In 30 years, Rivendell Media, the nation's leading LGBT media placement firm, has undoubtedly left its mark. Founded in the summer of 1979 by entrepreneur Joe DiSabato, Rivendell represents more than 150 local and regional LGBT publications to national advertising agencies.
But three decades ago, bringing the reach of gay media to Madison Avenue was a pioneering endeavor. "Rivendell was the first to 'professionalize' the idea of media going after the ad market for numerous publications," said Mark Segal, publisher and founder of Philadelphia Gay Community News (PGN). "No one ever thought of that before."
More after the jump.
Altogether, DiSabato's trailblazing nudged the organization, growth, and professional development of the LGBT press. He was, for instance, a driving force behind the formation of the Gay Press Association during the 1970s. In 1984, Rivendell also organized the National Gay Newspaper Guild, a group of the nation's most widely read publications. Today the Guild includes San Francisco-based Bay Area Reporter, Boston's Bay Windows, Michigan's Between the Lines, Dallas Voice, South Florida Blade, Frontiers In Los Angeles, Gay & Lesbian Times in San Diego, New York Blade, Philadelphia Gay News, Atlanta-based Southern Voice, Washington Blade and Chicago's Windy City Times.
What is so important about organizing LGBT media? Doing so gave them economic clout, enabling placement of national advertising in regional publications. "There was no way publications like ours could have ever gotten the attention" of the New York City-based national advertising center, explained Jan Stevenson, publisher of Between the Lines. Only Rivendell could do that, collectively representing significant numbers of LGBT publications, she said.
"If you want depth of numbers, more depth in the market across the country," said Windy City Times publisher Tracy Baim, "then you have to get it from the regional gay media, including their companion Web sites."
As PGN's publisher Segal explained, local advertising is the "bread and butter" of LGBT niche publications. National ads are the "cream." And they are "sure nice to have," as most publishers readily acknowledge.
The number of LGBT media outlets in the U.S. has varied over time from as few as a handful to more than 200, according to estimates. By 2009, however, the number dropped below 200. Still, LGBT niche media reaches an estimated 3 million readers. That long and deep reach into the gay market is no small measure when compared with the much smaller readership of national LGBT publications, which is estimated at most to be several hundred thousand.
Early on, there were only a handful of gay publications, including the New York Native, San Francisco's Sentinel, and Boston's Gay Community News, among others. With the advent of the gay rights movement and increased visibility, more and more papers sprang up across the country.
Then along came Anita Bryant's anti-gay campaign in 1977. "Anita Bryant woke up larger portions of the gay community, helping to increase press runs," explained Don Michaels, former publisher of the Washington Blade. "Then came AIDS in 1981 - a huge boost to the gay press as people turned to it to follow AIDS coverage because the mainstream [media] was kind of slow to get off the ground."
Michaels went on to say that many initially feared advertisers would run the other way. The reverse happened. Pharmaceutical ads - and million dollar revenues - flooded LGBT media. During the early years, alcohol and beer, HIV/AIDS pharmaceutical advertising, and phone-sex revenues accounted for the bulk of Rivendell's business. As late as 1994, phone-sex ads were a million dollar account for Rivendell, according to Todd Evans, current chief executive officer and president. From the mid-1990s to the present, national advertising increasingly diversified - for example, automotive, entertainment, financial services, travel and tourism - as Fortune 500 companies eyed the potentially lucrative gay market.
This new dimension necessitated a more professional sales and editorial endeavor. Robert Moore, publisher of the Dallas Voice, recalled his experience from 25 years ago as ad director. "I was very green, a good student, but I needed a good teacher," he said. "The value with Rivendell is they taught me what was valuable information, what I needed to give to people and how to take a product and turn it into something that would get noticed." Rivendell's methodology also applied to the local market. "Many of the issues are the same as national," Moore said. "You still have to know how to talk to people in an intelligent manner."
On the editorial side, "Rivendell made the gay press a more professional business because they raised the bar," said Cathy Renna, managing partner of Renna Communications, a public interest communications firm. The dynamic changed, she went on to explain, from, "I'm at a gay paper because I am not really a journalist" doing "advocacy" and "can't get job in the mainstream," to, "I'm now a real journalist," able to work in the mainstream or gay media or both.
Rivendell's success also boosted workplace equality. "You can only run a paper on love, passion and politics for so long," said Bob Witeck, chief executive officer of Witeck-Combs Communications, a strategic public relations and marketing firm. "You have to have a grounding and support of an advertising base" insofar as "commerce has been a big driver for LGBT civil rights. As business gets to know us, employees and their partners have driven the movement toward equality. When you are treated equally in the workplace, it's harder to discriminate anywhere else."
Sadly, however, founder DiSabato died unexpectedly from an asthma attack in the early 1990s. "It was a real shock," lamented publisher Susan Horowitz of Between the Lines. "Joe never lived long enough to see the outcome" of his pioneering entrepreneurship. When she lived in New York City, Horowitz and DiSabato were close friends. For a short time, his life and business partner Michael Gravois ran Rivendell until Evans took over in 1994.
The 10 publishers and media observers interviewed for this story all agreed that Evans inspired Rivendell's professional maturity. "Joe wanted to go gangbusters, and at times clashed with gay papers like ours that wanted to maintain an arm's length relationship with advertisers," explained former Washington Blade publisher Michaels. For example, "Joe pushed us big on running complimentary articles done by freelancers on a new book so that he could go back to publishers and say, 'Look, the Blade ran a flattering article.' We didn't do that.
"Todd Evans came along and gave a more balanced perspective in dealing with gay papers. He is basically a professional guy and respected our territory. He took Rivendell to a whole new level."
Evans continued the development of the first LGBT market surveys, which provided empirical data to advertisers about LGBT consumerism and spending habits, thereby increasing mainstream advertising interest in the LGBT press. Building upon DiSabato's organization of the Gay Newspaper Guild, Rivendell compiled market demographics from readership surveys that members of the guild could share. "It was one of the first times I ever heard of the concept of the gay market," said publisher Horowitz. It was founder DiSabato who coined the phrase "the most potentially profitable untapped market in the country," language used by the Wall Street Journal in an article on the gay press from the '90s.
Nonetheless, reaching into the "gay market" has its "bi-costal" limitations. New York's Madison Avenue "just doesn't understand the Midwest," said Ted Fleischaker, editor of Indianapolis-based The Word.
Another challenge is invisibility of the gay market and the invisibility within - lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. For the most part, demographic studies so far have focused primarily on wealthy gay white men, the DINKS phenomenon of "double income with no kids." Still, there has been progress looking at the lesbian market.
For all the pressing challenges facing LGBT media in the current economic downturn, DiSabato's vision and Rivendell Media live on. As publisher Baim put it, "As Rivendell goes, so goes gay media. Their success is our success. When they experience weaker periods, it affects gay media significantly."
Added Evans, "We really are all in this together."
- by Chuck Colbert
