Regional Publications: Big Fish, Small Pond, Different Specs

Regional magazines serve a niche market that larger, nationwide of international, magazines can’t always reach. They cater to a smaller audience who all share a common residential location. Even if these people are otherwise very diverse, a common location is a strong unifier. Parents have children in the same school systems, working adults work in the same areas, people attend many of the same cultural events and consumers make their purchases from the same retailers. Regardless of national trends, culture is largely produced on a local scale.

Regional publications speak directly to local culture, economics, politics, or lifestyles in a way that national brands simply can’t match. It is much more difficult for a national magazine to speak to the very specific concerns of a region on the same level as a regional publication. In addition to market research, the experiences of the people that work for and with the magazine come into play. Residents of the area they serve, these professionals are more in touch with the region and what drives their readers to buy their magazine.

Hudson Valley Magazine, for example, is targeted to consumers who live within the ten counties that make up the Hudson Valley between Westchester and Rensselaer County. The concerns and interests of this particular set of consumers are bound to differ from those in another geographic area. In order to reach consumers, Hudson Valley Magazine is available by subscription as well as on the newsstand. Awareness of the magazine is maintained by stocking copies in doctors’ offices, hotels, and local businesses

As a large portion of the population of the lower Hudson Valley commutes to New York City for work, where publications like Time Out maintain popularity with their listings of events, it comes as no surprise that this magazine seeks to emulate that to some small degree. Time Out does not feature listings for events outside of the metropolitan area of New York City, but the information for this area is featured in Hudson Valley Magazine. In the face of readily available internet, newspaper, and even televisions listings, these listings must be produced in such a way so as to make them preferable to these other sources of information. Listings for the entire month, an improvement upon the daily and weekly newspaper listings, are provided.

They are divided by region and accompanied by the website addresses, where available, so that readers can get more information. Websites for local events and establishments are not always easily searchable via Google or other search engines because of their comparatively low level of traffic. However, by appearing as a key component in the layout of a regional magazine and its listings, readers can more easily find these sites. Local events are listed near the center of the magazine with lively descriptions that, rather than marginalizing them, lend the events the same credibility as events in the city.

A local ballet as reviewed and promoted just as an even at Lincoln Center might be, including full color photography. Photographs are large and accompanied at times by reviews, articles, or further information which blend the line between the listings and the feature stories of the magazine. This serves to make the flow of the magazine less choppy as it is not starkly divided into sections but rather the different departments flow into each other. This method prevents thinner sections from appearing paltry; a single page section flows into larger sections that border it, forming a cohesive whole. The aforementioned photographs, while providing imagery, also serve to pad the space where editorial content is lacking.

However, the level of photography, while it is often very beautiful, does not always measure up to that of larger publications. This is due to a multitude of circumstances but one key contributing factor is that Hudson Valley Magazine does not subject all of its photography to the same level of proofing, correction, and other scrutiny that many national publications do. All of this work is done in-house by the magazine staff, as opposed to being sent out to a prepress facility.

Prepress facilities submit photographs to extensive, and often repeated, rounds of proofing and color correction, often spending a great deal of time on a single image. Since a page may contain several images, this time adds up quite quickly. However, Hudson Valley Magazine only spends an average of five to seven minutes on each page of the magazine, leading to a somewhat degraded level of photography. Proofs are made of entire pages rather than single images and “SWOP quality proofs” are only created for some pages of the publication, like a feature story, while other pages are proofed using a full color laser printer (Oesterle). These laser printer proofs are generally to proof the content, however, more than the image quality.

For all of these reasons, in addition to limited resources for acquiring photographs, an image that appears on the cover may reappear within the magazine. However, as there is less color proofing taking place, there are often glaring differences in the color and sharpness of the image. These differences, which are caused by the different paper weights and glosses of the cover and editorial pages, are accounted for and corrected in larger publications during prepress.

This magazine’s images, however, have not been subjected to the same standard of proofing. It simply may not be economically sound for a smaller, regional publication to spend that much time and effort on each and every image. The expenses of any publication must be justified and, if your subscriber base is not large enough to support expensive image processing, your magazine must make do with the resources it has. Care is taken to place the images in Hudson Valley Magazine in such a way as to create the most impact with limited resources. The magazine makes a mostly successful attempt to present images which glorify the beauty and the culture of the Hudson Valley, making it a place worth purchasing a magazine about.

The price point is moderate at $3.95, despite the fact that the bulk of the magazine’s readership consists of households with incomes over $111,000 dollars per year. Rather than raise the price point and produce a higher end magazine, it seems Hudson Valley Magazine prefers to make certain compromises to keep the price down. Although the cover is of fairly thick stock, the inner pages of the magazine are printed on lightweight glossy paper. In some cases it is possible to see through pages even when the magazine is lying flat on a table, with no light shining through the other side of the page. This indicated a paper with very a very low level of opacity, causing the quality of the look and feel of the magazine to suffer.

