Ad Age spoke to Hearst Magazines Editorial Director Ellen Levine about the publisher’s new partnership with Fox Television Studios. The development deal includes two initial webisode projects inspired by CosmoGirl and Popular Mechanics.
“We’re not going out there and saying, ‘We’re going to have a one-hour magazine show,'” Ms. Levine said. “We’re going to create material for new platforms, not take previously existing material and dust it off for television.”
Ms. Levine said Hearst Magazines’ revenue is healthy but needs to adjust to how consumers want their media.
“If you don’t follow your audience, you’ll perish,” she said. “A lot of these give you the opportunity to bring something to life that you can’t on the page and give the product a credibility that you wouldn’t otherwise have.”
Even though a ton of progress is being made on the Web 2.0 front and brands are working hard to figure out where they can play in this milieu, very few brands have accepted that a pull strategy may not work. Ellen Levine understands that, which will help her and Hearst succeed.
