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valleylist(sm) v144 r.1 saturday 01.01.2011
high tech products companies consumers
syndication mania – -> rss google rss google [adsense] rss yahoo rss msn rss bloglines rss wordpress yahoo newsgroup
new – - – - > “valleylist” social group
NEWS
+ time inc unit splits sports from news + best social networking apps of 2010 + reports of the death of ipad magazines greatly exaggerated + amazon kindle opens new chapter for publishing industry I READ THE NEWS TODAY OH BOY is the first verse from the beatles song “a day in the life”.
henry r luce publisher and founder of time inc is the “valleylist” avatar this week. luce personally created time magazine life magazine fortune magazine and the march of time newsreels information broadcasts. time inc went on to become the largest publishing company in the world and is now known as time warner a $26 billion company consisting of time-life hbo warner cable and turner broadcasting network.
luce is perhaps the most influential person of the 20th century.
a yale graduate henry luce met briton hadden at the yale weekly “the news”. during military training they came up with the idea for a new kind of magazine. working title. facts. the leading magazine of the 1920′s was “the literary digest” circulation 1,200,000 and lots of advertising. after consulting with ap founder melville stone henry luce hired yale’s culbreth as head of promotion and advertisign. the other time magazine published in england 1879-1890 by edmund yates was forgotten as luce set out to distinguish the american time magazine as
“fair treatment of the news without objectivity”.
the time magazine manifesto spelled out specificaly that time magazine was an entirely new kind of publication. with almost $90,000 borrowed from family friends and yale classmates luce and his crew published the first issue of time magazine on march 3,1923. selling only 9,000 instead of the planned 25,000 time magazine made it’s mark immediately with a jaunty personal point of view. by the end of the year time was selling 20,000 copies a week ending the year only $40,000 in debt. that was enough to establish the new magazine as an institution and find advertising clients.
however luce was widely criticized for the easy treatment of the news. luce got information from competing newspapers. the news digested entirely from dozens of newspapers that time magazine subscribed to was widely distained.
1925 time moved from new york to cleveland. circulation climbed to 107,000 with $100,000 in revenue and only a $23,320 loss for the year. the next year high schools started using time magazine for current events projects. even with the saturday evening post in the lead time magazine turned a profit of $8,300.
1927 was profitable as well. $3,541.
new offices in europe opened the door to world politics. luce made a big splash on the continent. famous moments include trying and failing to arrange an in person interview with italy’s fascist dictator mussolini. luce and time magazine officially endorsed spain’s communist dictator franco. fascism seemed like a new radical political concept that appealed to luce. time magazine doesn’t like stalin. in fact luce himself almost lead the united states to communism.
interest in the european idiologial experiment lead luce to personal involvement in russia’s bolshevik revolution then england’s war with germany followed by world war 2 and eventually the vietnam war.
luce and time magazine were among the many who backed dewey in 1948 and were caught with the wrong headline. the celebration prepared in advance went unattended. truman won the election.
in 1963 the 40 year anniversay of time magazine was an event that included 1700 guests 300 of whom appeared on the cover of time magazine.
by 1966 with the vietnam war time magazine earned $503 million with 14 million magazines printed. time magazine profiled the tycoon as hero and like other publishing magnates of the era set out to change the world. it was when luce entered the world political scene that time magazine really took off.
time-life publications are famous for their unending tribute to the arts. exciting and innovative in their use of photography and illustration time inc created a new aesthetic for the 20th century. the sfmoma henri cartier bresson is a fine example composed almost entirely of photos published in life magazine. thousands of writers artists illustrators and editors got their creative start with time inc publications.
time magazine for the iphone and ipad is the app of the week.
henry luce died in san francisco on february 28 1967. second wife congresswoman clare boothe luce was scheduled to speak at the commonwealth club advocating the need for real action from the newly formed united nations. luce was found dead by hospital staff the next day.
top 10 magazines in the united states by paid circulation
[2008 excluding aarp magazine and bulletin around 26 million members each]
1. reader’s digest - – - – 8 million
2. better homes and gardens - – - – 7.7 million
3. national geographic magazine - – - – 5 million
4. good housekeeping - – - – 4.9 million
5. womans day magazine - – - – 4 million
6. family circle - – - – 3,.9 million
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magazine electronic publishing is reaching a new high ipad versions of these great magazines are not to be missed. #33 martha stewart living [2.83 million]
#63 popular science [1.5 million] #87 the new yorker [1 million] #48 rolling stone [1.5 million] and interview magazine [unrated]. “valleylist” scored as well with digital editions on the ipad wordpress app and on kindle blogs.
