This is actually an advertisement saluting the Ebony Power 100, but it’s running during BHM. Hilton declares, “There’s Always Room For Women of Power.” Unfortunately, the statement doesn’t hold true in the advertising industry, where there are only 100 Black women in executive positions.
Technically, this is not a BHM advertisement; rather, it’s self-promotional pap from Nationwide, touting the insurance company’s sponsorship of the EBONY Power 100. The headline declares, “You Are Inspiring.” The advertisement, ironically, is uninspiring.
The New York Times reported on how Black-owned media is in a death spiral. Which runs parallel with the near-death state of Black-owned advertising agencies. Which coincides with the dearth of Blacks in the advertising and media fields.
Pillars of Black Media, Once Vibrant, Now Fighting for Survival
By Sydney Ember and Nicholas Fandos
For the black community in Chicago and elsewhere, Johnson Publishing Company represented a certain kind of hope.
The company’s magazines, most notably Ebony and Jet, gained prominence during the struggle for civil rights — Jet published graphic photos of the murdered black teenager Emmett Till that helped intensify the movement — and made it their mission to chronicle African-American life.
At a time when much of the media was ignoring black people, or showing them primarily in the context of poverty or crime, Ebony and Jet celebrated their success, featuring stars like Muhammad Ali and Aretha Franklin on their covers. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, the first print publication he granted an interview to was Ebony.
So when Johnson Publishing, which is based in Chicago, announced a little more than two weeks ago that it had sold Ebony and Jet to a private equity firm in Texas, there was a sense of loss.
“It was a very heartbreaking day,” said Melody Spann-Cooper, the chairwoman of Midway Broadcasting Corporation, which owns a Chicago radio station, WVON, aimed at a black audience. “Ebony gave to African-Americans what Life didn’t.”
Ms. Spann-Cooper’s reaction underscored a deeper concern: As racial issues have once again become a prominent topic in the national conversation, the influence of black-owned media companies on black culture is diminishing.
“Ebony used to be the only thing black folks had and read,” Ms. Spann-Cooper said. “As we became more integrated into society, we had other options.”
To that end, Time Inc. now owns the magazine Essence and Viacom owns Black Entertainment Television. The Oprah Winfrey Network, a partnership between Ms. Winfrey and Discovery Communications, has been around since 2011. The Undefeated, ESPN’s site covering the intersection of race and sports, debuted in May. The emergence of Black Twitter has also given African-Americans a powerful voice on social media.
Johnson Publishing stressed that the Clear View Group, the private equity firm that bought Jet and Ebony, was an African-American-led company and positioned the sale more as a partnership. “We are very, very committed to Ebony,” said Michael Gibson, the chairman of Clear View.
Traditional media companies have struggled for years to adapt to a digital world, but the pressure on black-owned media has been even more acute. Many are smaller and lack the financial resources to compete in an increasingly consolidated media landscape. Advertisers have turned away from black-oriented media, owners say, under the belief that they can now reach minorities in other ways.
Since well before the Civil War, publications and, more recently, radio and television stations owned and operated by African-Americans have provided an important counterweight to mass market media, simultaneously celebrating and shaping black culture — from politics and government to fashion and music.
Johnson Publishing was started in 1942 with a modest $500 loan, and eventually turned into a media empire big enough that in 1982, its founder, John H. Johnson, became the first black person to make Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. When the radio station WVON ran a program in 2007 for Black History Month called the “28 Blacks Who Changed America,” Mr. Johnson, who died in 2005, was No. 7 on the list, behind luminaries like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Thurgood Marshall.
“If we don’t own our press, we don’t have a platform to speak,” said Leonard Burnett Jr., whose company, the Uptown Ventures Group, owns Uptown Magazine, a lifestyle publication aimed at affluent African-Americans.
Several owners also pointed to another benefit: Their companies hired more minorities. Ms. Spann-Cooper of the Midway Broadcasting Corporation said 90 percent of her employees were African-American. “When we are African-American-owned, the work force looks like us,” she said.
But as financial resources dwindle, black-owned media companies are struggling to maintain their presence. Jet, for instance, became a web-only publication in 2014.
