The Return of Life

Henry Luce called it "picture magic," that remarkable ability of a good photograph to capture an event or distill an emotion, to amaze, inspire, instruct and even repulse. Luce started LIFE in 1936 to harness that ephemeral power, and the weekly picture magazine became in its heyday publishing's most successful venture. But eventually television, postal costs and the magazine's own swollen circulation caused its demise, in 1972. This week Time Inc. is introducing a born-again LIFE with a larger version of the familiar red and white logo, a fractionally smaller version of the spacious LIFE-size format, but the same preoccupation with the magic of pictures.

In a sense, of course, LIFE never died. Since 1972, Time Inc. has published ten LIFE Special Reports on such themes as "The Spirit of Israel," "Remarkable American Women" and "The Year in Pictures." With a minimum of promotion, those issues sold between 500,000 and 1 million copies at cover prices of up to $2, a feat that has kept hopes of a revival flickering among LIFE'S many mourners.

Those hopes rose last December when Time Inc. Magazine Development Editor Philip Kunhardt Jr. marked the fifth anniversary of LIFE'S last regular issue with a five-page memo to Time Inc. Editor in Chief Hedley Donovan, recommending the magazine's rebirth as a monthly. Kunhardt, a former LIFE assistant managing editor, cited the rising prosperity of the magazine industry, a new surge of public interest in photography, the success of the single-issue LIFE editions, and his concern that the public might start to forget LIFE if it did not return soon. In addition, Time Inc.'s new weekly magazine, PEOPLE, which uses a picture-story format reminiscent of the old LIFE, was virtually an instant success. Given the go-ahead, Kunhardt's group spent the next three months turning out two dummy issues, and LIFE'S start-up was authorized last spring. The firm intends to spend from $10 million to $20 million on the magazine in the two years or so before it breaks into the black. Kunhardt was made LIFE'S new managing editor.

Why should a new monthly LIFE succeed less than half a dozen years after the old weekly stumbled? For one thing, network television -- which did much to kill general-interest mass-circulation magazines such as LIFE, Look and the Saturday Evening Post--has become far more expensive. A 30-second spot on Charlie's Angels costs $95,000, and a minute of next January's Super Bowl is going for $370,000. Even at those prices, desirable prime-time shows are solidly booked, with no more commercial time left for new sponsors. As a result, more and more advertisers are shifting larger portions of their budgets to magazines.

Another change is the new LIFE'S more realistic approach to newsstand and subscription prices and sales. Explains LIFE Publisher Charles Whittingham: "The single most important lesson we learned is that readers have to pay for the magazine. They used to get a free ride." Indeed, when LIFE suspended publication, some subscribers were paying as little as 14-c- a copy, a sum well below the cost of paper and ink. The new LIFE is priced at $1.50 a copy, whether purchased at a newsstand or through the mail, and Whittingham expects that circulation revenue alone will now "do a pretty good job" of covering the magazine's operating expenses. Furthermore, the burden of soaring second-class postal rates will be lightened by greater emphasis on newsstand sales. At the weekly LIFE'S termination, some 96% of its circulation went to mail subscribers and only 4% to newsstands. LIFE now in tends to sell only about 30% of its copies through the mail and about 70% on newsstands.

Another change from the old LIFE is in circulation strategy. The weekly LIFE in its last years was losing millions of dollars annually with a circulation that at one point exceeded 8 million. The new LIFE will start this month with a circulation base of only 700,000 and the intention of limiting growth to around 2 million. Says Whittingham: "We're aiming at people who really appreciate looking at fine photos."

That philosophy seems to sit well with advertisers. The first issue contains 56 advertising pages worth $848,568, a record amount for any magazine's debut. LIFE'S 10 1/8-in. by 13 1/8-in. page size inspired a few agencies to craft ads that are so visually stunning they could pass for the magazine's photo layouts. Indeed, the picture magazine may be making a general comeback. French Publisher Daniel Filipacchi is assembling a sizeable staff to revive Look magazine as a weekly early next year; the German magazine firm Gruner & Jahr will launch a U.S. version of its expensively produced Geo at that time; the publishers of the classy Realites are planning an other assault on the market in January.

Except for a 7,500-word excerpt from Mario Puzo's new novel, Fools Die, the new 140-page LIFE is pictures, pictures, pictures, most of them in color: of family reunions, the rugged beauty of Antarctica, Frisbee-fetching dogs, the filming of The Wiz, Jackie Onassis in the Manhattan publishing-house office she once occupied, the Shah of Iran in his fortified Caspian Sea retreat, Brooke Shields in a skimpy leotard, Henry Fonda in a Boy Scout uniform, Pope John Paul I in the Vatican, and hot-air balloons over Iowa. Conspicuously absent are the kind of late-breaking news photos that once filled the opening pages of LIFE. The new monthly will go to press two weeks before it is distributed.

In their introduction to the first issue, the editors say: "Our pictures and our stories will have to convey the continuing sense that this new LIFE, like the old one, is deeply involved with the world it covers, that its capacity for wonder, conviction and caring is as big as ever . . . This is a different magazine, but there is still just one answer for us: 'picture magic' again."

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