Mr. Magazine

“There is a digital research company called Kantar Millward Brown and we do a lot of convergent partnerships with our partners HGTV and we obviously do a lot of research to see how a campaign does and whenever print was added into the mix, everything went up. Likelihood to buy went up; preference for the brand went up. It happens so often that I literally said to the director who was running this digital research company, I keep noticing that print keeps raising the numbers. And he said that was always true. And I’ve always felt this way, but it continues to be proven by the research. Print adds a lot to the formula.” Vicki Wellington…

“I sometimes take the magazine home and look at it in home-lighting because I know that’s how people are going to look at it, not in an office setting with calibrated fluorescent lights. They’re going to probably have a 60-watt bulb in their lamp. So I ask myself, can you see the type? Can you read it okay? Things like that are fun for me when making the magazine. So, print matters because it makes the experience of seeing a story special.” Sara Peterson…

HGTV Magazine will be celebrating its 10^th birthday this year in October. But the magazine is taking a celebratory stance in every issue, according to its Chief Revenue Officer Vicki Wellington. It’s doing so by celebrating phenomenal subscription sales, renewals and newsstand numbers, and by, according to Editor in Chief Sara Peterson, providing the value of insider advice from trusted experts, as well as the enjoyment of taking a look inside real people’s homes with its “decorating truths” and upbeat, friendly content. Even during a pandemic, HGTV Magazine seeks to bring light-hearted and useful content to its loyal readers. And for that colorful continuity, I’m sure we’re all very thankful.

I spoke with Vicki and Sara recently about the 10^th birthday and all their celebratory plans for this powerhouse brand. And about the special issue that will showcase why the magazine’s longevity was never in question. It’s a fun interview with two people who have a mutual respect and camaraderie that shines through in their conversation. A conversation that covers the earlier, darker days of the pandemic, yet shows the hope and determination of people who never gave up on their mission: to provide service journalism as heartily and enjoyably as possible, without forgetting what the entire world was going through and showing that compassion accordingly.

So, please enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Vicki Wellington, Senior Vice President, Group Publishing Director & Chief Revenue Officer, and Sara Peterson, Editor in Chief, HGTV Magazine.

But first the sound-bites:

On how HGTV Magazine is doing during the changes the pandemic brought (Sara Peterson): We’ve always been “change is good” type of people, so we’re good at adapting and keeping on going; it’s so nice to look back on the year of the pandemic, to look back instead of just being in the midst of it. Whenever things are challenging or tough, either in your personal life or in the world in general, I always like to focus on the work and the great distraction and fun of making a magazine. That didn’t change.

On whether the business side of selling is easy to do virtually (Vicki Wellington): It is totally different. But I will say this, one thing that’s positive is now our meetings are super-tight and condensed. So, where we might have had an hour with an advertiser or a client, now it’s much less time but it’s great because we focus in on what we want to talk about. So remarkably, it’s really been fine. We’ve gotten clients on the phone; everybody is open for meetings. I’m amazed with all that’s gone on, HGTV Magazine is having a great year.

On HGTV Magazine being one of the few magazines that did not cut its print frequency during the pandemic (Vicki Wellington): And still has a nice variety of advertisers. Fifty percent are “home” advertisers, but fifty percent are still other things. We get a lot of food, a lot of business and finance. If you’re on Zoom constantly, you love when the magazine arrives and you get to sit back, relax and enjoy it. And in this case, really do something with it. Shop from it and create a new world for yourself inside. And I think business has reflected that as hard as it’s been.

On creating “fun” during the dark days of the pandemic (Sara Peterson): Well, you have fun momentum. You are this brand and I have a lot of adjectives that I can substitute for fun: positive outlook, upbeat, friendly, colorful; that attitude and personality. And the conversational copy that we have in the magazine. I think those are ways that we deliver “fun.”

On Vicki Wellington being the chief revenue officer for both HGTV Magazine and the Food Network Magazine (Vicki Wellington): Yes, I’m a lucky girl, Samir. Who’s luckier than me? I mean, Food Network and HGTV are gigantic global brands. It’s awesome and I love it. And I haven’t been here with Sara for the whole 10 years, I came in about a year and a half ago. So she and her team deserve the credit much more than I do. I’m actually the pandemic publisher for HGTV Magazine. I’m just very lucky to be here.