“It’s tougher and tougher for African-American companies,” said Desirée Rogers, the chief executive of Johnson Publishing, “to have the capital to compete in a landscape that’s increasingly crowded, increasingly changing.”
Mr. Burnett, who also owns Hype Hair, a magazine for African-American women, said his company was “marginally profitable.” But he said supporting his print business had been challenging largely because advertisers, particularly luxury brands, would rather connect with African-American consumers “by speaking broadly.”
“I think at times there’s a feeling that they do not want to directly speak to that audience because there’s a fear of bringing down their brand perception,” he said.
Earl G. Graves Jr., the president and chief executive of the business-focused magazine Black Enterprise, said his company was “not as strong as it was,” but preferred that it remain independent. Like many magazines, it has cut its publication schedule and focused more on its events business as a potential revenue source.
The picture is bleak in radio and television as well. In 2013, there were 166 black-owned radio stations and 68 black-owned radio companies, compared with 250 stations and 146 companies in 1995, according to the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters.
Only 12 commercial television stations in the country are black-owned, and they tend to serve very small markets. The future of Howard University Television, the country’s only black-owned public television station, is also in question, as the university’s participation in Federal Communications Commission spectrum auction has raised the possibility that it could end up selling its place on the airwaves or stop broadcasting entirely.
“Black ownership is dying,” said Armstrong Williams, whose Howard Stirk Holdings owns seven of the black-owned commercial television stations. “Newspaper ownership, radio ownership — but it’s probably hit TV the hardest.”
In the late 1970s, the F.C.C. put into place a minority ownership policy that used credits and deferrals on capital gains taxes to help make minority businesses more competitive in the bidding process and promote the sale of existing stations to minorities.
The policy, while not without critics, was largely considered a success among advocates of minority ownership. But in 1995, after a Supreme Court ruling that established new standards for race-based government policies, the F.C.C. began to disassemble the program. A year later, Congress ended the tax-deferral policy that had helped drive sales to minorities. It also did away with most restrictions on the number of radio stations a single company could own.
The resulting wave of consolidation in the broadcast industry has made it more difficult for black entrepreneurs to enter the industry, said Alfred C. Liggins III, the president and chief executive of Radio One, which while publicly traded is the country’s largest black-controlled multimedia company.
“That means that the likelihood that minority owners are going to own a TV station in New York or Los Angeles gets lower and lower,” said Mr. Liggins, whose mother founded the company with a single radio station in 1980.
For Johnson Publishing, which also owns the Fashion Fair cosmetics line, pressures on the business proved too difficult to overcome. In the last several years, it sold its historic building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, brought on JPMorgan Chase as a minority investor and reduced its staff.
“We did not feel that we had adequate capital and resources,” said Cheryl Mayberry McKissack, who was chief operating officer of Johnson Publishing and is now chief executive of Ebony Media Operations.
Yet as stories like Johnson Publishing’s have become more common across the industry, those who see their companies as following in its footsteps say the notion of black ownership continues to resonate.
Mr. Williams, who referred to Ebony as “a staple” of his upbringing, said that young African-Americans regularly expressed awe that he, a black man, really owned television stations.
“It does change the dynamic,” he said, “of what they believe they can become.”
Johnson Publishing sells Ebony, Jet magazines to Texas firm
Johnson Publishing sells magazines that have chronicled African-American life since 1945
By Robert Channick • Contact Reporter
After a 71-year run in Chicago, Johnson Publishing is getting out of publishing.
The company said Tuesday it has sold Ebony, its iconic African-American lifestyle magazine, and the now digital-only Jet magazine to Clear View Group, an Austin, Texas-based private equity firm, for an undisclosed amount.
Johnson Publishing will retain its Fashion Fair Cosmetics business and its historic Ebony photo archives, which remains up for sale. The deal, which closed in May, also included the assumption of debt.
A family-owned business throughout its history, Ebony has documented the African-American experience since it first hit newsstands in 1945. It has shaped culture ever since, coming into its own as it reported from the front lines of the civil rights movement during the 1960s in powerful photos and prose.
In recent years, though, Johnson Publishing has seen declining media revenues as it struggled to evolve from print to digital platforms.
Linda Johnson Rice, chairman of Johnson Publishing and daughter of founder John Johnson, will serve as chairman emeritus on the board of the new company.
