Magazine publisher Hachette Filipacchi is shutting down the US edition of its well-known and respected film magazine Premiere. The company, which also publishes Car and Driver, Elle and other magazines, said Monday that the April edition of Premiere, which is on newsstands until April 16, will be the last for the US edition. The international edition will continue to appear in the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
Hachette said that Premiere's website would continue and will be revamped later in the year. Hachette plans to provide daily Hollywood news, interviews and access to video trailers through Premiere.com and Premiere Mobile.
Editor-in-Chief Peter Herbst will leave Hachette, while Entertainment Group Vice President and Publisher Paul Turcotte will stay in a new role to be announced in the future. Hachette Filipacchi is part of French media and defence conglomerate Lagardere SCA. The company had also shut the print edition of Elle Girl but kept its website going, a move that Time Warner Inc's Time Inc unit did with Teen People last year.
Premiere was a monthly magazine but faced competition from weeklies like Time Inc's Entertainment Weekly. Last year, Premiere's paid ad pages declined 25 per cent. The company said that changes in the industry and the way consumers want celebrity news forced the closure of the magazine, which claimed a monthly circulation of just less than 500,000, down 100,000 from the mid-'90s.
"In a transition like this, which is propelled by changes in consumer behaviour and the marketplace, it is unfortunate that the necessary adjustments include the discontinuation of the magazine," Jack Kliger, chief executive of Hachette Filipacchi Media US said.
Twentyfive positions will be cut. The magazine employed 25 people in its New York and Hollywood editorial offices. Officials did not disclose how many staffers would migrate to the online publication or which of the print magazine's regular features will be incorporated.
Launched in 1987, the US edition of Premiere grew in fame with its annual Power List, which caused a frenzy among agents and executives who jostled for the top spots, the Los Angeles Times commented. Premiere also did in-depth interviews with studio chiefs, features from the sets of films and celebrity interviews. The magazine broke new ground with its serious examination of celebrities.
According to LA Times, the magazine began losing ground several years ago because of increased competition. In 1996 the magazine suffered a major blow when its two top editors, Chris Connelly and Nancy Griffin, resigned in protest over pressure to kill a controversial story about Planet Hollywood, which had ties to financier Ronald Perelman, a co-owner of Premiere. The editors had been wary about the direction of the magazine, which Hachette executives wanted to reposition as a fan magazine without in-depth investigative stories.
The Magazine Death Pool blog commented, “With movie news and gossip as common on the web as Jeremy Piven pickup lines, there is just no need for Premiere to exist.”