On the plans for celebrating the magazine’s 10^th birthday (Sara Peterson): This was a lot of planning. You can imagine. All the thinking about how you’re going to make this issue special. You only get one 10th birthday to do. I’ve always loved the fact that in magazines, you always get another issue, so you always have another take to do that story you wanted or another cover idea, but the feeling of having a birthday issue, the 10th birthday, and we did have a fifth birthday issue, but 10 is bigger. So the pressure was on, but also the opportunities were there. How were we going to celebrate ourselves and all we’ve done. but also still deliver new ideas and new content in the magazine, not just do a look-back?

On the role print plays in this digital age (Vicki Wellington): People want less time on the computer and we can prove it. Right now our subscriptions are up. They’re purchased digitally, but they’re print subscriptions. Just as an example, our renewals are up. HGTV Magazine happens to have one of the highest renewal rates in the company. And that’s between $30 and $45, so that’s a lot of money as you know for a magazine subscription.

On anything either of them would like to add (Vicki Wellington): Just that HGTV Magazine is having a very strong year. I think the product continues to serve a purpose, part of a major power brand. It’s nice to have such a powerful brand that’s so well-recognized and loved. And it’s safe; it’s not about the pandemic; it’s not about politics. And I think advertising has backed all that up in every category. All my vital signs are good. Subscriptions are good; newsstand is good; renewals are good; advertising is good. Those are all the positives.

On what keeps them up at night (Vicki Wellington): After going through a pandemic, you know what, I don’t worry as much. It really put things into perspective. What am I worrying about? Once we’ve gotten through this crazy time and we don’t have to worry about just going out of our houses or going out without gloves. So honestly for me, I don’t worry about a lot because we’ve lived through this crazy time. The minor things at this point would be just doing a good job and getting my work done.

On what keeps them up at night (Sara Peterson): I find myself thinking how much better I’m sleeping lately. There were times in 2020 where many nights I was wide awake between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. I would think about people I missed, work, things I needed to do, was my Amazon order going to arrive on time. Did I get the groceries delivered or should I go there? Should I buy more masks and which masks, that sort of stuff. And having that tone down a little, the anxiety level, that hopefully we’ve all lowered some anxiety, sleeping better and also knowing there’s a plan now for the immediate future, has helped.

And now the lightly edited Mr. Magazine™ interview with Vicki Wellington, Senior Vice President, Group Publishing Director & Chief Revenue Officer, and Sara Peterson, Editor in Chief, HGTV Magazine. 

Samir Husni: Change is the only constant in the magazine media business, and with everything that has happened within the last year, between the pandemic and the unrest the country has seen, change has been paramount. So, with those changes, how are things going at HGTV Magazine?

Sara Peterson: We’ve always been “change is good” type of people, so we’re good at adapting and keeping on going; it’s so nice to look back on the year of the pandemic, to look back instead of just being in the midst of it. Whenever things are challenging or tough, either in your personal life or in the world in general, I always like to focus on the work and the great distraction and fun of making a magazine. That didn’t change. 

We still had readers that expected a magazine on the newsstand, in the mailbox, and that was like a comfort; it’s always a comfort, but especially in times of enormous change and unknowns. And that’s a constant. We know how many pages we had to fill; every issue we had to plan the stories as usual; we still had to do photo shoots and write stories and do layouts. I found myself especially thankful to have that work that I love and the people who I really enjoy working with to do those things that we know how to do and that we’ve been doing for 10 years now. 

Vicki Wellington: And I’m shocked, as I think the world is, that everyone acclimated so quickly. I was one of the last people out of the Hearst Tower. I was packing up my stuff and I found myself thinking, how was all of this going to work? And remarkably, everyone did great. It really is amazing what people are capable of doing and learning and troubleshooting; every one of us had all kinds of IT issues.

Sara Peterson: I had not heard of Zoom; I had never done Zoom. 

Vicki Wellington: It’s just amazing. And I’m impressed, to be honest, not only with our team, but with the entire company and the entire country and world. I think we’ve discovered this whole other avenue, the silver lining to the insanity of it all. The ability of people to adjust and adapt because you have to immediately.

Sara Peterson: And it was overnight. Literally, one day we were in the office, another day we were told not to come in. And we didn’t know for how long, but it was literally overnight that we all started working from home. From watching the news and the cases that were popping up, I had the thought in early March that everyone should have a laptop. 

