In its recently announced merger plans with Brant Publications’ three art magazines—Art in America, The Magazine Antiques and Modern Magazine—ARTnews, sold in April 2014 by its long-time editor and publisher, Milton Esterow, will likely be altered beyond recognition. Ceasing monthly publication, it would be reduced to an unspecified number of “theme issues,” along the lines of last month’s Women in the Art World compilation and its ever-popular yearly list of The Top 200 Collectors.
Brant Publications is wholly owned by mega-collector Peter Brant.
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
The troubling transformation of ARTnews is one takeaway from my in-depth conversation yesterday with Izabela Depczyk, the CEO of ARTNEWS S.A., an art-media business that now owns ARTnews magazine and is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Under the terms of the merger plan (pending approval of the shareholders), Peter Brant‘s BMP Media Holdings (wholly owned by Brant Publications) would end up with a controlling interest (more than 50% of shares) in ARTnews, the three above-mentioned Brant magazines and Art & Business, published in Poland by ARTNEWS S.A.
While ARTnews will likely be more limited than its former self in scope and annual page count, Art in America, Brant-owned since 1983, would continue its 11-issues-per-year publication schedule, retaining “the distinctive and trustworthy voice found in our printed pages for the past 103 years,” in the words of editor Lindsay Pollock‘s statement posted late yesterday on the magazine’s website.
Responding to my query about possible editorial changes, Depczyk stated:
The one thing that I can tell you for sure is that all of the titles will continue to be in print past January 2016 in their current form, more or less. But “more or less” is a very important part of that statement.
While Depczyk maintained that there would be no cuts “in the foreseeable future” in the editorial staffs of ARTnews or Art in America, it remains to be seen whether the former’s editors and writers, largely brought over from the Observer by editor Sarah Douglas, will be content to relinquish the timeliness and newsworthiness that had been inherent in the monthly publication schedule, when wide-ranging content was based on recent developments, not predetermined themes.
When I asked Depczyk whether Sarah (who arrived at ARTnews a year ago) and Lindsay (who assumed her post in January 2011) intend to stay on in their positions, Depczyk hedged:
That’s probably not something I would comment on, on behalf of Sarah or the other editorial team. But on behalf of ARTnews, I think everybody on the team is extremely excited about this.
Sarah Douglas’ statement on the merger, published late yesterday on ARTnews‘ website, is here.
Surprisingly, Depczyk indicated that she is not much interested in growing the print magazines’ audited circulations, which she pegged at 64,000 for ARTnews and “a little over 45,000” for Art in America:
Our goal isn’t necessarily to become a mass-market product. That’s not what our subscribers, readers or advertisers want. Our advertisers pay us top dollars for the kind of audience they can reach through the magazine. We don’t want to dilute this audience….We’re not after reaching huge numbers on our circulation….
The website is somewhere that we still see a potential in growing our audience….We will most likely keep our contents free online and sell advertising. Our goal or next year is to surpass two million unique visitors across our digital platforms. In that way, we’re going to secure for ourselves a leader position in terms of digital news coverage within the arts-and-culture segment.
It’s an online world; print publications only subsist in it.
As someone who worked, long ago, at both publications—ARTnews under Esterow and, before that, Art in America under my most valued mentor, Elizabeth Baker—I wish them a long, robust future. But I believe in the bracing effect of competition to keep journalists and critics nimble, edgy and enterprising.
Consolidation can breed complacency.