People magazine, AKA "Kneepads" is a goner

They should get rid of it. It used to be reputable back in the day, but in recent years, it’s just a bunch of unreliable gossip that you can find anywhere.

Lizzo's issue was one of the lowest selling in magazine history.

Is that true?

Whatevs

[quote]Is that true?

Probably the question People Magazine should have been asking itself over and over again.

I haven’t seen people buy a magazine in the longest time. Many of our stores still have huge magazine sections. Nobody browses them. Nobody purchases them (not just PEOPLE). I don’t know how they’re still able to keep printing. It can’t be financially feasible.

Sorry but People is not in commercial decline because of tabloidization. The more tabloid a cover, the more People's sales spike, no matter what people say publicly about their tastes. The magazine is in decline because print generally is in decline, and you can get entertainment and celebrity news free and much quicker online. People has a devoted readership over the age of 50, but very few younger people now buy print. Many people under 30 have never bought print. The print edition is now doomed. It's just a matter or when it closes; now or in 5 years. The brand itself is probably doomed because its website isn't that great or distinctive and there are a million alternatives that do it better.

RIPeople

Why is she called Kneepads?

Many magazines still exist in print form because of advertising scams. These magazines can boast they have a readership of XXX,000 people and sell ads based on that. But the truth is most of the copies are given away either free or discounted and no one knows how many people actually read them.Many people reading this post might have experienced ending a subscription to a magazine, but it still keeps coming to them free. This is why.

It's called Kneepads because it's so sycophantic to celebrities.

It's horrible and I never read it except waiting somewhere, but I'm sad to see all the magazines go whether I liked them or not. I still subscribe to several and will until they're all gone.

Yes. I'm old in gay years. And I like magazines. And books with actual pages. So there.

I really hate how media targets private individuals as it does in this article. I didn't read anything in that article that suggests the editor in chief is a monster. She was brought in to save a sinking ship that has no hope of staying afloat. But this article goes after her for nonsense, but I'm sure will have a negative impact on her career.

I spend way too much time on DL making merry fun of Hilaria Baldwin, Meghan Markle, the Judds, etc. It's a good time and a distraction. I don't think it's so terrible to gossip about people who are constantly grabbing the spotlight and pointing it in their direction. But leave private working stiffs alone.

I guess you could make a case that her job is to write about celebrities so she deserves it....

There's really nothing that riles staff more than management imposing a new boss who doesn't understand the brand. Many of those staff who are griping would have worked there for decades and probably had an eye on the job themselves.

At one time People had actual journalistic credibility. I remember reading a great interview with John Lennon's killer, Mark Chapman. It was eerie, but it was actually a good article. Over the years it just became a fluffy little rag.

People's niche was to present "the truth" and to rigorously fact check. That's all well and good but a negative byproduct of that over the years has been celebrity sycophancy, because any claims had to be checked off and commented on by celebrity agents. Sometimes People has ended up printing lies if they are lies made by or sanctioned by the celebrity or their agent.

The glory days are over. I haven’t read People magazine in many years and I’m an eldergay. I stopped buying magazines since the internet explosion. They are a waste of money and natural resources.

[quote] At one time People had actual journalistic credibility.

Oh honey....no.

It had slightly more of a Parade magazine vibe in its early days, but it's always been a gossip chasing machine. It was like Star magazine but with less bitter gossip.

They started sending it to me when my Entertainment Weekly subscription went digital. I told them to shove it and got a refund.

[quote] People's niche was to present "the truth" and to rigorously fact check.

So funny.

You were joking, of course.

No I'm not joking. I'd know as well. Whether the final product delivered on that prom is another story. But they never used unsourced quotes and everything needed to be fully fact checked. They had rigorous processes.

Gosh, I remember buying the tabloids as a treat when grocery shopping. I looked forward to it! And I kind of miss it. You'd have to wait every week to catch up on the gossip. Now that it's so readily available, it waters down the fun and is forced to find thousands of non-interesting folk to spotlight.

Love a good waiting room filled with People. Can blow through a few months in about 25 minutes and actually have lists of books I wanna get at the library or TV shows I never knew about. Even some music.

People didn't have anonymous sources telling nasty lies but it did have reps spinning sanctioned bullshit and nice glossy photo shoots.

People who read People are the suckiest people in the world.

