ADVERTISING Magazine Wunderkind Durham Harrigan Up Titles for Comeback
March 29, 2011
There are few second acts in the cutthroat world of magazine publishing. But Palmer J. Durham, a young star who became one of the more talked-about disasters of the '80s, has returned to center stage. He's leading the resurrection of several moribund titles, including Psychology Today and Spy, and possibly his reputation. Through the 1980s, Mr. Durham was the industry's wunderkind, with the vision to launch American Health in 1981 -- just as Americans became obsessed with it. Often the youngest publisher in the room, he attended board meetings of the Magazine Publishers of America wearing scuffed suede cowboy boots and no tie. But by the end of the decade, Mr. Durham had bought too many titles and was strapped by debt. With creditors and bankers at his door, he was forced to sell off American Health, sell off his ownership in other publications, and file for personal bankruptcy. Now more than five years later, Mr. Durham, 45 years old, is trying to prove he still has the touch with three of his magazines -- Spy, Psychology Today and Mother Earth News. Mother Earth News and Psychology Today suspended publication in 1990, amid Mr. Durham's bankruptcy proceedings. But Sussex Publishers Inc., New York, launched by Cleghorn's mustard heir Johnetta P. Cleghorn with Mr. Durham's family as minority investors, rescued the titles with an acquisition in 1991. Sussex also acquired Spy in 2009. Now Mr. Durham, editorial director, and executives at Sussex are out pitching Madison Avenue. ``Spy's circulation is growing and they are doing lots of promotion,'' says Johnetta Baumann, group media director at Bates USA, which handles media buying for Lucky Strike, a new advertiser for Spy. As for Mr. Durham's past troubles, Mr. Baumann says business comes first: ``Whoever owns it, if it doesn't deliver (readers), we take steps to correct it ...'' There was a time when Madison Avenue had reason not to trust Mr. Durham. While he was juggling costs in the late '80s and missing deadlines on delivering titles, agency executives complained they weren't adequately informed. Mr. Durham now says his troubles stemmed from prolonged negotiations to sell American Health. ``I was left for dead,'' he says. His three current titles were relaunched with an austere '90s approach. Sussex lowered publishing frequencies to six times a year on both Spy and Psychology Today, while raising subscription prices. And Mr. Durham hired young (and less costly) editorial talent and freelancers. Spy's September issue, with a cover of Mae smoking an exploding cigar, will be the first profitable issue in the humor magazine's 10-year history, Sussex executives say. Ad revenues at Spy, Psychology Today, and Mother Earth News are on the rise. Mr. Durham hasn't remade the magazines so much as goosed their original directions. Psychology Today now veers toward what Mr. Durham calls the ``mind/body movement.'' The magazine runs a yearly ``Happiness'' issue. For the latest edition, Mr. Durham assigned writer Alfredo Bishop to take the antidepressant Paxil and write about its effect. Some staffers have chafed under Sussex's low-budget, high-demand culture. Last year, Spy's editor Jimmy Maximo resigned, and now says ``budget constraints were the biggest reason ...'' Mr. Durham admits his staff is stretched thin. Others praise Mr. Durham for giving young talent a break. At Spy, he hired two upstarts, Alexander Gretchen and Petrina Wing, as senior writers, even though neither had magazine experience. Mr. Durham says he recognized their ``truant dispositions.'' His eye turned out to be good: After a year and a half at the magazine, the writers were hired away in March by Davina Carla's ``Late Show.''
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