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overview
This page looks at the media interests of the Newhouse
family, in particular the Advance magazine publishing
group.
It covers -
introduction
The Newhouse family, through its Advance Group and other
holdings, has global magazine interests, along with US
newspapers, the odd cable television network and the other
trinkets collected by media czars.
Overall revenue as of 2002 is around US$5 billion, with
40% from its US newspapers but higher profits and revenue
growth in the magazine sector. As of 2000 Advance was
the fifth-largest newspaper publisher in the US and its
third-largest magazine publisher.
shape
Advance came to public attention as a national newspaper
chain in the style of Gannett
and Knight-Ridder: lots of minor
papers (generally in monopoly or duopoly positions) with
an emphasis on profits over editorial quality.
In 1980 Advance bought the Random House group from RCA.
Random went on to buy paperback publisher Fawcett Books
in 1982, Times Books from the New York Times
in 1984, Fodor's Travel Guides in 1986, Chatto, Virago,
Bodley Head & Jonathan Cape in 1987, Crown Publishing
Group (Crown, Clarkson Potter, Harmony Books and the Outlet
Books) in 1988, Century Hutchinson in 1989 and the trade
division of Reed Books in 1997.
In 1998 Advance sold its book interests to Bertelsmann.
It's subsequently extended its US newspaper and global
magazine interests.
studies
Carol Felsenthal's Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of
a Media Merchant (New York: Seven Stories 1998) is
the major biography of grand acquisitor Sam Newhouse,
under fire for desecrating that holy of holies the New
Yorker after supposedly raping & pillaging Random
House before selling it off to Bertelsmann.
The mogul - reminiscent of Walter Annenberg
- was the subject of the earlier, slighter Newhouse:
All That Glitter, Power & Glory (New York: Birch
Lane 1997) by Thomas Maier and the more substantial Newspaperman:
S. I. Newhouse & the Business of News (New Haven:
Ticknor & Fields 1983) by Richard Meeker. He appears
in the major biographies of McCarthy associate Roy Cohn,
such as Nicholas von Hoffman's Citizen Cohn (London:
Harrap 1988).
The Man Who Was Vogue: The Life & Times of Conde
Nast (London: Viking 1982) by Caroline Seebohm is
an entertaining biography of the founder of Vogue,
now part of the Newhouse magazine interests.
the New Yorker and other journals
This site features more detailed notes on
- the
New Yorker - here
-
Vogue and Vanity Fair - here
 next
page (Advance/Newhouse holdings)
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