Remember when Us Weekly was a slightly edgier version of People? It then abandoned that and went full tabloid. Why? Because that's what the market wanted, despite what consumers will say.

The recent Lizzo cover was the worst selling People magazine ever! Lol

I remember in the 1990s, People was a really expensive subscription compared to all the others in the Publisher's Clearing House mailer. I used to help my grandmother with her choices. People was never in her budget.

Lizzo might be great at what she does, but she is a niche act and not suitable to cover a mass market weekly.

i can imagine the reasoning that was given for putting her on the cover, and some of it would have been ideological rather than commercial.

But to the audience for this sort of magazine she is NOT a cover.

Fuck Rupert Murdoch's NYPost!

R28 I bet you were a good grandson. I wish we were friends.

So was People never any good? My mother used to read the hell out of it in the 80s. They had Hollywood Babylon too....

People was the "quality" weekly celebrity magazine. If you believe such a thing is possible.

[quote]”She didn’t know who Channing Tatum was!” said the source.

Burn her!

R27 we know since R2 told us

The elderly ladies who still buy People aren't going to be interest in this:

People has been the media outlet that has embarrassingly been pro-Meghan and Harry in this country.

They had much better writers in the 80's. I don't even know what it's supposed to be now. Mostly devoted to showcasing homes/movies/famous bodies that lost weight/recipes/celebrity lifestyle spin.

Wocha eat my ass?

Operative word is " She." No doubt unqualified to hold the job, but got it because of quotas.

No. There is no need for affirmative action for women in the celebrity magazine world, so that would not have been a factor.

[quote] Many of those staff who are griping would have worked there for decades

Employees who work in the one job for 'decades' are considered to be dinosaurs and should be ejected!

She'll be replaced by a black woman

How about Lizzo?

I used to get EW free because I'd gone to Comic Con or something.

We're in a digital world.

Princess Diana covers sold the best for them.

You got EW free as part of an advertising sales scam. Free copies of magazines are used to artificially inflate readership figures so the publishers can sell pages to advertising clients.

R46, yeah, I figure that's what it was.

It was a scam but I got it for free.

But actually, is it artificial if more readers were getting the mag?

I wasn't a paying reader but I was reading it.

Free copies are a problem because there's a good chance that if you didn't buy it, you aren't going to read it, or read it closely. Also free copies might sometimes go to people who aren't really the target demo for the advertisers.

It used to be a an informative magazine that most people read. It seemed unbiased in its reporting. It changed after 9/11. It became more “patriotic” in its vibe—a slight move to the right with hand-wringing type stories appealing to the “thoughts and prayers” type crowd.

People is OVER. It's not really this editor's fault or Lizzos or anyone else's. Everyone goes online for celeb gossip and interviews now. Nothing will turn the clock back to 1999. It's like the telephone landline, there was nothing wrong with it but it was eventually replaced by something even more convenient. I do feel a bit of amused nostalgia when I remember being 12 and getting so excited to see the new issue every Friday.

"Sources told The Post that under Wakeford, People had been selling more than 200,000 copies at the newsstand a week. Since then, newsstand sales have been uneven, with a May 2 Prince Harry cover dipping to about 160,000 copies sold, and a March 14 Lizzo cover cratering to between 125,000- 150,000 copies sold, which is said to be one of the worst selling issues in People’s half-century history."

Not the People's Prince flopping right above Lizzo!

That was a cover headlined "The Prince Harry Interview", with just his face. No Meghan and no relationship or family lines.

Any word on what magazine will peddle Andy Cohen on the cover now? What good is a vanity brat if People Magazine isn't there to brown nose it?

A cable TV gay father isn't mass market enough to cover in these desperate times.

R55 = Are you kidding? Now they peddle every "influencer" you have never heard of all thru their magazine and website.

I got a cheap subscription a few years ago but cancelled when it ended because every other cover was about the British royal family and I have absolutely zero interest in them.

When something is on the cover all the time it means it's been working.

I've had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly for years, which I appreciated due to its coverage of all current media. They did some surprisingly creative pieces. It gave me something short to read on the toilet. Last month I was disappointed to notified that it had ceased publishing the paper edition and that they had automatically changed my subscription to send People instead. I immediately cancelled, but still have received 2 issues, which are sitting unread. And now that's gone too, but will not be missed.

I have been receiving People for free for years. It pretty much sucks as a publication but I’ll miss it a bit when it goes solely digital.