“This is the next chapter in retaining the legacy that my father, John H. Johnson, built to ensure the celebration of African-Americans,” she said in a statement Tuesday.
The new publishing entity, Ebony Media Operations, will maintain the magazine’s Chicago headquarters and its New York editorial office, as well as much of the current staff, according to Michael Gibson, co-founder and chairman of African-American-owned Clear View Group.
It is the first investment in the publishing business for Clear View.
“We made this purchase because this is an iconic brand — it’s the most-recognized brand in the African-American community,” said Gibson, 59. “We just think this is a great opportunity for us.”
Cheryl McKissack, who has served as chief operating officer since 2013, will assume the role of CEO of the new publishing entity under Clear View, operating out of the magazine’s Chicago office. Kierna Mayo is stepping down as editor-in-chief of Ebony to pursue other opportunities, Gibson said.
Chicago-based Kyra Kyles, who has headed up digital content for Ebony and Jet since last June, will add the role of editor-in-chief of Ebony, Gibson said.
“When we make an investment, that’s what we look for — a strong team that can actually run the company,” Gibson said. “We’re not managers or experts by any stretch of imagination in the media business. What we bring to the table is very strong networking and the ability to raise financing and the ability to establish a vision for the company.”
Desiree Rogers, the former social secretary for President Barack Obama who has been steering Johnson Publishing since 2010, will remain CEO, focusing on the cosmetics business, which represents about half of the company’s total revenue.
“The overall strategy of separating these two distinct businesses — media and cosmetics — will ensure that both iconic brands are positioned for future investment and growth,” Rogers said in a statement.
Under Rogers, Johnson Publishing made a number of moves in an effort to shore up finances. Those included taking on a minority partner in 2011, and taking the money-losing weekly digest Jet out of print circulation in 2014.
In January 2015, Johnson Publishing put its entire photo archive up for sale, hoping to raise $40 million. The historic collection spans seven decades of African-American history, chronicling everyone from Martin Luther King Jr. to Sammy Davis Jr.
The collection is still for sale, Rogers said Tuesday.
While the publishing industry continues to face headwinds — year-over-year magazine revenue is down 9 percent through April, according to Standard Media Index — Gibson said Ebony will remain in print for the foreseeable future. At the same time, he recognizes the need to ramp up digital growth.
“There’s a lot of good reasons to keep the print,” Gibson said. “That will always be our anchor. We want to grow the digital platform more consistently with both Ebony and Jet.”
Gibson also sees opportunity in leveraging and expanding Ebony’s events business. But in the end, the greatest asset he acquired was the legacy of a brand, one which he hopes will be influential for years to come.
“It’s a dream come true,” Gibson said. “Growing up, we had Ebony and Jet in our household all along. You knew you made it when you made it to the cover of Ebony or Jet. It is just exciting — I pinch myself every morning.”
Based on the February 2016 cover of EBONY, Valentine’s Day trumped Black History Month. That is, there’s more content on “Black Love” than Black heritage. Like Essence, there are very few BHM advertisements too. Excluding a couple of salutes to EBONY Power 100 and promotions for historical items available in the EBONY Store, you’ll find six legitimate BHM messages from advertisers. The major brands aren’t showing much love for the historical achievements of Blacks.
New Editor at Ebony Magazine Aims to Revive Maverick Spirit
Kierna Mayo Tackles Celebrity, Race Relations
By Lynne Marek
Johnson Publishing named Kierna Mayo as editor-in-chief of its monthly magazine Ebony and Kyra Kyles as its new head of digital editorial, promoting two employees to fill a gap left after exits since 2014.
Chicago-based Johnson Publishing has been trying to steady itself amid financial challenges and editorial exits.
Former Ebony Editor Mitzi Miller, who also was editor of the company’s weekly Jet magazine, exited abruptly in February months after her predecessor, Amy DuBois Barnett, left in 2014. The private company has been navigating efforts to boost profits, including the end of print production for Jet magazine and the proposed sale of its historic photo archive.
Ms. Mayo, 45, will work out of the company’s New York office. She was hired at the magazine in 2011 as its editorial director and has been leading the magazine since Ms. Miller’s departure. The publication has produced three issues under her leadership, including covers that featured hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar, talk show host Wendy Williams and, for its current issue, singer Beyonce Knowles’ mother, Tina Knowles Lawson.
