the world. I think that might turn a few (hundre thousand) people off.
Posted By: Guest#0386 (Guest) on August 12, 2008 at 11:29 AM
It's sad these goofballs at RS have no idea what little credibility they really have left. Here's lookin' at you Frances Bean the intern ;-)
Posted By: PDM (Guest) on August 12, 2008 at 04:26 PM
The two critics i trust the most are Roger Ebert and Peter Travers. That has nothing to do with this article, just putting it out there.
It is kinda hard to hold comfortably while you're dropping a deuce though. And i don't mind it having political articles. I has something for everybody, and i'm cool with that. I bought the latest issue to read about pineapple express and i did ultimately read the article about John McCain. I can't say i was thrilled by it, but i did read it.
Posted By: the dude (Guest) on August 12, 2008 at 07:17 PM
Whats next? Teeny bopper groups on the cover? Oop's too late.
Posted By: Guest#5779 (Guest) on August 12, 2008 at 10:05 PM
i geuss they are going along with the trend of changing their look to be more like Maxim magazine. Am i the only that has noticed certain magazines doing that? theres a couple that i read that have changed their look to be more like Maxim. Maybe since they are music it will start looking more like Blender magazine
Posted By: gutter (Guest) on August 13, 2008 at 02:49 AM
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Posted By: DaFatGuy (Guest) on August 13, 2008 at 07:57 PM
