O, The Oprah Magazine Gets a New Digital Home: OprahMag.com
October 09 2018 - 7:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg
More than 18 years after O, The Oprah Magazine hit the
newsstands, the publication finally has its own digital home.
The title previously existed online as a section on Oprah.com,
which serves as a hub for all things Oprah, including Oprah's Book
Club and OWN, the cable network majority-owned by Discovery Inc.
(Oprah.com is part of OWN.) The new website, OprahMag.com, is
expected to go live at 10 a.m.
At a time when newsstand and print-advertising sales continue to
be challenged, the launch represents a new major revenue
opportunity. The Swedish furniture chain IKEA is the exclusive site
sponsor for the first two weeks.
The magazine, which debuted with the May/June 2000 issue, is a
joint venture between Hearst and Oprah Winfrey's company Harpo Inc.
For the six-month period ended June 30, it had an average monthly
circulation of nearly 2.4 million, making it one of the leading
women's titles in the country.
The website gives Hearst an opportunity to package Oprah both
digitally and in print with many of its other properties. "Our
largest advertisers can now buy across the entire spectrum with
us," said Jayne Jamison, the magazine's publisher and chief revenue
officer.
"We felt we were missing an opportunity by not connecting
daily," said Kate Lewis, chief content officer for Hearst
Magazines. A spokeswoman for Harpo said that the timing "felt
right" for the new website. "The magazine's creative team is in New
York and it made sense for them to build out their digital property
there." The website will be headed by Arianna Davis, digital
director.
Oprah.com's audience fell to 1.9 million multiplatform unique
visitors in August 2018, down from nearly 3.6 million in August
2016, according to media measurement firm comScore Inc.
"The context around the comScore numbers is that the focus is no
longer on driving traffic to editorial content, but rather video
and network content via our social and newsletter platforms to the
mobile app and other platforms where OWN content is available,"
said a Harpo spokeswoman.
Hearst has three other titles that don't have websites: Food
Network Magazine, HGTV Magazine and The Pioneer Woman, a quarterly.
A spokeswoman for Discovery said that when the joint ventures were
created, digital operations remained with the original brands to
avoid consumer confusion.
The new site will focus primarily on service stories, including
content from the print magazine; coverage of some live events, such
as awards shows; a smattering of topical news and videos. It will
also have access to Hearst's digital newsroom, as well as content
created by Hearst's other brands, including Elle, Cosmopolitan and
Woman's Day.
Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at
jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 09, 2018 07:14 ET (11:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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