Forbes preparing lifestyle spinoff

Nat Ives of Advertising Age reports Friday that Forbes is preparing a spinoff magazine called Forbes Executive Life Woman that will launch in October and then have four issues in 2008.

Ives wrote, “And it’s true that the ranks of executive women are growing. The other business books are certainly trying to capitalize on that, if not in the same way that Forbes plans. Time Inc.’s Fortune, for example, will host its Most Powerful Women Summit this year for three days in October, just before its annual in-book feature ‘The 50 Most Powerful Women in Business.’

“Forbes also has a renewed interest in expanding. The company hunkered down through a lot of the early decade, but since selling a minority stake to Elevation Partners last August, it has resumed hunting growth.Â

“But the flagship Forbes title, like its biggest competitors, hasn’t seen much change in the proportion of women among its audience. Women represented 32.6% of the Forbes readership in the fall 1980 Mediamark Research study; by fall 2006, Mediamark put that figure at 29.9%.

“Beth Fidoten, senior VP-director of print services, Initiative, said the plan makes sense, especially because the editorial in Forbes Life skews, like its audience, so heavily male. ‘It’s shown to be successful for Forbes FYI, now known as Forbes Life, so why shouldn’t be it successful for women?'”

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