Magazine Readers Keen To Not Starve
Everyone else is cutting circulation, but Food Network Magazine expects to ride the whole "I can't afford restaurants but would like to still eat" meme to 1.1 million copies, triple the current level.
We've never actually read the magazine, but judging from the covers it appears Bobby Flay, who insists on grilling absolutely every sort of food, like a real man, plays a prominent role. Sigh.
Still, we understand the impulse to take the publication. In its on upscale way, Food Network is capitalizing on the same fear of privation as those booming homeless newspapers. As a Hearst VP told Ad Age,
"Dining in is the recession's dining out."
And "not starving" will be the depression's "dining in," but there's no need to spook the advertisers just yet.
NB to anyone taking this magazine: The network's best content is already transcribed here, for free.