People (magazine)

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This is about the U.S. magazine; People is also the name of an unrelated U.K. magazine.

People is a weekly American magazine of celebrity and human interest stories, published by Time Inc.. As of 2006, it has a circulation of 3.73 million and revenue expected to top $1.5 billion.[People who need people], a July 2006 article from Variety magazine It was named "Magazine of the Year" by Advertising Age in October 2005, for excellence in editorial, circulation and advertising.[Martha Nelson Named Editor, The People Group], a January 2006 Time Warner press release

The magazine runs a roughly 50/50The ratio, according to Variety, is 53% to 47% mix of celebrity and human interest stories, a ratio it has maintained, according to its editors, since 2001. People's editors claim to refrain from printing pure celebrity gossip, enough so to lead celebrity publicists to propose exclusives to the magazine, evidence of what one staffer calls it a "publicist-friendly strategy."

People has a website, http://people.aol.com/people/, which focuses exclusively on celebrity news.

People is perhaps best known for its yearly special issues naming "The 50 Most Beautiful People", "The Best and Worst Dressed", and "The Sexiest Man Alive".

The magazine maintains editorial bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Austin (Texas), and Miami (Florida).

History

People was cofounded by Dick Durrell[Founder of People Magazine] from a University of Minnesota website as a spin-off of the "People" page in Time magazine. It's first managing editor, Richard Stolley, characterized the magazine as:

"getting back to the people who are causing the news and who are caught up in it, or deserve to be in it. Our focus is on people, not issues."[People's Premiere], a March 1974 story from Time magazine

It debuted in 1974, with a March 4th issue featuring actress Mia Farrow, then starring in the movie The Great Gatsby, on the cover. That issue also featured stories on Gloria Vanderbilt, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the wives of U.S. Vietnam veterans who are Missing In Action.

In 1996 Time, Inc. launched a Spanish-language edition entitled People en Español.

In 1997 the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People.

In Australia, the localised version of People is titled Who because of a pre-existing lad's mag published under the title People.

Competition for celebrity photos

In a July 2006 Variety article, Janice Min, Us Weekly editor-in-chief, blamed People for the increase in cost to publishers of celebrity photos:

"They are among the biggest spenders of celebrity photos in the industry....One of the first things they ever did, that led to the jacking up of photo prices, was to pay $75,000 to buy pictures of Jennifer Lopez reading Us magazine, so Us Weekly couldn't buy them.

"That was the watershed moment that kicked off high photo prices in my mind. I had never seen anything like it. But they saw a competitor come along, and responded. It was a business move, and probably a smart one."

People reportedly paid $4.1 million for newborn photos of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, the child of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. The photos set a single-day traffic record for their website, attracting 26.5 million page views.

References

Time Warner Inc.

Annual Revenue: .1 billion USD ( 11% FY 2004) | Employees: 84,900 | Stock Symbol: NYSE: [TWX] | Website: [www.timewarner.com]

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