SAN FRANCISCO – New York magazine Editor-in-Chief Adam Moss was among the no-shows at this year’s American Magazine Conference, but his magazine dominated the third annual best covers award handed out by the American Society of Magazine Editors.
The Cover of the Year was New York’s March 24 issue featuring a Henry Leutwyler photograph of disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer with the word “brain” in a bright red box and an arrow pointing to Spitzer’s groin area.
The judges cited the award for its “directness, humor and simplicity. The cover required no headlines. The image succeeds all by itself.”
The Moss-helmed weekly also tied with Vanity Fair for best fashion cover and for Best Leisure Interest Cover for its summer issue, a photo composite that showed John McCain and Barack Obama lounging on beach chairs.
Other category winners: best celebrity cover went to Texas Monthly for Willie Nelson and his guitar; best concept cover to The New Yorker for its “Eustace Tillarobama;” and best personal service to Texas Monthly for The Top 50 BBQ Joints in Texas.
New York’s Spitzer cover was also cited for best news cover and best coverline.
Tough times
Behind the celebrations, the economic uncertainty was the No. 1 topic as the AMC skipped the usual resort setting where it usually gathers for the City by the Bay.
The move had mixed results. One CEO bemoaned that the St. Francis hotel had poor electronic facilities and no pool, where executives in past years used to gather informally.
At one point Monday night, editors and executives went on a cruise on a ferry past Alcatraz Island and under the Golden Gate Bridge.
San Francisco is reputed to be the place where Irish coffee got its commercial start, but the Irish coffee served on board the ferry – the only alcoholic beverage available on board – was a bad imitation of the real thing.
It was served in paper cups – with Kentucky Whisky instead of Irish Whiskey – and the biggest no-no: the servers were using Redi-Whip to squirt into the cups instead of real whipped cream.
It was that kind of a gathering. Attendance, at around 450 people, was off by about 14 percent from a year ago.
Most blamed the worsening economy.
While years ago many executives brought spouses and there were separate sightseeing and shopping trips, few bring spouses anymore.
In what has to be considered a pretty worrisome sign of the association’s reduced pulling power, top CEOs of some of the biggest companies skipped the event.
Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore was at a Fortune magazine event in London. The other big no-show was Condé Nast CEO Charles Townsend.
Townsend, who is also the commodore of the New York Yacht Club, skipped the event because he was busy getting married.
As a result, the highest-ranking Condé executive was David Carey, group president of a stable of titles that now includes Mitch Fox‘s old titles at Golf Digest, Wired and the fitful start-up Portfolio.
In the Black;
Cathie Black, president of Hearst Magazines, was on the scene. Hearst is one of the few publishers with a new magazine in the works – The Food Network Magazine, which debuted while the conference was underway.
Right now it is still being billed as a test, with a second issue due out early next year. But a spokes woman said that it had pulled in 25,000 subscription orders in its first few days on newsstands.
While Black was in San Francisco, it did not mean that all was quiet at home. Country Living Editor-in-Chief Nancy Soriano was out of a job suddenly.
One source said that Nancy had been spotted in the Hearst Tower as recently as Monday. However, other sources said that Hearst had been quietly hunting for a replacement in recent weeks.
A company spokeswoman confirmed that Nancy was gone and said a replacement is expected to be named “in the next few days.”
Torn net
Tom Rogers, the former CEO of Primedia, was back on the scene, this time as a guest speaker looking at the industry as an outsider. He’s now the CEO of TiVo.
While many in the audience spouted about the digital revolution in publishing companies, Rogers said pointedly that he thinks magazines are slow to master the medium. “Many people think it is a solution for magazines, but I think it is still more of a challenge to the industry than a solution.”
American Express Publishing CEO Ed Kelly, in one of his panel discussions, said that non-magazine revenue – from things like affinity book clubs and mega-events tied to Food & Wine or Travel & Leisure – now account for about 40 percent of the company’s take.
The online revenue, while growing, still isn’t profitable for the company.
Many executives in the audience quietly agreed.
“The comparison is dimes to dollars,” said one executive, referring to the amount of money advertisers will pay to reach an audience online compared to what they will pay for the printed version.
The advertisers just won’t pony up big bucks for most of the online efforts.
Michela O’Connor Abrams, the president of Dwell, by all accounts did a sterling job attracting speakers in her role as conference chairperson.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) was budgeted to give only a 15-minute opening-night address, but ended up speaking for nearly an hour.
The speaker, who was attacked by Republicans for what they deemed a partisan speech just before the House voted against the first futile rescue bill, seemed to be taking great pains to keep her talk from getting too polit ical. “It sounds like she’s trying to filibuster,” said one audience member.
“Now you know why she is called ‘Speaker,’ ” quipped Jonah Bloom, the Ad Age editor-in- chief.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also took his turn at the podium on the final day of the conference yesterday.
One of the most well-received speakers of the conference was Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who was interviewed by BusinessWeek Editor-in- Chief Steve Adler.
Sandberg delighted the audience when she told them that she was a big fan of magazines. And in a veiled potshot at Alaska Gov. and GOP. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, she quipped, “And if you asked me, I could tell you which ones I read.”
Oddly enough, she never really told the crowd which ones she read.
On Tuesday, what was left of the crowd packed up into buses to visit Google’s sprawling campus- like headquar ters.
Meanwhile, at its board meeting, the Magazine Publishers of America moved to slash its $16 million budget by about 10 percent next year.
One CEO said that look ing ahead to 2009, “I honestly have no idea how to budget for next year.”
In the end, despite all the brave talk of branding and digital, that may have been the real takeaway.