Before the pandemic, we didn’t all have laptops. We really collaborated and worked in the office, routing physical paper copies of stories. Sure, we emailed and we had Slack, and we used those tools in the office sometimes, but not anything to the extent of physically sharing and routing in the office. So it was a real shift to virtual work.

Samir Husni: When it comes to the business side, the selling part, was it easy to do that virtually?

Vicki Wellington: It is totally different. But I will say this, one thing that’s positive is now our meetings are super-tight and condensed. So, where we might have had an hour with an advertiser or a client, now it’s much less time but it’s great because we focus in on what we want to talk about. So remarkably, it’s really been fine. We’ve gotten clients on the phone; everybody is open for meetings. I’m amazed with all that’s gone on, HGTV Magazine is having a great year. 

You know it’s a birthday year, and of course we’ll talk about that, but we’re up. I don’t know if you’ve seen our most recent issue, which I love, the July/August issue; I just love it. Every issue Sara does I love. 

Sara Peterson: Oh, thank you, Vicki. I don’t know if you felt this, but because the whole world was in this together, no one could look ahead that far during this time and that made it kind of easier, because we were all trying to figure it out together. If you’re the only one changing, it can be more difficult. There were moments in the beginning where we would ask ourselves how we wanted to do this, but we adapted very well.

Vicki Wellington: And when all our screens were blank and no one had their cameras on, we put the rule in that our staff show their faces, that’s how we roll. But so many people not on staff had a blank screen, so you’re presenting to clients and you’re excited, but it’s difficult speaking to a blank screen. 

But think about what went on this year. Again, this brand, HGTV was also a silver lining, the perfect brand to help the country during this. We played a part and to be a piece of such a big, fun, exciting brand that’s all about the home where everybody is living, what an advantage from my side, the business side, because that’s what was hot and happening. We saw the advantage of that, our subscriptions are way up, everybody has been into their homes, and who does home better than us?

We happened to have been lucky and coincidentally had research out in the field; we worked with a company called MarketCast and had this national research study being done while we were home. So we knew people painted and made things, did things they never did before and they took their money and created rooms for themselves and took on projects and were successful at them. So what an advantage to be at HGTV Magazine during this crazy year. 

Sara Peterson: We delivered what we always had, but in an even bigger way because we were doing more. So cleaning, decorating, DIY gardening; all of it, inside and out, but we were also changing rooms into offices, making them dual-functioning. That’s how we touched on the times. We’re all more intimately acquainted with our homes now than we ever were before. 

Samir Husni: During the pandemic, HGTV is one of the few magazines that did not cut its print frequency and is still doing very well. Still has the same number of pages.

Vicki Wellington: And still has a nice variety of advertisers. Fifty percent are “home” advertisers, but fifty percent are still other things. We get a lot of food, a lot of business and finance. If you’re on Zoom constantly, you love when the magazine arrives and you get to sit back, relax and enjoy it. And in this case, really do something with it. Shop from it and create a new world for yourself inside. And I think business has reflected that as hard as it’s been. 

Sara Peterson: I’m not sure if it was a silver lining, but it was definitely an advantage being HGTV Magazine. I’ve always thought of us as being the magazine that works the hardest at being really relatable, real and authentic about your home. And featuring real people in their homes has always been a thing of ours. In the house tours and the decorating stories, there’s a lot of people in the photos in the magazine; we always photograph the homeowner with their home. And that makes it feel more relatable and real when you see kids and dogs and maybe the cereal and milk is still left out on the counter in the kitchen, these are things you can relate to in real life. 

Samir Husni: Sara, I interviewed you when the magazine was first launched 10 years ago and you talked a lot about how much fun HGTV Magazine was going to be. Tell me, how can you create “fun” during a time when fun was not exactly a word people were using?

Sara Peterson: Yes, in an un-fun time. Well, you have fun momentum. You are this brand and I have a lot of adjectives that I can substitute for fun: positive outlook, upbeat, friendly, colorful; that attitude and personality. And the conversational copy that we have in the magazine. I think those are ways that we deliver “fun.” 

Maybe we weren’t having parties, but we were still picking out beautiful flowers to look at in our yards and in our homes; we were picking out paint colors and trying different DIY projects that hadn’t been tried before. Making things, but also food and entertaining ways to distract ourselves. We couldn’t go out, so we had to do stuff at home. So that’s how we delivered the fun.