Ms. Mayo, who was a co-creator and founding editor-in-chief of Honey magazine, says she aims to revive a “maverick spirit” at Ebony that the magazine had in the 20th century, using a probing and provocative approach that tackles topics from celebrities to race relations. She also has written for Essence, Vibe and Marie Claire magazines, among other publications, the company said in a statement.
Ms. Kyles, 39, joined Johnson Publishing in 2011 also as a senior editor for Jet and most recently was the editorial director of that publication. In the past, she had produced a pop culture column called the “Kyles Files,” which had a weekly broadcast segment on Chicago-based WGN-TV.
Johnson Publishing CEO Desiree Rogers, who leads the company along with Chairman Linda Johnson Rice, said the two editors will work closely together on content for all the company’s channels.
“Both women have strong print as well as digital backgrounds,” Ms. Johnson said in an interview. “We want them to always be thinking across platforms.”
Lynne Marek is a reporter at Crain’s Chicago Business, where this story first appeared.
‘African American or N*gga?’ Asks TMZ
The gossip site poses an incredibly offensive question to its readers
TMZ, the gossip site which gained credibility as a reliable source of celebrity news by being the first to confirm the death of Michael Jackson (but then reported this past March that Lil’ Wayne was being read his last rites), has crossed a line from whence there is no coming back.
For reasons unknown, the site interviewed Suge Knight about the “N-word” and who has the right to use it, which led to him commenting that it’s more relevant to him than “African American,” as he’s “not African.” In tandem with this clip, TMZ ran a poll of it’s readers, asking just what should Black people be called: African American or n*gga. Really. This is a thing that happened.
(For those who are wondering, and we surely hope you won’t go give them any additional traffic, the results were 55% in favor of “n*gga” when we checked—and there were some 73,000+ votes. Not terribly surprising, as the comments section most often resembles a cyber-Klan meeting. Post-racial ‘Murrica!)
We’re done with TMZ and we hope that any self-respecting Black person who ever visited them for gossip or fun or folly or as a guilty pleasure will say the same. There is no coming back, no apology needed, no sensitivity training, nothing.
Bye, TMZ.
Advertising Age reported the launch of new Newport cigarettes will likely boost ad spending in magazines. The folks at Ebony and JET are alive with pleasure!
New Newport Smokes Likely to Give Publishers Spending Boost
Not Just E-Cigs: Ad Spending Behind Traditional Smokes Could Grow
By Michael Sebastian
Print publishers, get ready: There could be some substantial dollars coming your way as Lorillard Tobacco Co. prepares to launch two new cigarettes.
Magazines are already seeing a spending uptick from e-cigarette ads. But now ads for actual cigarettes could rise. For the first time since Congress granted it broad powers to regulate tobacco in 2009, the Food and Drug Administration has given a green light to two cigarette introductions. Lorillard’s Newport Non-Menthol Gold Box 100s and Newport Non-Menthol Gold Box will launch in the fourth quarter.
“We are proud to be the first company in the industry to receive authorization to begin marketing these new products in the U.S.,” said Murray Kessler, Lorillard’s chairman, president-CEO, in a statement.
It may not be the last to get the go-ahead. The move is seen as a signal that the FDA will begin ruling on roughly 4,000 requests from tobacco companies. The agency also rejected four applications, but said it cannot say why or who submitted them.
A spokesman said Lorillard will roll out the products with some marketing support, but wouldn’t elaborate. The nation’s third-largest tobacco company, Lorillard is already the industry’s second-biggest spender on print. The company spent $28.9 million promoting its Newport brand in print magazines last year, according to Kantar Media. Measured media accounts for only a portion of Big Tobacco’s marketing dollars; marketers have poured money into direct-mail campaigns, in-store promotions and product discounts.
The approval comes at an opportune time for Newport, which accounted for roughly 87% of Lorillard’s net sales in 2012. Newport Menthol is the top-selling menthol cigarette in the U.S., but the FDA is considering restrictions or a ban on menthol flavoring.
