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Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008
The company that owns the National Enquirer doesn't want the world. Just the Globe, the Sun and the National Examiner.
Nov 23, 1999 | It took a while to sink in, but the implications of the Great Tabloid Consolidation are now becoming clear. American Media, which owns the National Enquirer, the Star and the Weekly World News, announced earlier this month that it was buying the Globe and its sister tabloids, the Sun and the National Examiner. Gossip as perpetuated in the supermarket tabloids -- which you could argue is a rather pure form of gossip, unfettered by musty old standards of decorum or taste -- will now be controlled by one media empire.
This would be cause for outrage or at least monopoly-conspiracy theories in almost any other spectrum of the media. But because of the sleaze factor and the guilty pleasure anyone with more than a high school education feels in reading the tabs, media watchers have been to slow to react. And when they have, it has been with characteristic condescension.
"Aliens Take Over the Tabloids!" Time magazine trumpeted in a parody of tabloid style. "Exclusive! New Exec Grabs No. 3; Jonbenet In Danger!" it concluded. The new exec is David Pecker, head of American Media and the former CEO of Hachette-Filipacchi, and the "No. 3" refers to the Globe (which follows the Enquirer and the Star in sales). Time talks to the executive about his plans for his family of sensationalistic siblings ("If there's a Hollywood scandal, the investigative portion will be done by the National Enquirer," says Pecker. "The impact on celebrities, on their careers, that will be done by the Star") and noted that the genre itself is in trouble. Before the Globe acquisition, American Media titles sold a combined 4.4 million, which is flat from last year and down 35 percent from four years ago. The company has been trying to diversify, adding a National Enquirer TV show and Web site to its mix.
Part of Pecker's mission has been to clean up the tabloids. He hired Roger Black to redesign the Enquirer and the Star, and though the difference between the before and after versions is rather subtle, the assignment itself is significant. Black is a ubiquitous figure in mainstream media (I did a book with him myself) and probably best known for his groundbreaking magazine face lifts. Rolling Stone, Newsweek, New York and Esquire all got the benefit of Black's designing talents. And it's safe to say that if any of these magazines had legs, they would probably run screaming from the room if you sat them beside the National Enquirer at a dinner party.
But Pecker sees a brighter day dawning for the Enquirer, if not its ilk. He has spoken of going after People's audience -- and here Time Inc. just thought it had Jann Wenner's Us, which goes weekly in March, to worry about. And though the People people probably aren't losing a lot of sleep over the prospect of a new, more mainstream National Enquirer, it's worth noting that the tabloids are definitely on the radar of many slick publication editors. I have attended editorial meetings at People, In Style, Entertainment Weekly and even Vogue at which copies of the Enquirer and the Star were referenced, if not actually brandished. The general feeling has been that there's usually something to the stories they report. And after the Enquirer proudly announced a few weeks ago that no celebrities were currently suing them, their reference value can only rise.
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