Member News

CRMA’s 27^th Annual Conference, chaired by Publisher John Palumbo (john_palumbo@rimonthly.com) of Rhode Island Monthly, will be held May 3-5, 2003 in Philadelphia, PA. If you have suggestions for topics/speakers or want to volunteer to be on a panel, contact the planning committee: Management, John Balardo (jbalardo@hourdetroit.com), HOUR Detroit; Advertising, Joe Chiodo (jchiodo@sacmag.com), Sacramento; Editorial, Paula Bodah (paula_bodah@rimonthly.com), Rhode Island Monthly and John Heckathorn (johnh@pacificbasin.net), Honolulu; Circulation, Lori Birney (lbirney@phillymag.com), Philadephia; Marketing, Jennifer Acocella (acocella@phillymag.com), Philadelphia, and Art, Ingrid Lynch (ilynch@mainlinetoday.com), Main Line Today (Production chair TBA). The conference will be held at Hyatt Regency Penn’s Landing (www.hyatt.com), 201 S. Christopher Columbus Blvd. Call 215/928-1234 by April 4, 2003 for a room at $169/night (single/double).

In September, Editor John Fennell of Milwaukee (www.milwaukeemagazine.com) wrote a warm tribute to Harry V. Quadracci, who bought the magazine along with wife Betty in the early 1980s. The founder of Quad/Graphics died tragically in an accidental drowning incident. More details are posted at: www.citymag.org/newsletter/august02/page4.html.

The theme of CRMA’s next Promotional Exchange Program (PEP) is special section promotions (either free-standing or house ads). Please mail 40 copies of a special section promo to CRMA headquarters (CRMA, Attn: PEP, 4929 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 428, Los Angeles, CA 90010) by Sept. 30, 2002. If you don’t have that type of material, please mail 40 copies of something else to be in the exchange. Questions? Write to Executive Director Jim Dowden: jdowden@prodigy.net.

Total magazine advertising revenue for July increased 8.6% from last year, closing at $1.1 billion, according to Publishers Information Bureau (www.magazine.org/pib). Ad pages for July were 15,125, up 0.5% from last year. Year-to-date, advertising revenue closed at $8.8 billion, a decrease of 0.3%, and ad pages were 120,607, down 8.6% from last year.

Magazine readership is up, in fact, a 5.3% increase since 1998 (see related article in this issue). The fastest-growing groups are women and people over 35 -- that’s the good news from Palm Springs Life Publisher Milt Jones, who discovered the article in Media Life magazine with this recent study. This piece, which examines a study of 171 common titles by Mediamark Research, Inc. (www.mediamark.com), is posted online: www.medialifemagazine.com/news2002/aug02/aug26/3_wed/news1wednesday.html

Palm Springs Life (www.palmspringslife.com) just came out with its huge Annual Desert Living issue, and in October, will insert At Home’s Annual Design Issue.

Kelly Carter, creative director for Delaware Today, ironically celebrates her birthday on 9-11. To mark the disaster’s one-year anniversary, the magazine (www.delawaretoday.com) had her write the “Final Word” column about her experiences last year and feelings on this coincidence. Several members wrote about the attack, either in features and editor columns.

In September, St. Louis (www.stlmag.com) printed its annual Editors’ Choice Awards issue (formerly known as Top of the Town)