Hang she learned anything from the gobs of photos that shit magazine puts out? get your LIPS 👄 plumped, you look like a mean old lipless woman who can’t vice head.

I still like getting PEOPLE in print, for the john. And where else could you learn (in her exclusive interview) that Selma Blair started life as a boozer by drinking too much wine at her family's seder when she was a 7 year-old tyke?

[quote] AKA "Kneepads"

No one has ever called it this

People used to be dishy. It's basically been a mouthpiece for publicists for decades now.

Exactly r64, any time someone had some PR they wanted to put out, they went to People Magazine, who were always willing to do the softball interviews and glowing coverage.

I like People because it tends to be neutral in coverage, while tabloids are putting political spins on basically everything these days. People is great for bare-bones, fact-filled entertainment articles. But unfortunately you can't make money doing that in 2022.

I remember the first issue. My mother saw it at the checkout and she bought it. At that time there weren’t any magazines with celeb gossip really, at least not that you could just buy when checking out your groceries. At least not that I recall, I was just 10.

I read it and enjoyed the articles even though I didn’t know who anyone in the magazine was!

Wait. So Closer Magazine--which puts people like Charo and Florence Henderson on the cover--is still being printed but People has to go virtual?

Oh, my.

I'll miss People

Fun fact, Madonna had appeared as a People cover story over 30 times

People was a great magazine to take to the bathroom to read while you poop.

People was just that boring stuff in the checkout line next to the real good stuff, Weekly World News.

My sister in law gives me her copies - so I read them when they're a few weeks old.

That new editor's page is awful. It was so bad from the very first time it ran. Go, People, and take US Weekly with you - if it's still around pimping the Kartrashians.

Oh No! Where else can I follow my Trevie Donovan's search for the right gal!

I used to read it at the hair salon and doctors office but since Covid they no longer have magazines out. So that may have hurt them too.

R49, that's fair but EW going after a Comic Con crowd seems strategic.

The whole problem is EVERYONE has a platform now to do their own Top Ten lists; they can only go to specialty sites for their interests.

I never was into the Book Reviews or Theater in the EW sections. (Sometimes, I was). Plus, online beats print with news any day of the week.

I flipped through People's Oscar issue; beautiful pix but nothing I hadn't read or seen before.

[quote]Operative word is " She." No doubt unqualified to hold the job, but got it because of quotas.

This comment is hilariously off-base. Go look up Janice Min. Then look up Bonnie Fuller. Then look up Anna Wintour etc. etc.

R58, damn straight!

R67, older folks tend to buy print and still have fond memories for Charo and other 70s icons who are in their, well, 70s.

Magazines targeted at the elderly will be among the very last to go.

They need me on the cover more often to keep the magazine relevant.

My husband is willing to appear with me and our rates are very reasonable for royalty.

My gay barber's gayish small barber shop now displays several magazines again, but still not at my gay communiy health center here in Boston.

At the beginning of the pandemic, it seemed risky to even touch books, newspapers and magazines which had been handled by others; but it seems some in this thread read magazinrs passed on to them by others without fear of Covid?

Yes, yes, we know nowadays that touching something is very unlikely to pass along Covid, but don't some of us still feel quesy about touching magazines in a waiting room or books in a library nowadays? Maybe it's behavior some or most of us have learned from Covid and can't easily change at this point?

Reply 80 here: and I find that Page Six gossip in the NY Post is quite busy daily with similar gossip. Many here seem to read it regularly?

So, People isn't so necessary as it's printed a week or so earlier. But I guess People has lifestyle stories and such, not just gossip?

Page Six even has an app.. But it covers so, so much Kardashians and Real Housewives crap. Aaargh!

"Lizzo might be great at what she does, but she is a niche act and not suitable to cover a mass market weekly."

LOL, no one is reading People anymore anyway, no matter who is on the cover

Bullshit. It sells around 200K on news stands (on a good week) but many more on subscription. Humans are still reading People. Just in much lower numbers than in the past, and most of them are over 45, with very little recruitment of new and younger readers.

Subscribers who had subscriptions to the now defunct Entertainment Weekly were supposed to get the balance of their subscriptions substituted with PEOPLE.

If PEOPLE closes down, I wonder what the EW subscribers will then be offered.

Guess the publishers will simply have to refund the EW subscribers their subscription balance.

I got a notice that they will sub Playgirl for the balance.

