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- PRESS, Page 49News That You Can ChooseTime Inc. announces plans to start Entertainment Weekly
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- Not long ago, the answer to the question "What should we do
- tonight?" seemed fairly limited for most Americans. There was
- always television, of course, or a trip to the local movie house.
- But nowadays, with the boom in the U.S. entertainment industry and
- the proliferation of cable TV, VCRs, computers and compact discs,
- the possibilities can seem limitless. So limitless, in fact, that
- many Americans appear to suffer from information anxiety, the
- inability to choose from among the riches available.
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- Last week the Time Inc. Magazine Co. announced the launch of
- a new publication aimed at dispelling that confusion. Called
- ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, it will cast an informative cultural net over
- the most notable new offerings in the realms of movies, television,
- videocassettes, recorded music and books, all reviewed and rated
- (from A to F) by the magazine's own critics as well as by guest
- reviewers. The new publication will also include articles on
- entertainment and culture, but it will concentrate on the
- fundamentals rather than on personalities, thus avoiding conflicts
- with the company's highly successful PEOPLE magazine. ENTERTAINMENT
- WEEKLY, says Editor in Chief Jason McManus, "deals with products,
- not personalities." According to Jeff Jarvis, the new magazine's
- managing editor and a former PEOPLE television critic, "It will be
- brash and browsable. It will be as entertaining as the
- entertainment it covers."
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- ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, which will make its debut in February,
- has been two years in the planning. It is expected to start life
- with a circulation of 500,000, mostly subscribers, and hopes to
- grow to 1 million before turning a profit in four years. Publisher
- Michael J. Klingensmith estimates the cost of the launch at $30
- million after taxes. The magazine is the company's first major
- start-up venture since TV-CABLE WEEK, a listings guide for
- cable-company subscribers, folded after just five months in 1983.
- Another Time Inc. magazine project, PICTURE WEEK, was tested in
- 1985-86 but never launched.