The Best of the Best
publication date: Feb 18, 2008
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author/source: Robert Bickell
Bickell's Blog
February 18, 2008
My City Magazine has been on an incredible editorial roll, and it helps when your local (and beautiful) news anchor punches out a New York City detective, and becomes your local and beautiful former news anchor. And it helps when your NFL coach continues his ongoing "off the field" family struggles while the magazine is reporting on the infamous Pam Oliver/Donavan McNaab interview. It also helps when they publish (for the first time) a list of the Top Fifty local restaurants. It's one thing to publish the "Best Of" year after year, but when you rate the restaurants #1 thru 50, all hell breaks loose.
A top fifty list is so subjective that all you can really do is make fifty owners somewhat happy. Of course, it's a lot better to be number 1 or 2 as opposed to 49 or 50. Having said that, try telling Georges Perrier that his 5-Star French classic is the 26th best restaurant in Philadelphia. Worse yet, try to explain to dozens and dozens of local restaurants why they failed to make the list at all. It can be an editorial victory because it's so controversial, but an advertising disaster for those who feel slighted.
The reality is that city magazines can now afford the luxury of printing such a list (even though a top 100 would have made more sense). Restaurants are discovering the internet and the once favored local magazines are in the process of taking an advertising beating. The sad truth is that the city magazines have succeeded in pricing themselves out of the reach of an ever-growing segment of their local restaurants. The sadder truth is that it's only going to get worse. The web is truly the best thing that has happened in terms of restaurant marketing, so my guess is that we will be seeing a lot more restaurant ratings in the local print world. We'll also be seeing less and less restaurant advertising.
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