[quote]I got a notice that they will sub Playgirl for the balance.

Of course, not true. Is Playgirl still being published?!

You're such a comedian. 🙄

Good.

The writing was once very good, believe it or not. Literate and lively. It was a new genre in a way..

In the late 90s / early 00s heyday of the celebrity journalism, People was always 100% accurate but unexciting because they had to keep celebrities happy. US Weekly printed the edgy-but-true stuff celebrities didn’t want People printing. EW printed industry gossip, as did Vanity Fair (with a literary bent) and Page Six. The rest of the tabloids were fictional.

[quote] Remember when Us Weekly was a slightly edgier version of People? It then abandoned that and went full tabloid. Why? Because that's what the market wanted, despite what consumers will say.

Because the National Enquirer’s parent company bought US Weekly.

The market does want tabloid. It's why ALL these titles drifted that way.

[quote] “She didn’t know who Channing Tatum was!” said the source.

[quote]Insiders cited a recent incident in which People staffers pushed to get Jada Pinkett-Smith for a recent cover of the magazine after her husband Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock onstage at the Academy Awards over Rock’s joke about her alopecia.

Okay, I actually like her now. While People may be in trouble, this sounds like a hit piece maybe concocted by the guy she replaced. All in all, magazines are dying out. They’re all the same and those tabloids that are left are all: Joe Biden Is Dying every week. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy that Closer magazine which covers stars over 40 and Old Hollywood. At least it’s something different. People does have the occasional feature on things like murder investigations or court trials, which can be interesting. I could see them doing what Entertainment Weekly did and go quarterly. Why didn’t they change the name of that magazine to EW?

Can we get rid of Anna Wintour now?

Why has the NY Post made a national magazine? People would scoop that shit up in a minute.

The sharks are circling Anna.

Younger women in that office are doing what they always do - character demolition based on her perceived moral failings, to push her out and make way for themselves.

[quote] Wait. So Closer Magazine--which puts people like Charo and Florence Henderson on the cover--is still being printed but People has to go virtual?

Closet covers interesting people past and present and there’s the nostalgia factor. It’s a breath of fresh air not having the Kardashians or some “social media” influencer looking back at you on the cover week after week.

Sadly, the person who takes over for Anna will probably be some SJW freak who will put freaks in dresses on the cover week after week, along with the fat is beautiful slobs.

At least they will probably change their hair style more than once every 60 years.

People Magazine was VERY different in the '70s and '80s. It wasn't really about gossip; it was about, well... people.

So you'd get an interview with a celebrity, who also graced the cover. Usually a film or TV star. The interview was done in person and was an exclusive, not just a repackaged press release or email Q and A. They didn't ask incredibly probing questions, but it also wasn't total fluff. You came away knowing a bit more about that star than you had before, in a time when celebrities were quite enigmatic.

There would also be stories/interviews with and about authors, about true crime events/victims, and always one story about an everyday person who had one notable thing about them, some quirk or maybe a business they ran that was out of the ordinary. "Meet the youngest skateboard champion in the world!" or the like.

And of course there were very short reviews of movies, music, and books for people who just wanted to get an idea whether something might be worth their time without reading a thoughtfully worded dissertation.

People magazine was by no means deep or intellectual, but it offered something that was wanted at the time; it filled a content vacuum. It also did what it did VERY well, which is why it was so popular.

Now, of course, and for the last 15-20 years at least, People had been supplanted by the internet. Celebrities aren't enigmas; 95% of them overshare on social media 24/7. Those capsule reviews are almost the only kinds of reviews there are these days. Authors? Everyday people? Who wants to read about THEM? True crime is covered far more extensively in many different venues.

People became a victim of the very culture it spearheaded.

below is exhibit A as to why no one reads this rag anymore

R33 is right on. Time Life was the parent company / still carrying a lot of prestige, but all falling apart as the years progressed.

R33, R98 and R100 are right. People came out of Time magazine as a spinoff.. I think they had a People page or something. It WAS journalism of a sort. Compare with The National Enquirer and the rest of the tabloid trash. Less likely to have hostile scoops, -People would not have reported on John Edwards' affair- but also not going to print a bunch of BS like the tabloids. Some celebrity stuff, some "human interest" about ordinary people who were unsual in some way. Of course it was a "frau" product. It was very middle of the road, like Time and Newsweek, network television or department stores, and has declined for the same reasons in a more segmented world.

