The Classic Rock Magazine Is Switching to a Smaller, Rack-Friendly Size - NYTimes.com: "Some packages like the curvaceous old Coke bottle become so iconic that they are recognizable at 30 paces. So it is with Rolling Stone, whose large format has stood out on magazine racks for more than three decades. It won’t for much longer, however. With the Oct. 30 issue, which will go on sale Oct. 17, Rolling Stone, published by Wenner Media, will adopt the standard size used by all but a few magazines.
In an interview in his office, Jann Wenner, founder, publisher, editor and general guiding force behind the nation’s biggest music magazine, was characteristically brash about the change. Leaning back in his chair, one leg slung over the side of it, he said, “All you’re getting from that large size is nostalgia.”
But as he knows well, nostalgia is a powerful marketing force, as is a package that instantly evokes not only the product, but an era. It is tempting to apply that logic to a 41-year-old magazine that seems to put as many pensioners as teenagers on its cover, but Rolling Stone’s readership, bigger than it has ever been, has a surprisingly young median age, in the early 30s, according to market research firms."
5 comments:
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I stopped reading Rolling Stone around when I was 17 and that was in the 87. It felt like then it was just only the 60's were cool mentality which from what I gather still continues.
Does anyone remember the early Rolling Stone? The cover was magazine size and the paper itself was twice as large and folded in half. I might still have a few copies in my basement.
I had most of them, but they were lost in a fire years ago.
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