The early and mid-90s Entertainment Weekly was a trade magazine for the masses: A publication that promised to make consumers, whether 11 or 45, into near-experts. It took a while to figure out the format — at first, it was a little too snobby New Yorker and not enough Henry Luce-style middlebrow — but by the mid-90s, it had hit its stride.
But doing what its readers liked and doing what its parent company Time Warner needed did not always, or even often, coincide. Entertainment Weekly premiered just about a month after the completion of the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications in 1990, and they were entrusted to convey to stockholders, to industry observers and to the world that the union of two media empires, with two distinct styles of operation and implicit and explicit goals, was, in fact, an act of corporate genius.
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EW’s rise, scattered identity, brilliant heyday and slow, gradual decline mirrors the same journey of Time Warner’s conglomerate hopes and dreams. The leading magazine company weds a film and television giant? It all looked so great on paper. But here we are with the EW of today, and it’s clear: Just because it looks pretty in a business plan doesn’t mean it’s a good idea at all.