Print media will be gone with the Boomers. Magazines, newspapers etc. They're the only audience for it.

[quote]The recent Lizzo cover was the worst selling People magazine ever! Lol

It's interesting how some celebrities are hyped to hell and back which would lead one to believe they're hugely popular with the public but when the public actually has a say in matters, like buying actual product or watching media featuring said celebrity, one sees what the truth really is.

So many celebrities are nothing buy hype and smoke and mirrors but are not really as popular with the general public as all the bullshit would have one believe.

[quote]Many of those staff who are griping would have worked there for decades

Nobody works anywhere for "decades" anymore. WTF.

This magazine was RIDICULED, starting the day the first issue appeared, for its vapid, empty-headed, "celebrity" ass-kissing. It was post-literate on the day it was born, and it never got any better. Folks on here bemoaning its passing, after some 50 years of sycophantic drivel...Whew. Hilarious.

r105 it was a big part of pop culture of the 80s and 90s. There was no internet and entertainment news was limited. Hard to believe now, but there wasn't a huge amount of coverage of celebrities back then so People filled a niche. Everybody and their mother read People magazine back then.

NOBODY I knew then would have been caught dead with a copy of that rag in their hands. NOBODY. -R105.

The National Enquirer with more pictures. A joke. The beginning of the end of literacy in the US.

r107 lots of people read it back in the day, even if just at the checkout. People magazine was everywhere. Esp. among people who worked in entertainment or other creative fields. It was just a big part of pop culture.

I got a free one year subscription that expired several months ago and the magazine did indeed stop coming, so it isn't always the case that you will keep getting it to inflate subscriber numbers.

I was the local Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago and was surprised how many magazines are still on the shelves.

I should be on the LAST cover too!

Wasn't Jeff Goldblum's character embarrassed to work at People in The Big Chill? People was never cool, but it was relevant in a mainstream Jay Leno kind of way. I am not clear that it made the world a worse place.

[quote]The National Enquirer with more pictures. A joke. The beginning of the end of literacy in the US.

Bullshit. People magazine was just an update of a tried and true formula of celebrity magazines. The movie magazines of the 30s and 40s, Confidential in the 50s and several others. That form of journalism had already been around for decades, People just repackaged it for a more modern (at the time) audience.

They wanted a punchline for the video.

[quote]I was the local Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago and was surprised how many magazines are still on the shelves.

That’s the only reason people go to Barnes and Noble. They take a stack of magazines, order a Starbucks, and sit at a table or couch to read through them for hours.

[quote]Since then, newsstand sales have been uneven, with a May 2 Prince Harry cover dipping to about 160,000 copies sold, and a March 14 Lizzo cover cratering to between 125,000- 150,000 copies sold, which is said to be one of the worst selling issues in People’s half-century history.

How is it possible that the two most important voices of our generation be the worst selling? They’re everything! They give me life. Who is trying to silence their voice. They are just living their truth and living their best life. I hate it here.

My memory is all the Hollywood personality rags up through the 60s were guilty pleasures you'd find in a beauty parlor.......People was the magazine you'd feel comfortable putting in a doctors office waiting room.

People magazine was "respectable" celebrity bullshit. You could have it out on your coffee table or kitchen counter when guests came over. You didn't have to hide it in a drawer and pretend you never read it like you did with the National Enquirer.

When I do thumb through a People nowadays I do get a chuckle that there is ALWAYS one true crime article.

When People magazine dies Jennifer Aniston can start looking at burial plots for her profile.

Thank god we still have Civil War Times

btw, I always thought Kneepads referenced TMZ, not People

[quote]Nobody works anywhere for "decades" anymore. WTF.

Perhaps in your world. Years ago, lots of people started at the bottom in many companies, then ended up with great jobs at the same company.

A late relative had a crappy low-level job at an insurance company, then ended up an architect at the same company. The company also covered college tuition and was always promoting their workers from within.

Today, young people are treated like crap, they're disposable. There will always be another person to take their place. Amazon is a great example of a terrible company. That arrogant freak Bezos calls his workers "lazy".

[quote]Perhaps in your world.

No, in the real world

r124 what you described doesn't really happen anymore. Again, DLers are living decades in the past and know nothing about the modern world.

Some DLers. But you can hold onto some jobs for decades still, mostly state employment.