INDIANAPOLIS -- The Saturday Evening Post, a centuries-old publication that helped make illustrator Norman Rockwell a household name and showcased some of America's greatest writers, is returning to its roots to show readers the value of a quiet read in an increasingly frenetic digital age.
A redesign launching with its July/August issue combines the Post's hallmarks -- art and fiction -- with folksy commentary and health articles. The revamped Post promises a more relaxing option for people who do much of their reading online, or are simply tired of special-interest magazines crammed into tight niches.
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"There is a void of magazines now that do emphasize art and creative writing and fiction," Publisher Joan SerVaas said.
But industry experts say the Post -- which traces its origins to Benjamin Franklin, though it had a hiatus from 1969 to 1971 -- risks alienating its core readers while trying to buck a decades-long shift away from general-interest magazines.
"The Saturday Evening Post is no longer my father's magazine; it's my grandfather's magazine," said Samir A. Husni, who publishes an annual guide to consumer magazines as director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi.
Although the Post is making concessions to the digital age, through weekly updates to its Web site and a profile on the social-networking site Facebook, Husni said those efforts could shatter the habits of longtime readers without necessarily drawing new ones.
"Reading the magazine from A to Z should be a complete experience (so) that I don't need to go some other place to fulfill that experience," he said.
The magazine, whose circulation peaked at 6 million in 1960, now has 350,000 readers, most of whom are women over 45. That's low compared with the general interest, health and lifestyle magazines with which it competes, such as Prevention, with circulation of 3.3 million, and Guideposts, at 2 million.
Maureen Mercho, chief operating officer for the Post, said ad sales had dropped because of the recession, prompting the magazine to look for ways to broaden its base. "That probably pushed us" to do the redesign, she said.
Post officials also hope that by mixing the magazine's popular art and health features with such content as commentary by former CBS News "Sunday Morning" host Charles Osgood, poetry by Ray Bradbury and fiction by John Hemingway, grandson of Ernest Hemingway, the magazine could boost circulation to 500,000 in the coming years.
Mercho said some people are surprised that the Post still exists. She suspects that's because the magazine is primarily available only to subscribers; fewer than 5,000 copies an issue are sold on newsstands. But she believes the relaunch will increase awareness of the magazine.
To complement the magazine, the Post has relaunched its Web site, offering new posts each Saturday evening -- naturally -- with retrospective, art, blogs, health coverage and other content.
America's love affair with the Post and its predecessor date to 1728, when Benjamin Franklin founded the Pennsylvania Gazette in Philadelphia. New owners changed the publication's name to The Saturday Evening Post in 1821, but it remained a newspaper for decades.
By the 1870s, the content had shifted toward entertainment, with fiction on the front page. The page count began creeping up as the Post became a true magazine with more advertising, human interest features, fiction, poetry and cartoons.
George Horace Lorimer, who became editor in 1899, made the cover into an artists' showcase, featuring J.C. Leyendecker, N.C. Wyeth and others. In 1916, the Post began a nearly 50-year relationship with Norman Rockwell, whose cover work became a hallmark of the magazine.
But mass-market magazines suffered as reading habits changed, more people watched television and specialty publications became popular, Husni said.
The Post ceased publication in 1969, crumpling under financial pressure the TV-print war placed on parent Curtis Publishing. SerVaas' father, Beurt, revived the magazine in 1971 as a quarterly publication after Rockwell announced on television that Beurt SerVaas was considering bringing back the Post, generating broad interest.
The magazine, now published six times a year, has been in the family since, with Joan SerVaas becoming publisher in 2007. It is now owned by a not-for-profit group set up by the SerVaas family that also owns children's magazines Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty and Turtle.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20090705/LOCAL/907050381
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