Conde Nast Portfolio's $25 million raise

Jeff Bercovici from the Radar magazine website noted that the coverage of the upcoming launch of Conde Nast Portfolio has brought with it a $25 million bump in what its parent company is spending on the magazine.

Bercovici wrote that the original $100 million figure “appears to have originated with Condé Nast CEO Chuck Townsend, who told the New York Post and other outlets that anyone looking to break into the market ‘has to be prepared to spend’ $100 million or more.

“A few days ago, inflation kicked in. A New York magazine story about Portfolio, which finally hits newsstands next week, reads: ‘With a reported budget of $125 million, it’s the most expensive launch Condé Nast has ever done,’ declares writer Mark Fass.

“Asked exactly who had reported the higher figure, a New York spokeswoman provided the rather odd explanation that Fass, in effect, disguised his own reporting as a citation: ‘The $125 million figure was ‘reported’ to Mark Fass by multiple sources within Condé Nast. But that figure had not been printed in other news media until now.'”

Read more here. And just for curiosity sake, has a reporter actually gone back and gotten the dollar amounts for previous magazine launches and then adjusted those numbers for inflation to actually determine that this is Conde Nast’s most expensive launch ever? I doubt it.