Physician’s Life, a lifestyle title aimed at the hard-to-reach but affluent MD market, is going to debut as a bi-monthly with a May/June issue from specialized medical publisher Slack Inc. — part of the Wyanoke Group.
The mid-sized Thorofare, NJ- based publisher is more well known — at least among MDs — for its 39 print and digital publications, such as Infectious Diseases in Children and Primary Care Optometry News.
Physician’s Life is its first break from the business/trade field into a consumer magazine.
In so doing, Slack Inc. is venturing into a field last populated by Hearst, which pulled the plug on Diversions, its physicians-oriented lifestyle title several years ago after pharmaceutical and health care advertising began cutting back on print ads.
“We’re not going for the pharmaceutical and health-care advertisers,” Wyanoke Group CEO Peter Slack said after being reached at an optometrists convention in Hawaii. “We’re going for consumer advertisers in fashion, auto, travel and the luxury watch market.”
He plans to send 340,000 controlled-circulation copies to the MD audience. “They have individual income north of $215,000,” he said.
Slack has hired Greg Hood, a practicing MD in Lexington, Ky., to be the “physician editor” of the launch, while James G. Elliott Co., a New York-based ad rep firm, is the consumer ad sales for the magazine.
Slack also brought in a consumer magazine veteran Beth Weinhouse, a former deputy editor at Parenting and, earlier, the editorial director of Conceive.
“What unites the audience is their education and their profession,” said Weinhouse. “We’re not talking about the top 1 percent, but they are affluent and they have disposable income … This is for their time off.”
Chief Operating Officer John Carter said, “We know the readership will be there and we have a great demographic.”
Slack said he is aware of the rocky road that consumer magazines have traversed in recent years.
“All I can say is, if you want to grow, you have to take risks, and we know physicians,” he said.
