Newsweek
They changed their mission.
I was a loyal “Time” subscriber. I remember the “Is God Dead” issue sitting on my mother’s coffee table. And like a loyal son, when I went to college I stuck with “Time”…and subscribed for years thereafter, until I discovered “Newsweek” at my doctor’s office. Visit after visit I’d read snippets until I realized the “Washington Post” magazine was better. Not only did I subscribe to “Newsweek” for decades, I bought other people subscriptions on a regular basis. I thought the magazine was just that good.
And then they changed format.
I’m not saying the magazine got bigger or smaller, I’m not talking dimensions, I’m talking content. “Newsweek” befit its moniker. It was a review of everything that happened the previous week. So, if you were too busy to pay attention to some skirmish overseas, if you wanted to know the essence of a story and not every detail, “Newsweek” was a godsend. Everything you needed to know about a subject on a couple of pages. I could argue strongly you didn’t even need to get the newspaper, only “Newsweek.” And then, frightened by the burgeoning Internet, “Newsweek” remodeled, turned itself into a compendium of opinion, believing that news was at everybody’s fingertips, instantly, online. “Newsweek”‘s asset was curation, and they threw that out the window.
And the reason I mention this, because I know most of my audience just doesn’t care, is the exact same rule applies with bands. Don’t do a 180, don’t change your sound, be loyal to your fanbase.
When the Beach Boys went disco, I knew they were done. How desperate can you be? And they were… There was another album, but even fans didn’t buy it, the band had subjugated our loyalty to potential, a ton of people who ultimately did not care. Oh, the band got a ton of press for this move…because the press is dumb, but the people who really cared? They were turned off. Hell, listen to “Here Comes The Night” off 1979’s “L.A. (Light Album)”…you’ll laugh hysterically.
Now the Stones got away with their one big disco hit, “Miss You,” then again, they had blues roots and the track was great. As for Rod Stewart, he had a monster with “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” but it turned him into what he is today, a laughable sot who was once credible whose hard core fans refuse to even admit they once liked him. Then again, one can argue that by following trends Stewart maintained a career… You can do this if you’re artistically bankrupt, if all you’re interested in is money. If you’re lucky. I mean who listens to those “Songbook” albums today… DRECK!
Just because electronic music is flourishing, that does not mean you should jump on the bandwagon. You can like it, listen to it at home, that does not mean it has to become part of your act. As for the Top Forty trendmongers, have you noticed none of them have a career, that they’re hit dependent, that without airplay their ticket sales crash? And ticket sales are where the money is today.
In other words, “Newsweek” threw out all its good will overnight. I let my thirty year old subscription lapse. And when I was not satiated by “The Week,” which is too fact-based without enough good writing, I resubscribed to the new, Tina Brown “Newsweek.”
Horrible.
Hell, Tina invented “Vanity Fair” but Graydon Carter does a better job with the formula. As for “The New Yorker”…she demonstrated that change was necessary, but David Remnick is presiding over a “New Yorker” that’s better than it’s been in decades. As for “Talk”…nobody read it.
You see Tina Brown is an overhyped superstar.
Kind of like Barry Diller.
Barry did the impossible, he created a fourth TV network, but since that time he’s gotten reams of press for cobbling together a ragtag bunch of companies which he’s raped to get rich. If you think Barry knows the digital score, you probably expect Wayne Fontana to top today’s hit parade. But once again, the press is dumb. They print the legend, they don’t care about the story.
But Tina Brown and Barry Diller are chasing dreams.
“The New York Review Of Books” isn’t doing so. Annual rates are sky high, nearly a hundred bucks, and subscribers stick with the magazine, because they want what it provides, endless commentary from a left wing perspective. It doesn’t matter to the “The New York Review Of Books” that most people don’t care. But those who do do!
Create a loyal fan base. Be true to yourself and them.
Most magazines may be digital in the future, but “Newsweek”‘s print demise is entirely self-inflicted, the magazine would have had a run of years in print if they didn’t mess with the formula.
In other words, if you’re an ancient act and your audience wants CDs, that’s what you give them. Know your customer.
Then again, if you’re playing to a trendy or younger base, you do something different.
Everybody wants to be the story, everybody wants to be in the news. But did you ever notice when “Forbes” prints its annual list of the richest Americans you’ve never heard of most of them?
That’s right, they don’t equate wealth with publicity.
And you shouldn’t either.
