Research Task Two: Who are Conde Nast?

 Who are Conde Nast?

What does Conde Nast do?

Conde Nast is a mass media company, founded by Conde Montrose Nast in 1909. The company controls a number of major magazines globally, such as VOGUE, Architectural Digest, The New Yorker and many more, attracting over 900 million consumers every year combined.

The Ownership of Conde Nast:

Conde Nast itself is a subsidiary company of Advance Publications, an American media company, which also holds ownership of another media giant, Reddit, along with partial ownership in Warner Brothers Studios.

The History of Conde Nast:

In 1909, Conde Montrose Nast purchased VOGUE, his first magazine, which was merely a New York fashion magazine at the time. By 1916, Conde Nast introduced British Vogue, making them the first ever publisher of an overseas edition of a previously existing magazine. Furthermore, in 1985, Conde Nast purchased The New Yorker, another popular New York magazine, for a whopping $200 million, and the company still holds ownership to this day.

Conde Nast is regarded to be the originator of the "class publication" magazine genre, which focused on a specific target market, rather than merely trying to appeal to the masses.

In 1959, Conde Nast was merged with Advance Publications, after being bought by Samuel Newhouse for $5,000,000.

VOGUE:

Established by Arthur Turnure in 1892, seventeen years before being purchased by Conde Nast, VOGUE was initially a weekly newspaper, with the intent of celebrating "The ceremonial side of life" according to the Turnure.With their initial price point being $0.10 ($3.50 in today's money) VOGUE instantly targeted upper-class New Yorkers, rather than the everyday public, with the intention of producing content tailored to their way of life.

Turnure died in 1906, three years before the company was purchased by Conde Nast, who would go on to completely remodel the company, transforming it into a more feminine magazine, raising its price, and even starting overseas editions in the following decade. VOGUE saw surges in profits during both The Great Depression and The Second World War. VOGUE began to become renowned for their celebrity appearances, which would dominate the front pages, further increasing sales. The company became a monthly magazine in 1973, after being circulated weekly for over 80 years. Finally, in 1995, due to the recent phenomenon of The Internet, VOGUE released its own website, where its magazines could be viewed digitally, as well as in print format.

New Yorker:

Founded in 1925 by couple Harold Ross and Jane Grant, with the intention of creating a magazine with more sophisticated humour than its competitors. Ross partnered with Raoul Fleischmann, forming the F-R Publishing Company. Over time, the magazine began to specialise in fiction writing, publishing short stories in every issue When it was taken over by Conde Nast in 1985, the magazine was generating just $6 million annually, however was still purchased for the immense figure of $200 million. Over recent decades, The New Yorker has utilised The Internet to show elements of their print copies, as well as exclusive online-only content, and in 2014, the magazine introduced a paywall into their website, requiring a paid subscription in order to access full content.

Developments in the 21st Century:

In 2011, Conde Nast began delivering digital subscriptions of their magazines for iPads, making it the first major publisher to do this.

In April of 2019, the current CEO of Conde Nast, Roger Lynch, took over, planning to further increase the revenue Conde Nast gained from its readers.

In 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Conde Nast was recorded to have had a 45% drop in its advertising revenues, due to print copies becoming temporarily unavailable for purchase.