some claim luce is the most important man of the 20th century. time life and fortune magazines and the march of time newsreels were reaching 40 million people every week around the 1960′s. luce created the phrase “the american century” and advocated interventionism and global benevolence in the name of god and humanity. presbyterian and republican. 4 decades of publishing and politicking and the world stage all based on a new magazine concept.
fortune magazine vol 1 no 1 appeared feb 1930. carefully planned and thoroughly researched it was a total sucess. hadden died. the new editor was to be larsen raising a $200,000 investment. the next new publication life magazine 1936 was based on news and entertainment. it sold out every press run for first edition ending up with 1 million circulation a week. objective of 1,500,000 by end of first year. around 1937 luce appointed a publisher for each magazine. larsen life magazine. ingersoll for time magazine. hodgins fortune magazine. around 1941 time inc reported $47 million in revenue and $9 million profit before tax. life adapted to the mass market society and instituted a new ad policy accepting only advertising for consumers. life was time inc’s leading publication second only to saturday evening post. life magazine felt the pressure from television as new advertising medium in early 1960′s after experiencing an actual loss in 1959. $47 million cumulative losses by 1971 was the end. december 1972 after 1,864 issues the final edition of life magazine was published as a review of the year in pictures. the strategic decision was to save some $8 million in after tax earnings. the news of life’s closure added 10 points to time inc’s stock price. in the 1970′s time launched new special interest magazines people money life monthly and sports illustrated.
1980′s find time inc at $2.5 billion in corporate assets. $3 billion in corporate revenues. 20,000 employees world wide. the largest magazine publisher in the world. the largest direct mail book publisher in the united states. operator of the country’s largest pay television network and major owner of cable television systems.
the entrepreneurial winning streak continued in 1965 with sterling information services a small new york cable company. the new company launched a programming project in allentown and wilkes-barre pennsylvania. later called the green channel the new programming company hired gerald levin as a sales manager. later to become hbo chairman and ceo gerald levin actually did the broadcast introduction to the first program from time inc’s cable project. the program itself was a hockey game from madison square garden the new york rangers vs the vancouver canucks. the live game was followed by the film “sometimes a great notion”.
hbo went satellite and the relaunched the pay cable service with a special event. the championship fight mohamed ali vs. joe frazier sept 30 1975.
time inc later sold off the various cable systems and invested in hbo programming then acquired american television communications corp in 1977. the rest of the industry tried to catch up with the launch of showtime and the movie channel only to find that hbo stayed at around 70% of the pay cable market. after the launch of cinemax hbo formed a new movie studio with paramount pictures called tri-star pictures in 1982 for cable programming.
conclusion.
henry luce is among the very few who ever really lined it up.
it takes a good education [even if self-taught] and a lot of hard work to come up with creative product that people like. then comes the family and old school connections. is there anything worth investing money. finally launch the business based on a few good connections native talent and a good product liked by everybody. for luce it was the added power of real politics and real politicians that finally put time-life on the map.
“i read the news today oh boy” from the song “a day in the life” from the album sgt peppers remains one of the finest examples of great song writing from the beatles. it could be a tribute to henry luce or any of the other great publishing magnates of the early 20th century.
luce’s real life had no bizarre criminal incidents or shakedowns. instead it was almost all hardhitting business and politics. the roxie theatre locally has their version of what should go on in these circumstances and it is often portrayed by film noir. it’s not reality. it’s film noir. and if that’s what you like then go to the upcomming noir city film festival at san francisco’s castro theatre. my email is in to the organic agency for some black and white money from the nike “write the future” campaign. salon magazine owes me a kickback or two for the massive success of the saloon publicity campaign. up next federal agencies and publications from facebook. the latest “valleylist” facebook project.
“valleylist” is on vacation until february. run don’t walk to the consumer electronics show and macworld. keep up with high tech.
henry luce will be there. no amount of bizarre behaviour could drive him away.
greg mckenna
publisher
valleylist
all rights reserved.
“valleylist” is a free weekly internet newsletter focusing on technology and politics emailed to 5 million readers every week. copyright greg mckenna.
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“valleylist” v144 r.1 – - i read the news today oh boy [henry luce]
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