Condé Nast

Condé Nast is a global mass media company founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast, and owned by Advance Publications. Its headquarters are located at One World Trade Center in New York City and The Adelphi building in London.

The company's media brands attract more than 72 million consumers in print, 394 million in digital and 454 million across social platforms. These include Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ, Glamour, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, Pitchfork, Wired, and Bon Appetit among many others.

Roger Lynch was appointed Chief Executive Officer in April 2019. In October 2019, Lynch announced his plans to increase Condé Nast's revenue from readers. US Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour serves as Artistic Director and Global Chief Content Officer of Condé Nast. The company launched Condé Nast Entertainment in 2011 to develop film, television, social and digital video and virtual reality.

History

Condé Montrose Nast, a New York City-born publisher, launched his magazine empire in 1909 with the purchase of Vogue, which was first created in 1892 as a New York weekly journal of society and fashion news.

At first, Nast published the magazine under Vogue Company and did not incorporate Condé Nast until 1923. He had a flair for nurturing elite readers as well as advertisers and upgraded Vogue, sending the magazine on its path of becoming a top fashion authority. Eventually, Nast's portfolio expanded to include House & Garden, Vanity Fair (briefly known as Dress and Vanity Fair), Glamour, and American Golfer. The company also introduced British Vogue in 1916, and Condé Nast became the first publisher of an overseas edition of an existing magazine.

Condé Nast is largely considered to be the originator of the "class publication," a type of magazine focused on a particular social group or interest instead of targeting the largest possible readership. Its magazines focus on a wide range of subjects, including travel, food, home, and culture, with fashion the larger portion of the company's focus.

Nast opened a printing press in 1924, which closed in 1964 to make way for more centrally located sites capable of producing higher volumes. During the Great Depression, Condé Nast introduced innovative typography, design, and color. Vogue's first full color photograph was featured on the cover in 1932, marking the year when Condé Nast began replacing fashion drawings on covers with photo illustrations―an innovative move at the time. Glamour, launched in 1939, was the last magazine personally introduced to the company by Nast, who died in 1942.

In 1959, Samuel I. Newhouse bought Condé Nast for US$5 million as an anniversary gift for his wife Mitzi, who loved Vogue. He merged it with the privately held holding company Advance Publications. His son, S.I. Newhouse, Jr., known as "Si," became chairman of Condé Nast in 1975.

Under Newhouse, Condé Nast acquired Brides in 1959, revived Vanity Fair in 1983 after it was shuttered in 1936, and launched the new publication Self in 1979.

2000-09

In January 2000, Condé Nast moved from 350 Madison Avenue to 4 Times Square, which at the time was the first skyscraper built in New York City since 1992 and boasted a Frank Gehry cafeteria. The move was also viewed as contributing to the transformation of Times Square. In the same year, Condé Nast purchased Fairchild Publications (now known as Fairchild Fashion Media), home to W and WWD, from the Walt Disney Company. In 2001, Condé Nast bought Golf Digest and Golf World from The New York Times Company for US$435 million. On October 31, 2006, Condé Nast acquired the content aggregation site Reddit, which was later spun off as a wholly owned subsidiary in September 2011.

The company folded the women's magazine Jane with its August issue in 2007, and later shut down its website. One of Condé Nast's oldest titles, the American edition of House and Garden, ceased publication after the December 2007 issue. Portfolio, Mademoiselle and Domino were folded as well. On May 20, 2008, the company announced its acquisition of a popular technology-oriented website, Ars Technica.

On October 5, 2009, Condé Nast announced the closure of three of its publications: Cookie, Modern Bride, and Elegant Bride. Gourmet ceased monthly publication with its November 2009 issue; the Gourmet brand was later resurrected as "Gourmet Live," an iPad app that delivers new editorial content in the form of recipes, interviews, stories, and videos. In print, Gourmet continues in the form of special editions on newsstands and cookbooks.

2010–2020

In July 2010, Robert Sauerberg became Condé Nast's president. In May 2011, Condé Nast was the first major publisher to deliver subscriptions for the iPad, starting with The New Yorker; the company has since rolled out iPad subscriptions for nine of its titles. In the same month, Next Issue Media, a joint venture formed by five U.S. publishers including Condé Nast, announced subscriptions for Android devices, initially available for the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

In September 2011, Condé Nast said it would offer 17 of its brands to the Kindle Fire. The company launched Conde Nast Entertainment in 2011 to develop film, television, and digital video programming. In May 2013, CNÉ's Digital Video Network debuted, featuring web series for such publications as Glamour and GQ. Wired joined the Digital Video Network with the announcement of five original web series including the National Security Agency satire Codefellas and the animated advice series Mister Know-It-All.

In October 2013, the company ended its internship program, after being sued by two former interns claiming they had been paid less than minimum wage for summer internships at Condé Nast. In November 2014, the company moved into One World Trade Center in Manhattan, where its headquarters are now located. On September 14, 2015, the company announced Robert A. Sauerberg Jr. as its new CEO, with former CEO Charles H. Townsend taking the role of Chairman, and S.I. Newhouse Jr. taking the role of Chairman Emeritus in January 2016. On October 13, 2015, Condé Nast announced that it had acquired Pitchfork.

In July 2016, Condé Nast announced the launch of Condé Nast Spire, a new division of the company focusing on consumer purchasing data and content consumption through the company's own first-party behavioral data. The Chairman of the company, Charles Townsend, retired at the end of 2016, and the Chairman Emeritus, S.I. Newhouse, died the following year in October.

In March 2018, Condé Nast announced the launch of the influencer-based platform Next Gen. Condé Nast's Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer, Pamela Drucker Mann, stated that the platform would feature both "in-house and external talent with significant and meaningful social followings". In April 2019, Condé Nast appointed the former CEO of Pandora Media, Roger Lynch, as the company's first global CEO. It also sold the magazine Brides to the digital media company Dotdash, and in May of the same year, announced the sale of Golf Digest to Discovery, Inc. In June of the same year, Condé Nast sold W to a new holding company, Future Media Group. Condé Nast also fired Stefano Tonchi, who had been the head of W for nine years; Tonchi later sued the company for wrongful termination, with Condé Nast suing Tonchi in response, seeking the return of "all monies paid to [Tonchi] during his period of disloyalty", claiming that he had acted as a "faithless servant" during the sale of W, and had interfered with the sale to benefit himself.

In June 2020, following the global outbreak of the coronavirus COVID-19, it was reported that Condé Nast had experienced a drop in advertising revenues of 45% as a result of the pandemic. It was also reported that the company had, in previous years, sublet six of the company's 23 floors in the One World Trade Center, following the cancellation of a number of its publishing titles.

Current US publications and digital assets

Print

• Allure
• Architectural Digest
• Bon Appétit
• Condé Nast Traveler
• GQ
• The New Yorker
• Vanity Fair
• Vogue
• Wired

Digital

• Ars Technica
• Backchannel
• Epicurious
• Glamour
• Pitchfork
• them.
• Teen Vogue
• Self
• Love
• La Cucina Italiana

Defunct publications

• Cargo
• Cookie
• Details
• Elegant Bride
• Golf for Women
• Golf Digest
• Gourmet
• Jane
• Lucky
• Mademoiselle
• Men's Vogue
• Modern Bride
• NowManifest (blog)
• Portfolio Magazine
• Style.com
• Vitals Men
• Vitals Women
• World of Hibernia
• WomenSports
• YM