Next month, the magazine company will introduce an iPad app of The National Enquirer that it expects to “reinvent gossip.” The app, called Enquirer Plus, will have separate content from the print publication and video aimed at younger readers.
For American Media, which publishes 15 magazines including Star, OK! and Shape, the Enquirer Plus app will be its first foray into a complete tablet version of one of its print publications. Enquirer Plus will have its own editorial staff and an interface that makes it easy for users to share articles on Twitter or scroll through slide shows of new and archival celebrity images.
In an increasingly crowded market for celebrity news, American Media hopes the brand power of The Enquirer can enable it to break through to the digital age. But the publication, which has an average reader age of 46.5, compared with 29 for OK!, does not have the buzz of younger upstarts like TMZ, PerezHilton and American Media’s Radar Online, and will have to counter the perception that it is a product for housewives standing in line at the supermarket.
“As the celebrity market is changing, we thought, how can we take advantage of an established brand that can transcend a digital platform but also be cool?” said David J. Pecker, American Media’s chairman and chief executive. “This is not your mother’s Enquirer.”
The app comes at a critical time for American Media. Sales of celebrity magazines are softening as readers look online for similar coverage. From July to September of 2011, advertising pages at Star, People, published by Time Inc., and In Touch Weekly, were down slightly, according to the Association of Magazine Media.
American Media recently emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after it reduced its debt, and former bondholders took ownership. The privately held company informally explored a sale last year. Mr. Pecker said it was no longer for sale.
The success of new digital revenue streams is a critical part of the company’s future. In addition to the Enquirer app, this year American Media will open a 24-hour celebrity news and health and wellness YouTube channel tied to its 15 magazines. Two weeks ago it introduced an e-commerce store that sells nutritional supplements and other products related to its Flex, Men’s Fitness and Muscle Fitness magazines.
The company has limited digital editions of several of its fitness magazines based on corporate sponsorships. Enquirer Plus’s revenue will come from subscriptions.
The slogan “More Gossip, More Fun!” flashed across the red screen during a recent Enquirer Plus demonstration at the company’s Lower Manhattan offices. An exclusive story about Khloé Kardashian (complete with a photo of Ms. Kardashian greeting President Obama), reported by its sister publication Star, and an article on Kirstie Alley’s weight struggles unfolded on the screen in stylized three-dimensional cubes. A slide show opened with a young Ms. Alley in a bathing suit.
The app will avoid some of the human-interest stories found in the print publication and will instead stick to juicier fare written in an irreverent, youth-oriented tone. “Gayle King: Cougar Queen” read one headline in the digital version.
With a circulation of 659,562, The Enquirer is American Media’s most profitable publication. Despite its well-earned reputation for sensationalism, The Enquirer earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 2010 for breaking the story about John Edwards’s extra-marital affair.
The company hopes that the digital format will provide some anonymity for gossip lovers.
“It’s for anyone who’s ever been self-conscious about buying The Enquirer in the checkout line,” said Kevin Hyson, American Media’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer. With an app, he said: “you don’t have to hide it under the Oreos and slide it through.”
Mr. Pecker studied News Corporation’s The Daily, the first tablet-only publication, which began last February but has lagged in subscriptions. Like The Daily, Enquirer Plus will cost 99 cents a week; a monthly subscription will cost $2.99, compared with $3.99 for The Daily. The Enquirer’s newsstand price is $3.79.
American Media will need to sell roughly 20,000 subscriptions to break even, Mr. Pecker said. After Enquirer Plus is released on the iPad on Feb. 25 , the company will begin introducing it on Android tablets.
David Perel, American Media’s editor of digital entertainment content and the former editor in chief at The Enquirer, will serve as the top editor at Enquirer Plus. Mr. Perel, speaking via video conference from his office in Boca Raton, Fla., said the app would emphasize breaking news stories and prearranged videos that differ from TMZ’s tactics of pursuing celebrities at public places like airports and restaurants.
“At Radar we had Charlie Sheen take a drug test on camera,” he said. “That’s the type of video we’d have. We don’t just shout at celebrities from outside a club.”
Mr. Perel said he wanted Enquirer Plus to tie into live television events by giving readers slide shows of the best or worst dressed during award ceremonies. But, he said he did not envision Enquirer Plus covering the red carpet the way its television competitors do.
“We want video that isn’t on television,” Mr. Perel said. “To get people to pay for an app, you have to give them something they can’t find anywhere else.”
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