New Territory for the Oprah Winfrey Empire
Remember all the talk about Talk? When Tina Brown’s magazine was unveiled last summer, it was anticlimactic. The hype was so cacophonous that it became information overload. And then many readers tuned out.
So now, on the eve of one of the biggest magazine launches in memory, there’s hardly a peep. O, the Oprah magazine, hits newsstands Wednesday, and the publicity has been low-key. That, says O’s publisher, Alyce Alston, was a calculated move.
Brown’s launch party for Talk on New York’s Liberty Island was a glitzy, star-studded spectacle. The launch party for O today will also take place in New York, but in a loft in Chelsea.
The idea is to have a “small wedding and a big anniversary,” says Alston. “Everything we did was looking at the long term. We really want to have a strong year. . . . The real strength of the magazine is the measurement of its success in a year, or two years or five years. Over-hype doesn’t do anyone any good. It doesn’t demonstrate anything.”
In the case of Talk, reporters speculated for months about who would be on the premiere cover. With O, it’s pretty much a given that it will be Oprah Winfrey.
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Although the public-relations machine at O has been forthcoming about brass-tacks details, the content tends to be spoken of in veiled, almost mystical terms.
“I call it a 360-degree look at your life, inside and outside, with the foundation being that of inspiration and empowerment with integrity,” Alston says.
The magazine, a joint venture of Hearst Magazines and Winfrey’s Harpo Entertainment Group, will be bimonthly until September. More than 1 million copies, at $2.95 each, will be available on 50,000 magazine racks.
The initial issue has 166 ad pages, and the second will have 125; both are already sold out. And almost all of the advertisers, according to Hearst Magazines, have made commitments to run additional ads for the rest of the year.
But as far as what the editorial pages will contain, Oprah and her staff are keeping mum until the launch party.
Alston says O, which is aimed at women 25 to 49, will actually be a niche publication, dealing with demographics and what she calls “psychographics.”
“It’s about making a difference in your life. It’s about the passion of your inner life, and when you think about it being the sole purpose [of O] . . . that’s very succinct,” she said.
“I think there are a lot of magazines that cover it, but no magazine that has this as its fundamental principle,” Alston said. “And that’s really the unique difference.”
Contributing editors will include Bob Greene (coauthor with Winfrey of “Make the Connection”), who helped the talk-show host shape up a few years ago in one of her fitness crusades; Suze Orman, financial planner and author of “The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom” and “The Courage to Be Rich”; Dr. Phillip McGraw, a psychologist and frequent guest on Oprah’s show; and Gary Zukav (“The Dancing Wu Li Masters”), whose column will cover spiritual and personal growth. Oprah too will be writing several pieces.
So that means no makeup or wardrobe tips, right?
“We will have fashion and beauty,” Alston said. “It’s about your inner-outer life. Think about how much fashion and beauty make you feel confident.”
A news release notes that the first issue’s ads “represent a wide range of categories: beauty, fashion, automotive, technology, financial services and books,” from Maybelline to Microsoft.
It’s an odd strategy, trumpeting the advertisers rather than the stories. But presumably, O won’t have much of a problem attracting readers, for its first issue at least. With Winfrey’s daytime television show, which is syndicated to 206 U.S. markets and 119 countries, O has a built-in audience--not to mention the recently launched Oxygen cable network that Winfrey helped back.
Today, new media enterprises are all about “branding” and building on existing enterprises. Indeed, as Alston says in a news release, “Hearst’s focus groups and telephone interview research results have shown that Oprah is one of the most trusted brand names, with extraordinary consumer reach that cuts across race and class, viewers and non-viewers.”
For evidence of this “brand” theory, you need only glance across the magazine rack to the Martha Stewart entries. Besides her tremendously successful Martha Stewart Living magazine, there is now Martha Stewart Baby, Martha Stewart Weddings and Martha Stewart Entertaining, along with her syndicated TV show, merchandise catalog and product endorsements.
“It’s the extension of the brand,” says Samir Husni, a magazine expert and professor of journalism at the University of Mississippi. Even magazines like Good Housekeeping are doing it, with spinoff magazines featuring recipes and the like. For Winfrey, a magazine is a logical extension.
O, he says, completes Winfrey’s media empire. “There was one link in the chain that was missing, and that was a magazine. It sort of closes the circle on everything.”