Ebony Looks to Its Past as It Moves Forward
By Matt Haber
DESIRÉE ROGERS, the C.E.O. of Johnson Publishing, which owns the magazines Ebony and Jet, and Fashion Fair, a makeup line aimed at women of color, can see many sights from her 21st-floor corner office across from Millennium Park. “This is a good view of Chicago,” Ms. Rogers told a recent visitor, gesturing at a panorama of Lake Michigan, Grant Park, Navy Pier, the Adler Planetarium and Soldier Field. But the sight that holds the most personal meaning for Ms. Rogers may be a portrait by Robin Harper just above her purple retro sofa, depicting the boxer Jack Johnson with a soft, wounded expression.
The portrait, Ms. Rogers said, reminded her of looking at pictures of Muhammad Ali in the pages of Ebony with her grandfather as a little girl growing up in New Orleans. “My grandfather really liked fighters,” she said. As they flipped through the magazines, she said, he’d tell her: “I hope you’re great. And I hope one day you’ll be in those pages.”
Ms. Rogers, 53, has been in the pages of Ebony many times since her first appearance in April 1989 in a photo from George H. W. Bush’s inauguration. Her name now sits atop the magazine’s masthead, just below that of her best friend, Linda Johnson Rice, chairwoman of the company.
Ms. Johnson Rice’s father, the late John H. Johnson, founded Johnson Publishing in 1942 with a $500 loan he secured against his mother’s furniture when he was 24. Since then, Ebony (the name was the suggestion of Ms. Johnson Rice’s mother, Eunice Johnson) has gone on to become one of the most recognizable African-American publications in the world. The Harper image was part of the huge art collection of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson (no relation to the boxer), and it graced the cover of the magazine in March 1978.
Ms. Rogers joined Johnson Publishing just over two years ago after a short, controversial run as White House social secretary for President Obama. Among the tasks she has set for herself is making Ebony a lifestyle brand.
“We started looking at the assets that we have and also to really think about the Johnsons and what they were creating,” Ms. Rogers said. “We have incredible loyalty and love from the community. We have great relationships with our clients, who have been rooting for us to turn around and modernize.”
In early November, Ebony.com introduced The Ebony Collection, an online shop that sells framed prints of 2,000 photos selected from the magazine’s million-image archive. Reprinted from the original negatives stored in a climate-controlled room, the images were selected by Ms. Johnson Rice, who spent months poring over her father’s original commissions. “We kept everything,” Ms. Johnson Rice said. “Every major event that’s happened to African-Americans since 1945, with Ebony as a repository for all those photographs and as a voice for all that happened.”
Paying respect to history is a theme repeatedly invoked in the Johnson Publishing offices, so much so that it was no surprise running into Henry Louis Gates Jr., the director of the Harvard W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, in a conference room. Professor Gates was there with a film crew shooting a PBS series, “Many Rivers to Cross: The History of the African American People,” and was being shown images from the archives by Ms. Johnson Rice for an episode that will cover 1940 to 1980. “My family got Ebony,” he said later. “Every family subscribed to Ebony and Jet if they were black.
“They still have cultural resonance among all classes of African-Americans,” Professor Gates said. “Very few organs of journalism reach a wider swath of the African-American community than Ebony and Jet.”
In 2013, that community will once again welcome the Ebony Fashion Fair, which began bringing high fashion to 160 cities across the country in 1958, but has been on hiatus since Eunice Johnson’s death in 2010. (“It’s the No. 1 question I get as I travel the country,” Ms. Rogers said. ‘When is the show coming back, Desirée?’”)
Ms. Rogers and Ms. Johnson Rice are also working closely with Suzanne Lovell, an interior designer, on a line of Ebony-branded textiles, with concepts being developed for bags, Hermès-inspired bangles and other accessories based on the flamboyant wall and floor coverings commissioned for Johnson Publishing’s original headquarters. Eunice Johnson’s personal style will be honored in March when the Chicago History Museum exhibits 60 pieces of haute couture culled from her collection of 7,000.
The coming year is also the 40th anniversary of Fashion Fair Cosmetics, which has grown from a direct-mail promotion in Ebony into an internationally available line of 240 products. Clarissa Wilson, president of Fashion Fair, said that the search is under way for the face of an anniversary campaign.
