Not Much 'Cachet' - lifestyle magazine finally debuts

Byline: Julia M. Klein

It's already been ballyhooed in The New York Times, Newsday, and Time magazine as part of a post-9/11 nesting trend. Now, more than two years after its first test issue, two name changes, and a delayed launch, Cachet magazine is slated to arrive on the doorsteps of affluent suburbanites on February 28.

The new lifestyle title, originally set to debut last October, has been plagued by delays, a rash of competitors, and talk that disgruntled freelancers had yet to be paid. Rumor was, Cachet was in serious trouble. But in January, vice president and publisher Brendan Banahan penned a note to advertisers promising a March issue after a "volatile late 2002 advertising market." And one writer said she had finally received a check for a story completed in August. "Like [with] all start-ups, sometimes cash is tight," Banahan told FOLIO:.

R. Peter Hagen, Jr., president of Cachet Media, Inc., says a "miserable market" for advertising had doomed the fall launch. But there have been other problems. After publishing two test issues, Cachet formed a joint venture with Scripps Networks' Fine Living cable network and Web site, and the magazine, renamed Fine Living, published a February 2002 issue.

"On paper, it looked great," Hagen says. "In actuality, it was not as great a fit." The cable channel had a broader focus, one that included urban dwellers and households in smaller markets. And the depressed advertising environment didn't help, Hagen explains.

Cachet will be distributed to select suburban readers of about 70 newspapers - including Newsday, the Detroit Free Press, and the Los Angeles Daily News - in 25 top markets. It will target more than one million households, those headed by people ages 35 to 54 and whose total income exceeds $75,000. Editorial consultant Susan Wyland (a former top editor of Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple) describes Cachet as "home-centric, but not a shelter book," with a viewpoint that is "uniquely suburban." According to its prospectus, the magazine will offer a range of lifestyle content - with articles on cars, money, travel, sports, health, hobbies, "transitions," "connecting," and more.

Wyland, who is now helping in the search for a permanent editor-in-chief, says the magazine will have "a great home in every issue," as well as a strong service component. A technology story in the premiere issue, for example, will discuss how to install a home theater. The prospectus says Cachet should appeal to those who "desire simplicity and convenience" and "want quality consumption, not conspicuous consumption." It remains to be seen if this vision will differentiate it from Real Simple, Chic Simple, and Budget Living. Indeed, it remains to be seen if Cachet, after all its birthing troubles, will have any cachet in the marketplace.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Copyright by Media Central Inc., A PRIMEDIA Company. All rights reserved.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group