英语

America's thriving gossip magazines
美国繁荣的八卦杂志

Rags to riches 杂志致富

Jun 18th 2009 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

One corner of the print-news industry is relatively healthy
新闻印刷业的一隅相对繁荣

FOR seven of the past eight weeks the front cover of Us Weekly magazine has featured salacious stories about Jon and Kate Gosselin. The Gosselins, who have eight children including sextuplets, are the stars of an obscure American reality-TV programme that briefly became the most watched show on cable. Sensing a surge of interest, other celebrity magazines have piled in with reports of marital disharmony. Even in a recession, tittle-tattle sells.

过去的八周有七周,《美国周刊》封面以Jon和Kate Gosselin的粗俗为特色。Gosselin一家，有包括6胞胎在内的8个，成了美国现实-TV节目的明星，节目短时间也在有线电视上备受瞩目。其他名人杂志发觉公众兴趣激增，便在杂志中插入关于不和谐婚姻的报道。即使经济衰退，八卦还是有的卖。

Buoyed by recession-resistant food, pharmaceutical and shampoo advertisements, gossip magazines have lost fewer advertising pages in the past year than business or news magazines, according to a tally by Mediaweek. The two biggest, People and Us Weekly, each sold more copies last year than they did in 2001. In a world of fragmenting audiences they boast an enormous reach. Fully 43m Americans, about two-thirds of them women, flick through a copy of People each week.

据《媒体周刊》统计，过去一年里，由抵制衰退的食粮——和香波广告维持着，比起商业或新闻杂志，八卦杂志失去的广告页较少。两家最大的杂志《人物》和《美国周刊》，每家去年比2001年卖出了更多的杂志。拥有大量分散读者，他们占据了极大的范围。足有四千三百万美国人，妇女大约占三分之二，每周浏览一份《人物》杂志。

This is odd, because the forces blamed for the decline of print news are no less potent in the celebrity sector. Celebrity news has its own online aggregators, several of them linked to web portals, such as omg!, the gossip arm of Yahoo!. The self-publicising Perez Hilton leads a legion of bloggers. Tweets, mobile-phone alerts and gossipy television shows (there are five, up from three in 2000) provide much more timely information about the lives of the beautiful than do magazines. There is more direct competition, too, with three big glossy magazines having launched since 2002.

这很奇怪，因为谴责新闻印刷业衰退的力量在名人部分依旧有力。人物新闻有自己的网络聚合器，有几个聚合器链接到了网络门户，像是对象管理集团（omg!）和雅虎（Yahoo!）的八卦部。自我宣传的Perez Hilton带领了一大队博客。Tweets，手机提醒和八卦电视节目（2000年有3个，现在升至5个）名人生活信息比杂志更加及时。2002年开办的3家精品杂志，也是个更为直接的竞争。

It may be that the new entrants have simply mopped up excess interest in the doings of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Larry Hackett, the editor of People, reckons that the public appetite for entertainment news was underserved until recently. Far from harming the established publications, the multimedia gossip barrage may be driving readers to check scurrilous rumours with them.

也许新加入者挖一下Paris Hilton和Lindsay Lohan的就轻而易举满足公众额外的兴趣。《人物》编辑Larry Hackett认为，公众对新闻的需求至今未得到满足。多媒体八卦的攻势非但不会波及现有杂志，也许会驱使读者和他们一起核查粗俗的谣言。

The field is probably too crowded. None of the three new publications—In Touch, Life & Style and OK!—sold more than a million copies a week on average last year. The turbulent economy has shaken lucrative news-stand sales in particular. As the weaker publications struggle, though, the strongest ones are expanding boldly into new platforms and products. People has launched an iPhone application and its website receives 13m unique visitors per month, according to comScore, a research firm. Its empire includes a fashion portal, a Spanish-language magazine, a country issue, puzzle books and a pets website, all written in the same reassuring style.

这个行业或许太过密集。去年3家新杂志《接触》、《生活&方式》和《OK!》，平均每周没有一家能卖出一百万份。尤其是动荡的经济动摇了有利可图的报摊销。愈加衰弱的杂志还在挣扎，而顶强大的却在大胆开拓新平台和新产品。据调查公司comScore，《人物》已着手一份iPhone申请，其网站每月接待一千三百万访客。《人物》帝国包括一个时尚门户网站、一份西语杂志、一个问题、几本智力测验书和一个宠物网站，所有的编辑风格都是统一的并且有所保证。

However far-flung their operations, celebrity publishers know they must drive traffic to the weekly magazine, where the real money is still to be made. The best websites offer titbits, updates and quotes. When it comes to longer articles and scoops, though, online readers are firmly steered to the news-stand with notes that begin, “To find out more…”. Janice Min, the editor-in-chief of Us Weekly, reckons the content of her magazine and its associated website overlap by no more than 15%. “Why would you post your entire cover story online?” she asks.

不论名人杂志出版商的经营多么广泛，他们知道必须驱使人们买周刊才能真正赚到钱。最棒的网站花絮趣闻、更新材料和援引。然而一看到较长的文章和独家报道，在线读者会坚定地奔向标有“知详情……”的报摊。《美国周刊》总编辑Janice Min估计，其杂志与相关网站重复的内容不足15%。她问：“为什么要把全部封面专题放到网上呢？”