L.A. Reader Hopes to Draw More Ads as a Magazine : Publishing: The move against rival LA Weekly comes as the Southern California advertising market is stirring.

The Los Angeles Reader is going undercover.

Beginning with today’s issue, a glossy color cover is being added to the alternative weekly newspaper, which will now call itself a magazine. The rest of the publication will continue to be printed on newsprint.

The move is an attempt by the 16-year-old Reader to attract advertisers--including nationwide accounts--by separating itself from its successful rival, LA Weekly, a tabloid so fat with advertising that it is usually more than twice as thick as the Reader.

Industry consultants say many advertisers are attracted to magazines because readers often keep them a week or more longer than they do newspapers. The format change comes at a time when a growing number of Southern California advertisers are starting to increase ad spending as the local economy heats up.

“This is a bid for respect,” said James Vowell, editor and publisher of the Reader. “It is a competitive tactic against LA Weekly, and it gives advertisers a little extra bang for their buck in an economy coming out of a recession.”

Executives at LA Weekly voiced little concern--and some skepticism--about the Reader’s format change. “Just being a magazine won’t do it,” said Michael Sigman, publisher of LA Weekly. “It all depends on how good the magazine is.”

LA Weekly, also 16 years old, has no intention of changing its format, Sigman said. “We are a newspaper and will remain one,” he said.

The Reader--which, like LA Weekly, is distributed free--will raise ad rates about 5% along with the format change, Vowell said. The Reader’s circulation will remain about 90,000, about half of LA Weekly’s. While LA Weekly generally focuses on hard news and social issues, the Reader is more an offbeat guide to entertainment.

“Instead of being the No. 2 alternative newspaper in the market, they’ll now be able to call themselves the No. 1 alternative magazine,” said Cary Zel, an industry consultant at Miami-based Robert Cohen Associates.

Analysts noted that several other alternative publications have tried to impress advertisers and readers by converting to magazine format. Rolling Stone, for example, was originally printed as a newspaper.

The gay-and-lesbian-oriented Advocate was published as a tabloid for years before it was converted to a magazine format in 1985. The Advocate’s new look did indeed help attract new advertisers, said Sam Watters, publisher of the Los Angeles-based magazine.

“But in the end,” he said, “it’s the editorial content that does it, no matter how you gloss it up.”

The fine line separating a magazine from a newspaper keeps getting thinner, said Anne Russell, editor of the New York-based trade magazine Folio. “We debate that question every day around here.”

A number of publications, from Learning Annex class guides to an array of monthly real estate guides, look like magazines because they have glossy covers, Russell said. But she considers only publications that have detailed reader databases--and are distributed by mail--to be true magazines.

Vowell, whose Burnside Group purchased the then-financially strapped Reader in 1989, said his redesigned publication is now a magazine not just because of its new cover, but also because of its magazine-like content.

“We put out a very good newspaper for 16 years, and now we’ll put out a very good magazine,” Vowell said. “If we put it in the right package, maybe people will appreciate it more.”