Time marches on. Time Inc. tops a new list of the leading magazine media companies while eight of the publishing house's magazines rank among the top 30 magazines. Time Inc. has estimated
magazine-related revenues of almost $3.8 billion according to the listing, developed by Folio. The company's magazines include People, Time and Sports Illustrated (Nos. 2, 3 and 4, respectively). Conde
Nast Publications and Hearst Corp. are distantly second and third on the company list, both generating more than $1.4 billion, while Meredith Corp. (No. 4) and Hachette Filipacchi Magazines (No. 5) also
break the billion-dollar mark. The remainder of the list, in order, includes Ziff Davis Media, Gruner+Jahr USA, Primedia, Cahners Business Information and CMP Media Inc. But none of them own the top-
rated magazine, TV Guide, which belongs to Gemstone. This is the ninth year in a row the television magazine has held the top spot. Meredith's Better Homes and Gardens is No. 5. Rounding out the top 10
magazines, in order: Reader's Digest, Newsweek, Business Week, Parade and Family Circle.
(Roberta Thomas, Folio, 203/358-4183)
Business Week joint venture. Business Week is launching a co-branded magazine and Web channel with Leaders Online, the Internet subsidiary of the recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles
International. The new magazine will run twice in 2000 and bimonthly in 2001. Business Week will provide all the content for a weekly electronic newsletter. The magazine, with a working title of Leaders
Online, will be distributed as a free, standalone publication to a qualified group of 250,000 readers in the 25-to-50 age group, and of that 100,000 are to be Business Week subscribers. Leaders Online and
BW also have established links to each other's sites for career advice and employment listings.
(Andrew Palladino, BW, 212/512-2680; Ethan Winners, LO, 949/752-1000).
G+J didn't like the news. On the heels of the industry and magazine rankings, new Gruner+Jahr CEO Daniel Brewster has fired the editors of YM and Fitness. According to Steven Cohn, editor-in-
chief of min (sister pub to PRN), Brewster wants to put his mark on the organization early and has named Emily Listfield, formerly of McCall's, editor of Fitness, and Anne Marie Iverson, from Harper's
Bazaar, editor of YM. (Cohn, 212/983-5170)
ESPN redefines Classic. ESPN is relaunching ESPN Classic, with a new logo, an on-air promo campaign, and a new schedule that will be much less dependent on rebroadcasts of old sports events.
The channel plans more diversified, original programming. It is expanding ESPN's successful "Sports Century: 50 Greatest Athletes" to other famous athletes, and a new scheduling strategy assigns a
particular sport to a given night of the week (such as Monday Night Baseball, Tuesday Night Fights and so on). The channel reaches about 28 million homes, but plans are to increase that to 30 million by
the end of this year, and 40 million by the end of 2001. (Vince Doria, Executive Producer, 860/585-2000)
At the helm. Sister publication min magazine has named Curt Schleier editor. Contact him at 212/983-5170 or email him at [email protected].