Press: The Return of Life

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Henry Luce called it "picture magic," that remarkable ability of a good photograph to capture an event or distill an emotion, to amaze, inspire, instruct and even repulse. Luce started LIFE in 1936 to harness that ephemeral power, and the weekly picture magazine became in its heyday publishing's most successful venture. But eventually television, postal costs and the magazine's own swollen circulation caused its demise, in 1972. This week Time Inc. is introducing a born-again LIFE with a larger version of the familiar red and white logo, a fractionally smaller version of the spacious LIFE-size format, but the same preoccupation with the magic of pictures.

In a sense, of course, LIFE never died. Since 1972, Time Inc. has published ten LIFE Special Reports on such themes as "The Spirit of Israel," "Remarkable American Women" and "The Year in Pictures." With a minimum of promotion, those issues sold between 500,000 and 1 million copies at cover prices of up to $2, a feat that has kept hopes of a revival flickering among LIFE'S many mourners.

Those hopes rose last December when Time Inc. Magazine Development Editor Philip Kunhardt Jr. marked the fifth anniversary of LIFE'S last regular issue with a five-page memo to Time Inc. Editor in Chief Hedley Donovan, recommending the magazine's rebirth as a monthly. Kunhardt, a former LIFE assistant managing editor, cited the rising prosperity of the magazine industry, a new surge of public interest in photography, the success of the single-issue LIFE editions, and his concern that the public might start to forget LIFE if it did not return soon. In addition, Time Inc.'s new weekly magazine, PEOPLE, which uses a picture-story format reminiscent of the old LIFE, was virtually an instant success. Given the go-ahead, Kunhardt's group spent the next three months turning out two dummy issues, and LIFE'S start-up was authorized last spring. The firm intends to spend from $10 million to $20 million on the magazine in the two years or so before it breaks into the black. Kunhardt was made LIFE'S new managing editor.

Why should a new monthly LIFE succeed less than half a dozen years after the old weekly stumbled? For one thing, network television — which did much to kill general-interest mass-circulation magazines such as LIFE, Look and the Saturday Evening Post—has become far more expensive. A 30-second spot on Charlie's Angels costs $95,000, and a minute of next January's Super Bowl is going for $370,000. Even at those prices, desirable prime-time shows are solidly booked, with no more commercial time left for new sponsors. As a result, more and more advertisers are shifting larger portions of their budgets to magazines.