How weekly magazines find their stars

By GRAHAM REID

The heading in the New Zealand Woman's Weekly a fortnight ago was telling: "Filling Diana's Shoes". The article was about "three rich, beautiful and famous women [who] are continuing Princess Diana's work with the poor and vulnerable".

Worthy work for former model Heather Mills, Lahore resident Jemima Khan and Queen Noor of Jordan - but the heading encapsulated the burning question: Just who are the cover stars filling Diana's shoes? And selling magazines?

Jenny Lynch, editor and then editor in chief of the New Zealand Woman's Weekly for seven years until November 1994, was there during the great days when Diana and Fergie were reliable sellers. But they didn't sell for the expected reason.

"There was all the royal kerfuffle with Fergie and Diana and they were very good sellers - provided you had something negative to say about them," says Lynch. "Good news doesn't sell about the royals - aside from engagements, weddings and birth of babies. People said having Diana on the cover was a surefire seller, but it wasn't at all. Unless she'd been doing something naughty or the story was about her prolific spending. The whiff of gossip sold."

Fortunately in her short but dramatic life there was plenty of Di-gossip, and even enough after she died.

Three years ago Di-in-absentia was still viable (the famous stolen love letters, or win a chance to visit her final resting place) and magazine editors' cover options included reliables such as Rachel Hunter, Paul Holmes, Shortland Street "stars" and a roster of television "personalities". Rowan Dixon, editor of the NZ Woman's Weekly, could talk confidently of Jenny Shipley and Liz Gunn working well on a cover.

Today, not much is happening with Holmes or Hunter, while the remaining royals - excluding the rarely visible Prince William, and perhaps the tongue-pierced Zara Phillips - are mostly an uninteresting lot, and many TV frontpeople such as Carol Hirschfeld, Mike Hosking and John Campbell don't do the private life revelations.

Many local celebs don't have much to say anyway or remain mute about the very stuff people want to read - as with recent NZ Woman's Weekly cover star Bernice Mene and her no-comment relationship with cricketer Dion Nash. In the past year also, Shortland Street pruned its cast and shed audience numbers - down by around a fifth on this time last year - and those in the current cast are more circumspect about their private lives, says Brenda Ward, editor of New Idea.

Louise Wright - editor in chief of Woman's Day and publishing director of the monthly Australian Women's Weekly - also observes that when Shortland Street started it had established actors such as Temuera Morrison. At the moment there's nobody in that league. The programme recently lost long-serving characters and the younger cast doesn't suit the NZ Woman's Weekly's older demographic.

There seems to be a celeb shortage.

"Some weeks it's hard to find cover material," admits Dixon. "You take out Di; you can't do her like you used to. Ditto Fergie because our readers have had enough of her, ditto Rachel because our readers can't stand her anymore. New Idea and Woman's Day seem to sell with her, but our readers think she's a bit too much.

"So take them out and it does get tricky."

Wright: "Women want a good uplifting read every week and it is hard in this market; you've got to deliver stories people want to come back to."

If there's a celeb shortage on the homefront, internationally things are almost as woeful.

Kevin Townsend, whose Oceania News and Photo Agency supplies international and local celebrity pictures and stories to many New Zealand magazines and newspapers, identifies the problem: "There are still a lot of stars but not many stories. People are famous but they're just not doing anything. It's a really weird situation."

There must have been audible delight in editors' offices when Julia Roberts and Benjamin Bratt, and Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman split.

However, newspapers have increasingly picked up celeb stories and are making in-roads into the magazines' territory. The recent gaffe by the hitherto sideline-royal Sophie, for example, played better as a daily news story than a magazine feature.

"It didn't leave magazines a lot of room to manoeuvre," says Townsend.

"It's never been a science what will sell on a cover," says Ward. "For example, Nicole Kidman wouldn't normally be a cover story for New Idea, but when she had a miscarriage that was obviously big news at the time of the split between her and Tom."

If, as editors insist, it's the story rather than the star which sells, then not enough locals are talking.

"For local celebrities to increase their marketability, speaking about their personal lives is of more interest than what new show they're fronting," notes Ward.

New Idea and Woman's Day can draw from the pool of Hollywood and international television stars - but Dixon's core readership is "slightly older and traditional, and wants local covers. Even though Coronation Street and royals are not local, they are considered local. Corry is in the family home so often it feels like ours."

Around half the NZ Woman's Weekly's covers this year have had connections with local television, whether it be personalities proclaiming their happiness (April Ieremia, Robyn Malcolm, Susan Wood, Mary Lambie), Angela D'Audney's medical condition, or revelations from Coronation Street stars. In a nation of sports lovers, the sole sports star on a cover was Mene.