We did have this long-running column from the first issue called “How Bad Is It.” Answers, conundrums and scratch-your-head questions about home life across the board. Things like how bad is it to leave the laundry in overnight, to leave it in the washing machine, just questions you might have about your household things. 

But I had seen different magazines talking about how bad is it in terms of the pandemic, with the numbers and all. And I wasn’t worried about how we were going to deliver cheerful, upbeat, fun ideas, but would it seem like we were ignoring some really bad stuff, if we had a column called “How Bad Is It,” and it was about how bad is it to have a conversation with your dog. Was that too superficial or too shallow, that it seemed to be ignoring the big worry?

So we tweaked the design and we had less serious questions and I think, if I’m not mistaken, that we skipped it one or two issues. We just didn’t run it. I did see The New York Times often did “how bad is it” with the pandemic numbers, the stats on everything, so I didn’t think it was always appropriate. 

Samir Husni: Vicki, you’re the chief revenue officer for both the Food Network Magazine and for HGTV Magazine.

Vicki Wellington: Yes, I’m a lucky girl, Samir. Who’s luckier than me? I mean, Food Network and HGTV are gigantic global brands. It’s awesome and I love it. And I haven’t been here with Sara for the whole 10 years, I came in about a year and a half ago. So she and her team deserve the credit much more than I do. I’m actually the pandemic publisher for HGTV Magazine. I’m just very lucky to be here. 

Samir Husni: As you get ready to celebrate the magazine’s 10^th birthday in October, what are the plans?

Sara Peterson: This was a lot of planning. You can imagine. All the thinking about how you’re going to make this issue special. You only get one 10^th birthday to do. I’ve always loved the fact that in magazines, you always get another issue, so you always have another take to do that story you wanted or another cover idea, but the feeling of having a birthday issue, the 10^th birthday, and we did have a fifth birthday issue, but 10 is bigger. So the pressure was on, but also the opportunities were there. How were we going to celebrate ourselves and all we’ve done. but also still deliver new ideas and new content in the magazine, not just do a look-back?

The biggest section is called the “Giant Birthday Special” and that is a celebration of our Top 10 decorating truths. Now, we don’t really like decorating rules at HGTV Magazine because so many people are creative in their homes and inventive and express their personalities. So imposing rules on decorating isn’t really our style. But our decorating truths – after going into homes and seeing how people live and decorate for 10 years, you pick up on some patterns. And you pick up on things that have worked well for people and designers in every style of home. Small homes, big homes, cottages, ranch-style homes, brick homes, just every style you can imagine.

We’re taking these Top 10 truths and making little chapters in the magazine section about those Top 10. One chapter in the section is “Add a Pop of Color.” We have always loved adding pops of color, so we’re talking about the ideas that we’ve loved, to mix old and new things. I feel that people do that so well. I’ve always been impressed at how people mix old and new things in their homes to tell their story. Things like inherited pieces or some cool flea market finds and then some new pieces throughout your home too. But that mix is always really interesting for the storytelling. 

We like to really tell the story of the home as well as the decorating ideas that people can replicate. And the mixing of old and new is really a good one too. 

Vicki Wellington: And on the business side, we have a number of things that we’re selling. We’ve got three different levels, silver, gold and platinum, and what’s nice is there’s something special for everybody. Some are native ideas, some are high-impact units. Many will be running in October, but we are celebrating the birthday in every single issue.

Sara Peterson: When Vicki invites me to a client meeting, I always use the word “special,” because it’s true. It is a special issue like no other. And if you want to be in the issue, you’re coming to a party. You’re coming to a birthday party. So, we want to have a celebratory vibe. We’ve been working on native ideas with clients that feel like a celebration. It will feel like a birthday. 

We’re also asking a ton of HGTV stars to wish us a Happy Birthday. Stars who have been in the magazine throughout the years and have had photo shoots and fun times with us. And it’s fun to see their quotes and answers, because some have been with us from the beginning too. The Property Brothers were just launching their show on HGTV when we were launching the magazine. So they go way back. And there are a lot of other stars too. And it’s fun to see them all together. 

Samir Husni: What role does the print magazine play in this digital age? 

Vicki Wellington: People want less time on the computer and we can prove it. Right now our subscriptions are up. They’re purchased digitally, but they’re print subscriptions. Just as an example, our renewals are up. HGTV Magazine happens to have one of the highest renewal rates in the company. And that’s between $30 and $45, so that’s a lot of money as you know for a magazine subscription. 

