I guess it had to come sooner or later.
With help on the business side from sibling Nickelodeon magazine, MTV will test the waters with single-topic, newsstand-only October (due on stands Oct. 21) and December issues that will have strong tie-ins to programming on the network. If the issues are successful, plans are to go bimonthly in 2004. MTV Magazine’s circulation rate base will be 300,000.
The themed-issue approach “allows us to present MTV, the brand, over time in a series of issues, rather than be all-MTV under one cover,” says Dan Sullivan, senior vp/group publisher of MTV Networks’ Nickelodeon Magazine Group. “If it’s big on MTV, it’ll be big in MTV. We’ll tap into the stories and events on the channel and amplify those in the issues.” (full story)
The biggest question I have is: what section of the magazine stand will they put the mag? If the magazine holds the same values as the television network, I’d expect it to have only 10% music editorial.