Copyright © 1997 by the Boston Phoenix, Inc. All rights reserved.
By Dan Kennedy
The answer to the question of why Boston magazine fired publisher Alan Klein this week, after three-plus years on the job, may be simple: advertising is down from 1996. According to the Media Industry Newsletter, 478.45 pages of ads appeared in Boston through June 1997, a 5.75 percent drop from the same period in 1996, when 507.65 pages had been sold.
Meanwhile, advertising at Boston's sister publication, Philadelphia, is up slightly over last year -- and Philadelphia's publisher, David Lipson, is taking the helm of Boston, too, at least for the time being. (Lipson's father, Herbert Lipson, owns both magazines.)
Though job security at Boston is always tenuous, editor Craig Unger, a two-year veteran, should be safe. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, Boston now averages 120,543 copies sold per month, an increase of 3.4 percent over last year. And with subscriptions essentially flat, virtually the entire increase came in newsstand sales, which rose by 22.3 percent, from 17,796 to 21,769.