Then there are the magazines themselves. Ebony has been redesigned: its original logo, a red banner with white lettering based on Life magazine’s, has been replaced by one that Amy DuBois Barnett, the editor in chief, described as “retro cool.” Jet, the 61-year-old digest, is also due for a redesign, and has recently begun getting attention for a stronger, more youthful voice (the magazine recently featured its first same-sex wedding announcement).
In addition to commissioning the new logo, Ms. Barnett, who took over as editor of Ebony two years ago, added a slogan to the magazine’s spine that could function as a cri de coeur for all of Johnson Publishing as it extends Ebony across various platforms: “It’s More Than a Magazine, It’s a Movement.”
“It’s not just another magazine, it’s something far greater,” Ms. Barnett said. “There are very few magazines that hold the iconic place within their community and with their readers that Ebony does.”
That may explain why some readers were taken aback by the appearance of NeNe Leakes, one of the “Real Housewives of Atlanta,” on the cover of the December 2012-January 2013 issue. Ms. Leakes, who also stars in the NBC sitcom “The New Normal,” was photographed in a bathtub full of diamonds holding a gold-rimmed Champagne flute, an image that struck some as the wrong one for the magazine, especially given that the issue also contained the Ebony Power 100 list of the most influential African-Americans, a conceit celebrated with a gala at Lincoln Center in New York.
“I think NeNe Leakes is fabulous and I very much respect what she’s been able to accomplish in her life,” Ms. Barnett said. “We didn’t shoot NeNe in a business suit sitting behind a desk with a briefcase. We shot her in a very tongue-in-cheek setting to glorify the thing that turned her into a pop culture icon.”
She added: “That speaks to our sense of humor. That speaks to the sense of irony we can also have. There’s no reason Ebony magazine should only feature staid and conservative content.”
It’s hard to imagine another general-interest magazine editor having to justify putting a reality star on her cover. But then, few other editors are running a magazine that once employed Martin Luther King Jr. as an advice columnist and won a Pulitzer Prize for a photograph of Dr. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King. “As with any magazine, it’s the same kind of work, but there’s just another layer of historical responsibility,” Ms. Barnett said.
“We’ve been here so long,” said Ms. Johnson Rice in her own corner office, which has its own, equally impressive view of Lake Michigan. “The history and richness runs so deep within the community. We own this. It’s personal. It’s very personal.”
Ebony Founder Eunice W. Johnson Lived a Life of Smart Moves
By Linda Johnson Rice
Eunice W. Johnson
Founder, Ebony; Creator, Fashion Fair
One thing a lot of people don’t know about my mother is that she actually selected the name Ebony for the magazine that she and my father founded. While my father was still in search of a name, she suggested that they reach for their roots and offered Ebony as a contender. Now, the magazine reaches millions of readers on a monthly basis. Coming up with the name was one of many smart moves made by my mother, Eunice Johnson.
Originally from Selma, Ala., she moved to Chicago and became what I would call a real steel magnolia. Her negotiation skills were very genteel and ladylike but tough. She was very smart and savvy in the way she conducted business, and this is one of the reasons she was one of the most successful businesswomen of her time.
A stickler for perfection, my mother believed in things being fair and equitable. I will never forget the time we visited a certain designer, and my mother was hoping to purchase key pieces for one of her fashion shows. She sat down with her checkbook open and was uncapping her pen to begin writing the check. She then paused and said to the designer, “I don’t think I like that price.” The designer tried to persuade my mother that the price was right, but she stuck to her guns and we left. The next thing I knew flowers, perfumes and phone calls were pouring into our hotel room—all from the designer, who was ready to give my mother a better deal!
When you came away from spending a day with Eunice Johnson, you came away with more knowledge than you had when you started. Her class, style and presence were second to none. My mother, who passed away in 2010, had an innovative, entrepreneurial spirit and because of her impeccable forward thinking, our brands—Ebony, Jet and Fashion Fair—are still revered in the African-American community. She always told me you had to strive for the best. Johnson Publishing is as relevant today as it was in 1942 when it was founded. As we move ahead, we are going to develop more into a lifestyle brand. We will evoke an Ebony lifestyle—but it will really be a Johnson lifestyle.