In the end, the magazine comes across as a midlevel publication rather than high end, which does not entirely reflect its readership. Of course this is when comparing the magazine to national magazines with similar content, such as Better Homes and Gardens, Food and Wine, or other lifestyle magazines. Hudson Valley Magazine appears next to these titles at many bookstores in the area rather than alongside other regional publications, which leads one to make such a comparison. In other venues however, the title is placed differently, indicating that they are placed at the vendor’s discretion as opposed to the publisher’s preferences. Compared to regional publications which vary greatly in quality, Hudson Valley Magazine has higher production quality. Some local publications are even printed on newsprint, despite being called “magazines” and may be as short as six pages long, the majority of which consists of advertisements.

These mini-magazines seem to be more of an advertising medium, running very little editorial content and often distributed for free, rather than a true magazine that people would read for information or leisure. They are certainly not produced to a standard that would justify paying for the privilege to read them. Their value lies elsewhere, perhaps in increased exposure for their advertisers, instead. There are other local publications in the Hudson Valley and other regions that seek to be a source of information and entertainment; however, in a cursory survey of the titles available, Hudson Valley Magazine seems to have gained the most ground and stability in the area.

Perfect binding may be one element that sets the magazine apart from many other local publications, which are saddle-stitched. Perfect binding takes longer but it lends the magazine the ability to print information about the issue on the spine. For those who collect issues of the magazine, this makes it easy to find and access the information they are looking for. Saddle-stitch is the preferred method of binding for many local publications, who may have to compete for press time or have tight publishing deadlines, because of the speed. Without more information about individual titles, it is difficult to say, but as many other publications have slightly more time sensitive information in them, such as real estate listings, they may require a faster turn-around.

Regardless, the title appears to be thriving. This would lead one to believe that Spotlight Publications, LLC, responsible for publishing Hudson Valley Magazine knows what they are doing when it comes to balancing cost and quality. The company, owned by the Martinelli family, publishes this and other regional publications at the same printing site. In this way, they are able to unilaterally make decisions regarding when and how to print each title. Mr. Oesterle, production director of Hudson Valley Magazine, extols the benefits of such a localized printing sight because it allows each publication high priority. These small titles do not have to compete with major national publications for press time.

Major magazines that serve readers across the country, while they often have a central office, typically have several satellite offices around the country. Images and content are produced and processed at multiple locations for maximum efficiency. The titles are often printed at multiple sites as well, so as to keep shipping costs and times to a minimum. However, while these methods work well for large publications, the needs of smaller publications a very different. They do not need to reach a large geographic area so shipping costs remain pretty consistent regardless of where within that area they choose to print. It would be somewhat illogical to print outside the area if possible to avoid it because of the additional shipping costs incurred bringing the printed copies back to the local area.

An added benefit to printing in a single, local facility is the consistency in printing that it allows. Although great strides have been made in digital proofing, there is always room for error when multiple printers at multiple sites are printing the same material. Consistency, often regarding color, is not always maintained perfectly. A regional publication, with only one printer, does not need to worry about variation caused by multiple site printing.

Additionally, a regional publication is afforded the luxury of making all executive decisions regarding the platform they operate on, without needing to conform to the standards set by a major magazine title. Major titles require consistency in platform and file types to keep the flow of information going, to prevent corrupted files from disrupting production, and to assure consistency across the board. For a one office, one site magazine, however, even one that is owned by a larger company, decisions are made on a local level. Hudson Valley Magazine, for example, does not restrict advertisers and contributed to the PDFx-1a file format, like many larger publications are beginning to do.

This may be a reflection on smaller publications’ tendency to lag behind the larger titles when it comes to technological advancement, or it simply may reflect the magazine’s ability to work with various file formats. As information need only be available in-house prior to publication, file corruption and compatibility are not an issue for a regional publication like this. In addition, advertisers in this particular magazine often repeat the same advertisement, requiring no changes, from month to month. This means that no manipulation is needed on those particular ads; they are simply dropped as-is into the layout each month.

While each publication has its own office, where much of the editorial content is produced and prepress work performed, they are all printed from the same printing facility in Elmsford, New York. Each publication has roughly a twenty-eight day turn-around, but do not run on parallel schedules. Editorial planning calendars are staggered slightly to make most efficient use of the presses. It would be illogical to leave the presses idle for extended periods of time and then attempt to publish all the titles in one mad rush at the end of the month.

Therefore, while space in the February 2007 issue of Hudson Valley Magazine will close on December 20, 2006, for delivery on January 17, 2007, Westchester Magazine will follow roughly the same time table but a week later, closing on or around December 27th. They are similar publications, even in general appearance, yet they are not competitors so there is no need for one to beat the other to the market. Rather than rival publications, they are sister publications, belonging to the same group publisher, sharing basic layout and design similarities, and cosponsoring local events. They may even have some common advertisers, who are seeking to reach multiple local markets.

