Three’s Company
In last week’s Seattle Weekly (you’ll be forgiven for missing it), Neal Schindler writes about a possible magazine war between Seattle magazine (“100 Best Everything!”) and the soon-to-arrive Seattle Metropolitan (“We’ll Hire Any Weekly Staffer You Send Our Way!”).
One passage in the piece stands out:
If Seattle and Seattle Metropolitan bring very different voices and attitudes to similar material, maybe they can share the city, after all. “I’m not coming into this market saying, `I have to fight Seattle magazine,’” Vogel says, adding that Metropolitan should appeal to a younger, somewhat less affluent, less female-skewing readership. Seattle`s associate publisher, Melissa Coffman, says the newcomer might resemble “Seattle Weekly in Seattle magazine clothing.”
Let’s see: 100 Best Restaurants, an annual Best of Seattle issue, fourcount ‘em four!holiday gift guides…maybe what Schindler should be asking isn’t whether Seattle can have two competing glossies, but whether it can handle three useless, advertiser-fellating publications. Even if one has Metropolitan in its name, and even if one is a weekly, they’re all pretty much Seattle magazine when you get down to it.