Royals - including Fergie and the shamed Sophie - accounted for about a quarter of the covers in unfavourable stories, which has often been the way with them: "The older ones weren't sellers unless there was a huge tragedy or some secret revealed from the past," recalls Lynch.

There were only two obliquely political covers - Prime Minister Helen Clark's mid-life fitness regime, and Dame Silvia Cartwright - which didn't do as well as hoped despite being strong stories, says Dixon. "With a politician you know 50 per cent of your readers are going to hate them, more or less, depending on what the polls are like at the time."

The same is true of Holmes: "He has a huge love-him or hate-him factor. You can put him on a cover knowing he will polarise people, but they're interested anyway."

Some internationals have a strong turn-off factor. Posh Spice and David Beckham may be huge in Britain but their talents go past us at this distance, and the popularity of the cast of Friends appears to be waning because of over-familiarity. Ally McBeal's Calista Flockhart? "Women tend to find her very shallow and she has no appeal at all on a cover. Not someone we warm to as a role model for women," say Ward.

And warmth is important: Susan Wood is a good seller because she's familiar but doesn't do too many interviews. She's also got kids, been a single mum and had hard times. All things readers can identify with.

Ward says Hilary Timmins losing her baby was a strong story for her readers, as was Julia Roberts' separation. Everyone knows someone who has gone through such things, so there's an empathy.

Judy Bailey's first interview after coming back from a screen absence caused by meningitis, with talk of her work for the North Shore Hospice, was a big seller for Woman's Day.

But warm-hearted local celebs proclaiming their favourite charity is meeting with some reader cynicism. Every celeb has a charity these days - "the public is interested in hearing about the recipients rather than a celebrity endorsement," says Dixon - and there's also post-Liz Gunn scepticism.

"Liz Gunn bombed for us," says Dixon. Gunn and former All Black Michel Jones were on the cover the week it was revealed Rangi Whakaruru, also a front for the Children First Foundation, had a history as an abuser.

Timing is all, of course. Mark and Caroline Todd recently did well for Woman's Day but a year ago probably would not have made the cover, says Wright.

NZ Woman's Weekly did well with Todd Blackadder last year. He was popular in the South Island where the magazine is strong, and mums and aunties like him. Interest was high then - you wouldn't do him now.

If Toddy and Gunn are off the list, others have been consistently popular. Former Shortland Street star Robyn Malcolm's marriage announcement and the "fun-filled wedding day" two months later commanded NZ Woman's Weekly covers recently.

Malcolm may have forgotten what former NZ Woman's Weekly editor Lynch remembers: "In the early days of Shortland Street, many couples refused to be on the cover because people were frightened of the curse. One after another the marriages broke up."

Although no longer on the Street, Malcolm was a strong seller in the programme's heyday, "so that's why we stick with her," says Dixon.

That's rare, says Townsend, who believes magazines are too quick to drop those they feel don't work without looking at the broader context of what was happening in other media that week.

"They also don't spend any time building anyone up. In Britain the typical thing is you build them up and knock 'em down, like Barrymore for example.

"I don't know if women's magazines would ever knock anyone down, but they never build anyone up. Perhaps the only one in that category would be Lana Coc-Kroft, a very minor celebrity, they've stuck with through thick and thin. I know she's on Sports Cafe, but so what?"

Wright agrees it is important to build celebrities. Fortunately the new young royals - including those in Monaco alongside William, Harry and Zara - are starting to become interesting.

So, is there any relief for those seeking the surefire celebrities?

The Queen's coming for what seems likely to be her last New Zealand visit and that should be good for a couple of covers. But royal tours are not the certain sellers they used to be. Once Prince William starts dating properly, then, like his mother, he too will be a target for the paparazzi.

Townsend - who three years ago referred to Hunter as the "patron saint of circulation" - believes that when Rachel (now "the sleeping giant") does something, the weeklies will be all over her again. But it will be different this time round for the girl from Glenfield.

"If there was a hint of critical story about Rachel," recalls Lynch of those years after Hunter married Rod Stewart, "people got cross and wrote to us. 'Wholesome New Zealand girl who's done very well', 'Kiwi knocking machine' and all that. But at the same time New Zealanders like to see their heroes' feet of clay revealed."

And few have revealed more than the one most editors say is the sole local male who can hold up a cover on his own: Paul Holmes.

"Things always seem to happen in his life," says Dixon. "It's been quiet lately, but I have no doubt something will."

"I hear people say there's no local stars," says Wright. "That's rubbish. There are loads of stars here, it's just knowing what they are doing, keeping in touch - and making sure they talk."

But about what? "April's Hair Loss Horror", as New Idea bannered this month?

"It's hard to get good stories about local celebrities," says Townsend. "There are so few of them - and no one here ever does anything."