Midas touch editor Bonnie Fuller worked miracles on newsstands by turning around the fortunes of such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Star and Us Weekly before launching successful celebrity news website HollywoodLife.com. Now she is taking on a very different challenge.
Fuller, 58, next aims to conquer the podcast market by putting herself front and center as host of the recently launched “HollywoodLife” podcast, and in the process further boost her thriving website’s audience. But she admits it will be tough.
“Most things don’t come easy. A lot of people think a magic wand creates success, but I don’t have one of those and working hard is the key, especially in the digital media age where the news cycle never switches off,” she said.
The podcast aims to capitalize on the young female audience of her site, which drew more than 260 million unique visitors last year, a 61 percent increase from the year before. Its YouTube channel has 600,000 subscribers and has recorded 328 million views since it launched 2½ years ago.
“When I came in five years ago I didn’t imagine we would grow to this size,” said Fuller, whose site has offices in Los Angeles and New York. “It’s very gratifying, especially as this was a startup brand, which was new territory for me. … Plus this was a step into new media.”
The weekly free podcast, which launched in January, has seen its audience grow to 350,000 after six episodes, good enough for a top 25 slot in its iTunes category.
It is being marketed around the authority, connections and personality of Fuller – who is billed as “BFF of the stars” – and sees the host not just reporting on celebrities but interviewing them, too. Guests so far have included pop singers Lance Bass, Victoria Justice and Christina Milian.
Her new project, which is also carried on L.A. advertiser-supported podcast company PodcastOne, is the talk of the local podcast and radio scene, where opinions vary on her performance.
“She still has some way to go to find her voice so that she can become as much of a genius at the microphone as she is in the newsroom,” said L.A. radio personality Langdon Bosarge, host of popular podcast “Langdon Nation,” who said he had listened to the podcast and found it had grown from its early episodes, when it “seemed like a more saccharine version of TMZ.”
Bill Black, founder of Orange County business podcast network ExitCoachRadio.com, said, “Podcasts are emerging as the media of choice for a huge wave of new mobile listeners of all ages and among the explosion of new content is Bonnie Fuller’s fun and engaging production, which looks like it’s gaining a huge number of new fans and subscribers for HollywoodLife.”
Media maven
Fuller has built a career reporting on celebrity lives, a topic that has always fascinated the public, via magazines, websites or podcasts.
“People have been obsessed with celebrities forever,” she said. “For most of history those celebrities were royalty or aristocrats. That changed in the 20th century when you had debutantes and silent-screen stars, then silver-screen stars, television stars and then reality TV came along and blew the doors down. Celebrities are on all the magazine covers and continue to fascinate.”
Asked which celebrity she associates with most, the married mother of four gives the perhaps surprising answer of Selena Gomez, the 22-year-old actress, singer and on-and-off girlfriend of pop star Justin Bieber.
“I can identify with her and what she’s been going through. She has been in love with a man who is not so committed to her. I can identify with that, having gone through a similar situation with a guy when I was a young woman,” she said.
People reflecting on their own lives through the lens of celebrity has been a huge part of the editorial approach of HollywoodLife.com, which is firmly aimed at women 18 to 34 and targets its own niche rather than compete with general celebrity news sites like TMZ or trades such as the Hollywood Reporter.
Fuller recently marked five years as president and editor in chief of HollywoodLife and is happy to stay where she is rather than look for another media mountain to climb.
“My itchy feet are a thing of the past,” she insisted.
The Canada-born media executive had moved around a lot in the past and earned a reputation, as well as awards, for relaunching and raising the circulation of several leading magazines including Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Us Weekly and Star. She is credited with bringing Glamour to its highest-ever circulation and revenue levels, turning Star from a tabloid to a glossy magazine with a record 1.5 million circulation and was named editor of the year in 2002 by Advertising Age for turning around the fortunes of Us Weekly, the same honor she won in 1997 for redesigning Cosmopolitan.
Her latest venture is available on iTunes, via the HollywoodLife website as well as through PodcastOne’s website and app.
“Bonnie’s track record of success in editorial content and audience engagement is extraordinary, said PodcastOne Chief Executive Norm Pattiz. “She knows how to connect with the female demographic in ways no one else can.”
Just because she now works in new media does not mean Fuller is ready to write old media’s death certificate.
“There is always going to be print media,” she said. “Long-established print media titles have respected brand names and the way to grow their audience is to build their digital content. You have to adapt to survive. If such brands do that, I expect print media will be with us for a very, very long time.”