As regional magazines grow in readership, they start to attract larger advertisers who are trying to zero-in on a local market. For example, a manufacturer of high end automobiles may choose to advertise in a regional publication that caters to a readership with a high median salary. Although the ad may reach fewer people overall than an ad in a national publication, it will be more highly targeted toward people who can afford such a high end automobile, as well as be more cost effective for the advertiser. A well established regional publication also lends a sense of credibility to its advertisements.

Although editorial and advertising are generally supposed to separate and the appearance of an ad does not imply endorsement of that ad or company by the magazine that publishes it, readers to not always see in such black and white terms. Readers, especially those consumers with little or no knowledge of the distinction between the two, may more openly read the advertisements that appear in a regional publication that they are familiar with and have come to trust. They are lent more credibility, based on the magazine’s local reputation, than they would if the same ads appeared in a larger, national publication.

For this reason, regional publications are becoming more attractive to advertisers who struggle to compete in our modern world. Consumers are inundated with advertising nearly from the moment their radio alarm clock goes off in the morning until they go to bed at night, so advertisers must continually work to refine their methods of reaching consumers. Regional publications offer an avenue into a targeted audience and regional publications are likely to have a wealth of information about their subscribers which is valuable to an advertiser.

However, while regional publications that contain national advertisers may see a short term benefit of increased revenue from the sale of those ads, they may encounter another problem long term. They may price themselves right out of the market for local advertisers, which had previously been their main, solid source of advertising revenue. A deli on Main Street simply does not have an advertising budget to compete with Target or Wal-Mart and thus may start to look elsewhere for advertising space if the regional magazine that they had used previously begins to cater to larger advertisers.

Additionally, larger advertisers may create more work for magazine production staff as they tend to be more demanding when it comes to placement in a magazine. They are more particular than local advertisers about adjacencies and may even specify certain editorial content that they find objectionable and wish not to be associated with. While local advertisers have their own preferences, they are generally more amenable to what the publisher sets forth. Not to mention, as the publisher is dealing with local advertisers on a more personal and direct level, they are better able to meet their advertising needs.

A regional magazine has a better sense of the local market and can work with advertisers for ad placements that benefit both parties. For example, a publisher might have a specific recommendation regarding which issue an advertiser should run their ad in, or whether repeated runs would provide the most benefit. A magazine might recommend ad placement in a fall harvest issue of the magazine to a local farmer as his product fits in with the theme of the issue.

This means more consumers likely to be interested in his product are likely to be reading that particular issue. While they still must maintain distance from the ads, in the sense that running the ads is not an implied endorsement, local magazines are able to maintain a better dialogue with local advertisers. The magazine even used to allocate some pages to specific smaller localities, with special editorial and ad content, but they longer do so. This may have caused an overcrowded and cluttered magazine, with different localities competing for space, the smoothness and flow of the magazine layout would have been compromised by trying to serve multiple individual interests.

An added benefit, while perhaps not intentional on the part of the publisher, of regional publications and local advertisers is that these advertisements become an additional source of information for the reader. For example, someone reading Hudson Valley Magazine can find the names of local doctors, hotels, and restaurants simply by perusing the advertisements. While this is by no means an authoritative and impartial source of information, as its primary function is advertisement, that does not stop consumers from using it as such.

A regional magazine must not actively endorse any particular advertiser and likely does not handpick their advertisements, as there simply is not a large enough pool of advertisers in the local market to choose from. Such advertisements, that appear informational and often feature lovely photography, also serve to pad the magazine, making it appear thicker and denser with information. In the case of Hudson Valley Magazine, for example, which features advertisements on at least some portion of nearly seventy-percent of its pages, the magazine benefits from advertisements that are aesthetically pleasing? If the magazine were to publish a large quantity of low-quality ads or text-based ads, the overall appearance of the magazine would suffer.

This is saying nothing about the actual content of the ads, but rather their appearance to the eye, when the magazine is open on a table. Many high-end regional magazines adhere to ASME guidelines which require a distinct separation between editorial content and advertisements, so any benefits of those ads that are herein described, beyond advertising revenue, are unintentional and simple icing on the cake, so to speak. In this particular magazine, several sections are dedicated sole to advertising and are headed with “Special Advertising Section” to maintain the aforementioned editorial distance.

However, despite the heading, these sections are difficult to differentiate from other similar sections of the magazine. For example, advertisements for local lodges and spas appear in a format very similar to the events listings that appear a few pages later. While the format and style are different enough, using different fonts and layout, to maintain separation, it seems that the guidelines become somewhat blurry in a regional publication. The title complies with ASME, but that does not mean that every reader is savvy enough to pick up on the cues that differentiate the ads from the editorial.

Essentially, a regional magazine that is designed like Hudson Valley Magazine has multiple functions. It serves to provide exposure for local advertisers that cannot compete in the larger market, it provides specific, localized information about the area to residents and visitors to region, and it projects a positive image of the region. This may attract visitors and encourage current residents to explore previously undiscovered aspects of the area, all of which benefits the magazine by giving it more content to cover.