Money talks

I am an intern, and I have recently learned that the longer I take to complete tasks, the less of a nuisance I am to the person who must assign these tasks to me. Keeping on top of Twitter and Facebook and blogs seems to be the best way to do this, and today during my Internet travels, I came across an article about a new Twitter account called @CondeElevator. It contains reports of what is said in the elevator at Conde Nast, one of the world's foremost magazine publishers. They own The New Yorker, Vogue, W, and Vanity Fair, to name a few. Basically, I'd sell my soul to the devil to work there. It's pretty funny, but not quite funny or regular enough to be the fabricated witticisms of someone who is pissed off at the publishing world they work in. In other words, it may just be real accounts of elevator happenings.

Anyway, the point is that this ABC article I was reading of course discusses Vogue and Anna Wintour, since she is the reason for a lot of the attention Conde Nast receives. The Devil Wears Prada, in which Meryl Streep's character is apparently based on her, and September Issue, which chronicles the creation of the September issue of Vogue, are films that give insight into what it's like to be a part of a magazine at the forefront of a massive publishing company. The article refers to these films, but the part that stood out to me the most was its mention of the upcoming September issue of Vogue. Apparently, the publication's largest issue of 2011 will have 584 ad pages. Five hundred. And. Eighty-four. That is A LOT.

See last year's issue above. 726 pages of fall fashion at every price? How about 727 pages of shiny things you can't afford? 727 pages was the ad count for 2007. However, not to worry, because Vogue still raked in a cool $92 million with its "disappointing" 2011 ad count.

While I know that when the September issue makes it to my mailbox, I'll be pleased to have 584 pages of material to flip through and criticize/fawn over for my blog, as a reader it's sort of disappointing. I really hope that editorials were not sacrificed to make room for an extra Louis Vuitton glossy ad, partly because their bags suck this season, but mostly because I buy magazines to read them and look at the photographs for inspiration, not to have more things sold to me.

As I said when I started this blog, I understand that publications need advertising revenue to stay afloat. And I think it's great that with the death of so many newspapers and magazines over the past ten years, Vogue is able to keep their advertising revenue up that high. It just makes me a little nervous that one day I'm going to open the September issue of Vogue, or any issue for that matter, and find that the only text within it is a list of cities that have a Tiffany & Co.