Face-palm emoji! Brides magazine bites the dust - on paper at least. The editorial staff is remaining yet will change offices, according to a report in the New York Times. Brides will live on and hopefully thrive in digital. Brides magazine has been up for sale for some time, and was recently purchased by Dotdash, a website company that started out as About.com and then rebranded to Dotdash. InterActiveCorp (IAC) owns Dotdash, whose chairman is Barry Dillar, the billionaire media mogul. IAC also owns Tinder, Match, and OKCupid.
As reported in the New York Times article, Condé Nast had been scaling down on the magazine, said the head of Dotdash, Neil Vogel: “It’s clear to us that there wasn’t a ton of investment behind this in the last few years.” He also made clear in that article that Dotdash was purchasing the publication for the editorial team and for the digital reach.
Meanwhile, In Editorial…
Brides Executive Director, Lisa Harmon Gooder, will remain in her position. Brides went online in 2006 under the editorial leadership of Keija Minor, who was the publication’s first African American Editor In Chief. Keija held that role from 2012 until 2017. Under Keija’s helm, the digital readership rapidly grew.
Competitors include TheKnot.com and WeddingWire. Dotdash head Neil is feeling a bit competitive and feisty about the acquisition, telling the New York Times how he will treat Brides as “what the future of Condé Nast should be.”
Condé Nast also owns Vogue, The New Yorker, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, and others. Recently, Condé Nast opted to stop printing Glamour and teenVogue, and keep them alive in digital. Recently it sold Golf Digest to Discovery, Inc. for a reported $35 million. W magazine remains for sale, and reportedly started at an asking price of $8 million, and might have been negotiated down to $1 million? But still no sale. Come on - who will buy it? That's less than a townhouse in Manhattan!
Brides.com is already a beautiful website. We’ll see how it shapes up! For now, at least you can consider your editorial leads warm as they make the transition. The Tin Shingle Media Contact Library Team will be keeping an eye on things and update the database as developments happen. Send us a tip of if you have one!
As for Tin Shingle's Editorial Calendar Collection, Brides has been removed, as we only track calendars for print publications. Digital moves too fast! But you shouldn't rely or wait around for an editorial calendar anyway, You should cold-pitch! Tin Shingle teaches you how.