What Me Worry? Magazine Startups Venture into Uncertain Economy

With talk of a recession and a generally dismal outlook for print media, is it a good time to launch a magazine? Apparently so. At least three major U.S. publishers are working on titles set to debut in 2008 or 2009: the Wall Street Journal, Mansueto Ventures LLC, publisher of Inc. and Fast Company, and IDG, the tech trade heavyweight. In a novel twist, a fourth company, the Rocky Mountain region daily news Website NewWest.Net has announced plans for a print spin off.

According to published reports like this one, the Wall Street Journal’s new luxury glossy – the working title is Pursuits – has already lined up advertisers and a tentative 2009 launch date. Mansueto Ventures originally set a May 2008 launch date for Upstart, a quarterly for startups,though according to this Mediaweek report, the date is now “undetermined.”

If the economy’s still OK, I predict they’ll get the advertising base they need to greenlight their respective ventures. But if we’re in a recession, don’t be surprised if these companies hold off a while longer, or scrap plans altogether.

More details:

• The Wall Street Journal’s new venture will be a high-end glossy quarterly for the super rich. The editor is Tina Gaudoin, a lifestyle editor and columnist for the Times of London who became editor of that paper’s high-end glossy, Luxx, last June. Gaudoin came under fire this week after a Columbia Journalism Review story questioned her journalistic ethics for quoting a business partner in a Times column and failing to disclose the relationship.
• In addition to UpStart, Mansueto is starting FastCompany.tv, an online TV network covering the tech scene with interviews, reviews and news on “the latest technology products, and lifestyle programming.”
• IDG, publisher of PC World, Computerworld, CIO and other tech titles, is preparing to relaunch The Industry Standard, the former Internet trade that died along with the rest of the dot-com business back in 2001. IDG was a majority stakeholder of The Standard and acquired the magazine’s remaining assets after it went bankrupt. Now IDG plans to relaunch The Standard as an online-only publication and is searching for an editor in chief. The company’s posted the position on an IDG careers page that’s accessible only to people who register at the site.
• Meanwhile, The Industry Standard’s former editor in chief Jonathan Weber is busy with his own plans to spin off a print magazine from NewWest.net, the regional daily news site he started after leaving Silicon Valley for Missoula, Montana. Weber weighed in on the print v. online media debate earlier this month in this guest editorial in the Times of London’s TimesOnline.com.