Will Spin Be Doctored?

The pop music world was thrown into a spin this week when the owners of Vibe magazine, the nation’s leading hip-hop journal, bought Rolling Stone’s chief rival in the rock field.

Wednesday’s $42-million purchase of Spin magazine gives Vibe Ventures a powerful one-two punch in the publishing world and raises numerous questions in the record industry.

Among them: Will the new owners shift Spin from its alternative rock base to a more mainstream focus? And how might the two publications work together to challenge Rolling Stone’s dominance in the field?

Together, Vibe and Spin--whose joint circulation is within 200,000 of Rolling Stone’s 1.2 million--will presumably have all sorts of opportunities for joint advertising and marketing ties.

Keith Clinkscales, the president and CEO of Vibe Ventures, was quick this week to downplay any changes in the direction of Spin, which has championed the alternative rock Generation X culture since it was launched in 1985.

“What we’ll do is calmly take our time and see how to come at the young adult market from two strong and different perspectives,” he said. “We have two distinct young audiences who follow two [vital] areas of music, urban and rock. Spin covers one very well and Vibe the other. They each have strong, vibrant editorial focus, and the last thing we want to do is mess with that.”

Bob Miller, who formed Vibe Ventures last year with music titan Quincy Jones to purchase Vibe from Time Warner, spoke with equal enthusiasm about the business potential of the two publications.

“The attractiveness of [the young] demographic has become more dramatic in the last few years to advertisers,” Miller says. “And they’ve become aware that the so-called Gen X audience thinks differently and has to be spoken to differently.

“As Vibe has enjoyed tremendous success, we simultaneously saw that Spin was experiencing similar growth in circulation and advertising support, and we thought it would make a lot of sense if we could bring the two magazines together that have very little overlap in editorial content and readership but in many places speak to the same advertisers.”

Miller made an offer of $40 million for Spin a year ago. But founding publisher and editor in chief Bob Guccione Jr. wasn’t ready to sell until recently.

“I love the magazine, and there is no perfect time to leave something you love,” Guccione said in an interview this week. “But now I felt I’d done what I could with Spin. We achieved the things I wanted to achieve, and I’ve come to the point where I contribute less to it and felt there were other things I wanted to do. Spin can stay ahead of youth culture. I don’t think I can.”

Guccione started Spin 12 years ago under the aegis of his father’s Penthouse magazine and weathered rocky early years, including a split from the Penthouse operation, to become a profitable ‘90s venture, with a current circulation of 500,000. The sale comes only two months after a sexual harassment suit brought by a former employee against Spin and Guccione resulted in a jury finding that the magazine’s offices were a hostile work environment for women.

Vibe publisher John Rollins will oversee both magazines, while Michael Hirschorn, a former New York magazine editor, will take over as Spin’s editor in chief.

“I know that Bob Guccione believed that he and his magazine and staff were really in touch with the Gen X-ers, whatever that means,” says Larry Jenkins, Columbia Records’ vice president of media. “And he’s certainly been a strong proponent of AIDS awareness, with a column every month about that for years. His imprint has been very much in the magazine. But the people there all share similar takes and interests.”

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Craig Marks, who is credited with steering Spin’s course for the last few years, will remain as executive editor. He says he’s been assured that music will remain the emphasis of the publication, though Hirschorn has already talked of scaling back some of the music coverage in favor of more fashion and lifestyle pieces.

That would not be a move welcomed in the music business, which has relied on Spin, as well as Vibe and music pace-setter Rolling Stone, for exposure of artists more and more in recent years as radio and MTV have often proved hard to crack for new acts.

“I always wish Spin would have more music coverage, not less,” says Mitchell Schneider, a Los Angeles-based music publicist whose clients range from Tom Petty to Alanis Morissette. “A story in Spin or Vibe or Rolling Stone sets the tone and forces people to take notice of an artist. The cover that we had of Spin with Alanis was key for her success.”

Any lessening of music coverage would be a bit ironic, given that Rolling Stone--generally seen as the magazine whose market Spin was most intent on invading--has recently reasserted a commitment to alternative music.

“When you go to the newsstand and see Aerosmith on the cover of Spin, and Jewel or Beck or Jakob Dylan on the cover of Rolling Stone, it’s almost like the world turned upside down,” says Sid Holt, managing editor of Rolling Stone, which was started in the late ‘60s.

“In the parts of what they do that impact us, we’ll be watching with great interest. I do anticipate that they’ll try to be more like Rolling Stone than ever. But Michael [Hirschorn] is a smart cookie,” Holt said.

Guccione said he will take his one-third share of the sale price to take the first steps in launching what he hopes will be a new multimedia venture. He says he plans to start a new male-oriented culture magazine, along the lines of Details, next year and is partnering with investment bank Fechtor, Detwiler and Co. in a search for a “multi-title publishing company” to purchase.