Reworking The First Act

By John Elson

It is an axiom of publishing that the first months, even years, of a new magazine's life are the most traumatic. Vanity Fair, for example, went through millions of Conde Nast dollars before its third editor, Tina Brown, found a formula for success. Thus industry observers were not surprised when ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, less than 16 weeks after its premiere issue, overhauled a glitzy format that both readers and advertisers found confusing. Many more eyebrows, however, were raised last week when E.W.'s founding managing editor, % Jeff Jarvis, 35, abruptly resigned, citing "creative differences" with top editorial management of the parent Time Warner Inc.

Jarvis, who proposed E.W. while serving as a writer for PEOPLE, was succeeded by that magazine's executive editor, James W. Seymore Jr., 47. "Leaving the staff is the hardest part," said Jarvis, who has not decided on future plans. "ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY may have been my idea, but it's their magazine." E.W.'s stunned staff members anxiously sought out word of mouth about their new boss. In announcing Seymore's appointment, Time Warner editor- in-chief Jason McManus said, "Jim is an inventive, imaginative and skillful editor. By talent and temperament, coupled with his background and interest in the subject of entertainment, he is very well suited for his new assignment."

The magazine was the first new weekly to be produced by the company since the notorious failure of Time Inc.'s TV-CABLE WEEK in 1983 and the shutdown of PICTURE WEEK in 1986 after nine months of test marketing. To promote a creative, entrepreneurial atmosphere and contain costs, Jarvis and publisher Michael Klingensmith set up offices outside the Time & Life Building. Editor- in-chief McManus and his principal deputies -- editorial director Richard Stolley and corporate editor Gilbert Rogin -- paid close attention to the start-up but did not turn to hands-on editing of the magazine until a month ago.

"We felt we needed to make some changes quite quickly," said McManus. "The magazine was hard to read, not very user friendly, and cluttered. Readers and advertisers were complaining." Jarvis and E.W.'s design director, Michael Grossman, willingly carried out the format revisions. But a more subtle problem was Jarvis' choice of covers, like the one on the very first issue (Feb. 16), which featured the offbeat country singer K.D. Lang. Many media watchers felt that to succeed as a mass magazine, E.W. had to appeal to a broader audience, one perhaps more attracted by covers about Madonna and Dick Tracy.

Publisher Klingensmith says E.W. has already met its circulation target of 600,000 readers and that its average of 20 advertising pages an issue is "extraordinary" for a new magazine, especially one born in a soft economy. Two key tests of the magazine's viability, industry observers believe, will be renewal rates of short-term subscriptions and the response to new mailings of subscription offers.

Some media experts wonder whether Seymore has been instructed to turn E.W. into a PEOPLE clone, with a stronger celebrity orientation and reviews that lack the gleeful chomp Jarvis favored. Not so, says Seymore: "I want the magazine to have the snappiest and most interesting reviews anywhere. I don't want anything bland or formulaic." But he also believes the magazine has to be "broadened" to become "a newsmagazine of entertainment" with a strong service component. "The staff and I will invent ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, or reinvent it, as we go along," he says. "It's day one of a new magazine."

With reporting by Leslie Whitaker/New York