The line continues to blur between business and lifestyle pubs.
The latest copy of KCB -- short for Kansas City Business -- just landed on my desk. The glossy mag covers CEOs, workplace issues and economic development in a narrative or issues format. It debuted in July, and the February issue is devoted to "Green" issues in the region -- including how area ag companies are racing to harvest more corn for the ethanol boom.
We're hearing that KCB's parent company, Anthem Publishing, has more such publications in the works. Stay tuned for which cities and where!
Of course, blending lifestyle and business isn't exactly new. What's new is how far it extends into smaller cities. South Florida has a few notablel life/style business titles.
The 800-pound gorilla of business journalism, the Wall Street Journal, continues to move in this direction. The addition of color in 2002, accelerated the move. Personal Journal is now the best-read section with columns on wine, fashion and travel, as well as movie reviews. The lifestyle emphasis really takes over in the Saturday edition, which debuted in 2005.
What's driving this? The standard business advertiser, publicly traded companies, banks and financial instutitions, get skittish if the market turns bearish. By appealing to retail, travel and entertainment ads, these pubs broaden their ad base.
And of course, biz pubs have demos that make one drool. In 2005, the Journal's reader had an average income of $191,000, an average household net worth of $2.1 million, and an average age of 55. And of course, they are influential managers.
Anyway, now that mainstream newspapers have dropped most of the stock and mutual fund listings that defined their sections, look for them too, to blend biz and lifestyle.
-- Marty Steffens
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