A View From the Top

Gossip columnist Liz Smith says she can't live without it. "It's the media's own little secret publication," she gushes. "So clever, so comprehensive." No, she's not talking about the most in-the-know celebrity-tracking tabloid. Ms. Smith is full of praise for the Week, the offbeat newsweekly that has the magazine world's least modest tagline: "All you need to know about everything that matters."

The Week began in Britain, where it has been published for nine years; this month it celebrates its fourth year of publication in America. It is owned by the eccentric British publisher Felix Dennis, best known in the States for launching the raunchy beer-and-babes lad magazines Maxim and Stuff. And few gave it much chance for success when it first started.

The conventional wisdom was that stateside readers already had Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report. We did not need yet another newsweekly, especially one that did no original reporting but just recycled news and columns from other sources around the world. As it turns out, the doubters were wrong. The magazine now has a circulation of more than 300,000, virtually all subscription.

The Week has become a must-read for top CEOs, politicians, celebrities, and Ms. Smith. The average household income of the Week's readers is $137,000. "Time and Newsweek have abdicated the high-end market," the magazine's general manager, Justin Smith, said. "But those are exactly the readers who like our publication." In fact, Mr. Smith sees his primary competitor as the Economist, where he once worked.

"We are growing faster in both circulation and advertising," he said. Even though the magazine limits advertising to only 30% of its pages, its ad revenues rose by 66% last year. Mr. Smith says the magazine is on target to show a profit next year.

The magazine was founded by Sir Jolyon Connell, a one-time White House reporter who came up with the idea after watching West Wing staffers prepare daily briefing books for the president. After returning to Britain, Sir Jolyon launched the publication with a few friends acting as editors; Mr. Dennis received a copy and was so taken with the concept that he made an offer for the Week.

The British edition now has a circulation of 100,000. About the Week, Mr. Dennis has said "Spend 40 minutes with it, and I guarantee you can have a conversation with anyone about anything that happened during the week."

The magazine's editor is Pulitzer Prize-winning news man William Falk. To produce it, a staff of about 18 readers and editors go through hundreds of publications from around the world, debating and distilling news reports and opinion columns. A recent issue included excerpts from National Review Online, the Times of India, the London Sun, Science, Entertainment Weekly, and Gazeta Wyborcza as well as a recipe from America's Test Kitchen Live! and a "Steal of the Week" real estate listing for a Gothic Revival house in Madison, Ind., which is for sale at $289,000.

The Week has received additional buzz from the occasional lunches it hosts at Michael Jordan's Steakhouse for opinion leaders, press, society figures, and celebrities. Sir Harry Evans, the magazine's editor at large, moderates the discussions. In March the magazine hosted an Opinion Forum for columnists and op-ed writers in Washington, with the Aspen Institute as a partner. It also has a relationship with the Conference Board, through which it holds breakfast forums with CEOs.

"We have these relationships because we are non-partisan," Mr. Smith said. "We are for those time pressed people who want to read a great variety of opinions and then make up their minds for themselves."

The most recent New York lunch had Henry Kissinger and former State Department official Dennis Ross discussing Middle East peace over poached salmon and asparagus. The place was jammed, and the audience was a high-low mix. Israeli ambassador Dore Gold; Somaia Barghouti, a representative of the Palestinian mission to the United Nations; prize-winning architect Richard Meier, and ex- New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal were there. So were talk show host Tony Danza and actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, in a bright Hawaiian shirt.

Although nobody has reported what was said during the discussion - except Mr. Kissinger's concern that there may be "20 or 30 nuclear powers" within a few years - at least three columns wrote about the luncheon's eclectic guest list.

In a salute to their British roots, the Week will host a dinner and discussion this evening at the Soho Grand Hotel on the impact of the upcoming British election on America. Sir Harry Evans will lead the discussion with former Clinton adviser, Sidney Blumenthal. An eclectic group of buzz-worthy guests is once again expected.

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This month marks an anniversary for another magazine - one everyone knew would be a smash hit right from the start. O: The Oprah Magazine celebrates its fifth year with its May issue, the largest in its history. And what a success it has been. At a time when many women's magazines have experienced tough times, O has surged.

It is the rare magazine that was profitable almost from the start, and Cathleen Black, president of Hearst Magazines, has said that O is now Hearst's second-largest moneymaker after Cosmopolitan. In the past five years, circulation has increased 300% to more than 2 million, and last year advertising revenues topped $207 million. More than half of the 404 pages in its anniversary issue are ads. Although several publishers had approached her in the past, Ms. Winfrey was never interested in starting a magazine. But Ms. Black and Ellen Levine, editor of Good Housekeeping, made a presentation to Ms. Winfrey at a time when she was somewhat disappointed at the reception of her movie "Beloved." Coincidentally, a woman in the audience at her television show had just asked why she didn't start a magazine.

Her friend Gayle King, O's editor at large, said, "I think the line that got her because she loves reading books was 'Imagine a book that people could read every month and is your words and philosophy.'"

The anniversary issue includes just such a book, a special gift to readers. It is a compilation of Oprah's past 60 columns, called "What I Know for Sure" and sponsored by Dove Soap. In fact, Ms. Winfrey has just announced the launch of a book series based on other articles that have run in the magazine. The first title will be "Live Your Best Life" and will be published by Oxmoor House, a division of Time Incorporated's Birmingham, Ala.-based Southern Progress Corporation. The collaboration marks a rare Time-Hearst tie-in.

Ms. Winfrey has said she is very pleased with the magazine, and she gives much of the credit for the editorial quality to its current editor, Amy Gross, a magazine veteran who was previously the editor of Elle and Mirabella. At a recent New York Women in Communications Incorporated luncheon - at which Miss Gross received a Matrix Award - Ms. Winfrey said Ms. Gross had taught her everything she now knows about magazine publishing.

She also said that, when she met Ms. Gross, who had left the magazine industry and was concentrating on Buddhist meditation, with plans to go to graduate school and study psychology, they agreed on everything except one subject. "My dogs right now are at the Four Seasons drinking Fiji water," Ms. Winfrey told the Matrix audience. "But when I asked Amy if she liked dogs at that first interview, she said, 'not much,' and, in fact, said she thought people made much too big a fuss about them." It has, it seems, been their only major disagreement.

For the fifth anniversary issue, Miss Winfrey, who adorned every single cover in various attire, donned a specially handcrafted shiny all-metal evening gown designed by Narciso Rodriguez to fit her body. She also gave 100 members of the staff a tax-free bonus of $5,000 to mark the occasion.