Sara Peterson: And I’m pretty proud of our newsstand numbers.

Vicki Wellington: Yes, we’ve been in the Top 10 forever. And as an example, talking about young people, our millennial numbers have grown. In the past five years, it’s grown over 30 percent. So, what the numbers tell me is that we have people buying and enjoying reading the magazine. 

And as another example, there is a digital research company called Kantar Millward Brown and we do a lot of convergent partnerships with our partners HGTV and we obviously do a lot of research to see how a campaign does and whenever print was added into the mix, everything went up. Likelihood to buy went up; preference for the brand went up. It happens so often that I literally said to the director who was running this digital research company, I keep noticing that print keeps raising the numbers. And he said that was always true. And I’ve always felt this way, but it continues to be proven by the research. Print adds a lot to the formula.

And from our circulation numbers, which are all strong, we see that people are buying and reading. They’re being pushed to go online. They love the way Sara and her team curate. They go online and it can be so overwhelming. Sara puts out this beautifully orchestrated, curated product for people first, then they go online and do their shopping.

Sara Peterson: If you ask me to talk to students, they all want to be storytellers. We’re all storytellers. And you can do that well a lot of different ways. You can pick your platform. You can have multiple platforms. You can do videos, blogs, digital; you can do a book, a magazine, a newspaper. There does come a time when you want to pick your medium for how you want to tell your story. Once you do that, what is it about that particular medium that is special and unique that can’t be done by others with your story? And what is the experience you want your readers to have with a magazine? 

With me early on, back to college, it was so satisfying to make a product. It is physical. You have this thing that you make. Sometimes I joke about being in the manufacturing business. We have to be aware of things like ink, printing, glue. I can’t tell you how much I know about glue. (Laughs) These things you need to learn about manufacturing your product. There is something so satisfying about having your hands on the thing that you make. 

I sometimes take the magazine home and look at it in home-lighting because I know that’s how people are going to look at it, not in an office setting with calibrated fluorescent lights. They’re going to probably have a 60-watt bulb in their lamp. So I ask myself, can you see the type? Can you read it okay? Things like that are fun for me when making the magazine. So, print matters because it makes the experience of seeing a story special. 

Samir Husni: Is there anything either of you would like to add?

Vicki Wellington: Just that HGTV Magazine is having a very strong year. I think the product continues to serve a purpose, part of a major power brand. It’s nice to have such a powerful brand that’s so well-recognized and loved. And it’s safe; it’s not about the pandemic; it’s not about politics. And I think advertising has backed all that up in every category. All my vital signs are good. Subscriptions are good; newsstand is good; renewals are good; advertising is good. Those are all the positives.

We continue to work with the brand on convergent ideas and that’s an advantage for this product as well. Not everybody can do that in that kind of major way. We’ve got on-air involved, digital involved. 

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Vicki Wellington: After going through a pandemic, you know what, I don’t worry as much. It really put things into perspective. What am I worrying about? Once we’ve gotten through this crazy time and we don’t have to worry about just going out of our houses or going out without gloves. So honestly for me, I don’t worry about a lot because we’ve all lived through this crazy time. The minor things at this point would be just doing a good job and getting my work done. 

Sara Peterson: I find myself thinking how much better I’m sleeping lately. There were times in 2020 where many nights I was wide awake between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. I would think about people I missed, work, things I needed to do, was my Amazon order going to arrive on time. Did I get the groceries delivered or should I go there? Should I buy more masks and which masks, that sort of stuff. And having that tone down a little, the anxiety level, that hopefully we’ve all lowered some anxiety, sleeping better and also knowing there’s a plan now for the immediate future, has helped. 

We know our summer schedule for work. We know we’re going to phase back to the office starting in September. It’s crucial for magazine editors to have plans; we’re always planning in advance, sometimes a year in advance. And to not have a roadmap is really unnerving. So to have some things on the calendar feels good and I’m sleeping better. 

I will say the birthday issue did keep me up because I was thinking this was an amazing chance, and did I get it right? Did I do everything that I could? I had one shot; it was like my Olympics. I had been training for this for 10 issues and I had one shot. All of the issues are important to me, of course, but this one just felt so special and I wanted to be sure to get it right. So yes, that kept me up. 

Samir Husni: Thank you both.