Slated to hit the racks next March with a hefty press run of 850,000 copies, the new magazine will target women in their 30s, offering an Oprah-patented stew of features on family, relationships, spirituality, work, health, beauty and books. “There may be one celebrity profile,” says Good Housekeeping editor in chief Ellen Levine, who is overseeing the magazine’s development until a permanent editor is named. “But it’s certainly not going to be driven by celebrities.” Unless, of course, you count Oprah. She’s already posed for the cover of the first issue–and may well pop up on several more of the four to six editions planned for next year. The magazine is also set to give readers a peek inside one of Winfrey’s homes. Levine hopes to enlist the likes of Peggy Noonan to write, while Oprah herself is poring over proposed story lists and providing input on design. “She will be very involved in what goes into the magazine in the beginning,” says Levine. The ultimate aim, Levine says, is a magazine that mirrors Winfrey’s traditional message of self-affirmation for women. “If Martha Stewart’s magazine is about beautiful exteriors, this is going to be about beautiful interiors,” she says. “It’s about women as winners. Empowered, encouraged, enriched–all those ’e-n’ words.”
On the business side, the buzzwords tend more toward “branding” and “synergy.” By enlisting Winfrey, whose name will figure prominently in the magazine’s title, Hearst has, in essence, licensed an established, powerful brand. “She is an icon,” says Hearst Magazines president Cathleen Black. She’s also one of the most influential voices in pop culture. Each day, 33 million people watch her television show. Oprah’s ability to ignite book sales is already legendary in the publishing industry, with her on-air “book club” creating instant best sellers out of titles like Janet Fitch’s “White Oleander,” which had a pre-Oprah press run of 20,000. Since Oprah added it to her list of must-reads, sales have hit 900,000. She’ll start plugging the new magazine this week, and cosmetics giant Estee Lauder has already signed on to advertise in all of next year’s issues. “It remains to be seen whether she’s really the pied piper and people will flock to everything she does,” says Steven Cohn, editor of the Media Industry Newsletter. “But there’s going to be synergy galore. It’s a very smart venture by Hearst.”
The magazine represents just the latest outpost in Oprah’s ever-expanding media empire. Besides her TV and film production company, the HARPO Entertainment Group, she also is a partner in Oxygen Media, a nascent Internet/cable venture aimed at women. Winfrey’s already-thriving Oprah.com site, which attracts some 6 million page views per month, joins Oxygen’s stable of Web properties in August, and Oxygen’s cable channel will go on the air in February–featuring HARPO-produced programming. Once everything’s up and running, Oprah’s show will push the magazine, which will push the Web site, which will push the cable channel, creating an integrated media universe in which all roads lead to Oprah. As for the magazine, maybe they should just call it Winfrey Publicity.
