Vaughan Tebbe considers herself very lucky. At age 36, she is the publisher of Movieline magazine, the only entertainment magazine based in Los Angeles. “I couldn’t have scripted a better job for myself,” she said.
Tebbe started her publishing career in 1991 in San Francisco doing telemarketing for Miller Freeman, a national trade journal publishing house. She moved to an advertising sales position and was transferred to the company’s New York office, where she became national ad sales manager for several titles in the firm’s medical publications group.
Not for long, however. “I had an interest in making a switch from trade to consumer (publications),” she said. “The medical field wasn’t going to keep my interest for a long period of time.”
Tebbe left Miller Freeman in 1994 to take a job as account manager at Details magazine. While there, she was approached for a position at Time Out New York, a weekly arts and entertainment guide. She was hired as an ad director and within 10 months was promoted to publisher, a position she held for a little over two years.
“I launched that magazine,” she said. “I have a good track record for building a team, developing sales in a broad range of categories and establishing a brand in a very competitive market.”
Tebbe relocated to Los Angeles last January, and was looking into business opportunities for Time Out New York when she met John Evans, Movieline’s president and COO. This summer she met with Chairman and CEO Anne Volokh, who had been thinking of relocating the publisher position from New York to Los Angeles.
“I am really excited about this,” Tebbe said. “The magazine is going through what you might call a re-launch. The editorial product is excellent, and we are bringing the image and look of the magazine in line with the quality of the editorial.”
Movieline, which has been distributed nationally since 1989, will debut its new look in the February issue. “It has been a difficult balance to create a design that reflects the irreverence, sense of humor and sophistication of the magazine, but we feel we have achieved that with the new design,” she said.
Karen Teitelman
