U.S. Papers Give Gannett Magazine Cool Reception

The advertisement in publishing-trade journals looked familiar.

“Announcing the new weekend magazine that already has a circulation of 13 million!” it said in blue and white.

The mock-up front cover showed bold colors and a globe spinning out of the name of the Sunday magazine. It was called “USA Weekend,” and it looked a lot like a new section of USA Today.

Instead, it was the “new” Family Weekly magazine, a drastic revamping of the folksy Sunday supplement purchased last March by Gannett Co. for a reported $42 million.

The resemblance to USA Today was too unnerving for a number of the publications that carry Family Weekly, which feel they are in competition with Gannett’s flagship nationwide newspaper. They decided they’d rather not run what appeared to them to be a free promotion for the other guy.

“What you might be telling a subscriber who read this magazine is, ‘Hey, maybe you should try USA Today. You might like it better than us,’ ” said Wylie W. Spurgeon, executive editor of the Muncie (Ind.) Star and Evening Press.

Many Papers Switched

So Muncie, which has two Gannett newspapers nearby and USA Today available in most of the local drugstores, decided to bolt to Parade, along with 128 other newspapers. By contrast, 11 Parade clients to date have changed to the new Family Weekly, all of them owned by Gannett.

Charles Overby, Gannett vice president-communications, said recently that the loss would be offset by a gain of about 40 papers, including the 11 owned by Gannett.

As a result, USA Weekend hopes to maintain a circulation of about 12 million, he said. That compares to Parade’s circulation of 29.8 million readers as of its Sept. 22 issue, a climb of more than 4.5 million since March.

“There’s a realignment going on. We expect to be delivering the same circulation as before except of a higher quality,” Ramon Gaulke, president of USA Weekend, told Advertising Age. “Nobody here was surprised by the fact that a number of smaller newspapers were frightened by the product.”

But was the format change a big mistake?

“Not at all,” said Overby. “We think it delivers in shorthand terms to the reader what we’re trying to do to the magazine. Short stories, upbeat. Once the readers get their hands on this, it’s really going to be a success. The advertisers already understand this.”

Larry Tarleton, managing editor for news at the Dallas Times Herald, said that his paper picked up the new USA Weekend “as part of our new, expanded Sunday package.” The Herald dropped Parade a few years ago, and the Dallas Morning News then picked it up.

Concerned About Format

“Obviously, Parade was not available, and we never thought that much of the Family Weekly product until Gannett bought it. I know a lot of editors are concerned about (the format), but USA Today is not that strong in Dallas, so it wasn’t that much of a problem for us,” Tarleton said.

Although a few papers still may switch, the main realignment period may well be over, as USA Weekend plans to come out with its first edition in early September.

“I don’t think there’s a battle between USA and Parade. A lot of people think there’s some huge conflict. We’re really a kind of beneficiary,” said Carlo Vittorini, president and publisher of Parade Publications.