She will have to speak out a bit, though, probably this week, if a pending deal is finalized for magazine giant Hearst Corp. to take over half of Miramax’s ownership interest in Talk and handle its production and distribution. Hearst will also share the risk. Talk isn’t cheap: the launch will cost up to $50 million. Since she and publisher-partner Ron Galotti have equity stakes, they want to show profits quickly. There’s little question that Talk, which will strive for a circulation of 500,000 with its first issue, will be the most talked-about magazine debut in years. And do battle with Vanity Fair.
So what’s it going to be like? Some Brown info bits, from news reports, from associates and from the wafting vapors of the New York media hothouse: part New Yorker, part Vanity Fair, it will be a ““cultural search engine’’ and have the raw, direct voice of e-mail (Brown herself is notably pre-Internet). It is subtitled ““The American Conversation.’’ She hired two New Yorker editors, but also four from smaller, scruffier weeklies: The New York Observer, New York Press, the Forward–and Legal Times, whose current editor Tom Watson will edit more serious, newsy stories. It will evoke European magazines like Paris Match and Stern (new art director Leslie Vinson comes from German Vogue). It will have to have celebrities on the cover to fight today’s vicious newsstand wars.
But most of all, it will be Brown’s blend of gossip, pop culture, serious stuff–all attention-grabbing. Part Tiffany, part tabloid. Talk will have to build a ““brand,’’ and the brand is Brown. Indeed, before they called it Talk, they almost called it Brown’s.
