Pop culture mag is back on the Radar

Rag will be relaunched next spring

By MICHAEL LEARMONTH

Radar magazine, a title that promised an unvarnished view of celebrity and literate coverage of pop culture, once again has a new lease on life after publishing two issues in spring 2003.

Mag, founded by Maer Roshan, a former editor at New York and Talk magazine, will be relaunched next spring with backing from New York Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman and New York financier Jeffrey Epstein.

"We believe there is a large, untapped market for smart, topical magazines like the one we plan with Maer at the helm," Zuckerman said.

Roshan will retain an undisclosed equity stake in the magazine, which he has been shopping to potential investors for the better part of two years.

Radar will target urban audiences in the 25-39 demographic with a "literate take" on pop culture, politics, trends and style.

Veering toward Vanity Fair

But the mag that debuts in 2005 will be quite different from the one he produced in 2003. Radar originally was conceived as a newsstand-driven biweekly that would focus on timely pop-culture news. Since then, more celebrity weeklies have crowded the newsstand, so the magazine will debut with four issues in 2005 and 10 issues in 2006, with an eye toward becoming a monthly in 2007. Business model is more Vanity Fair than Us Weekly.

The initial circulation will be 125,000.

Zuckerman, who also owns U.S. News & World Report, helped launch Fast Company, which was sold to Bertelsmann's Gruner+Jahr in 2000 for $360 million.

Linda Sepp, former publisher of Fast Company, will be Radar's publisher. Paul Fish, former chief financial officer of Dennis Publishing, will be general manager, and Elinor Carmody, founding publisher of George magazine, will be chief marketing and sales officer.