Merger Is Set With Smart

THE MEDIA BUSINESS
THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Merger Is Set With Smart
Published: September 13, 1990

Smart magazine and a new men's magazine that was set for publication early next year by Norris Publishing will merge into Smart: For Men, Owen Lipstein, chairman of the New American Magazine Company, said yesterday.

Reports of the impending merger have been circulating in recent weeks.

The magazine, which will begin publication in January, enters the increasingly crowded field of men's magazines.

Peter Kaplan, former editorial director of Manhattan,inc. who will be editor in chief of the new magazine, said that Smart:

For Men would be aimed at 28- to 40-year-old men with ''reasonably high incomes.''

Earlier this month Mr. Lipstein completed the sale of a 50 percent stake in his financially troubled New American Magazine Company to the Japanese Independent Communication Company for a price reported to be under $15 million.

Smart was owned jointly by

Terry McDonell, the founding editor of the two-year-old, 250,000 circulation magazine, and Mr. Lipstein. Mr. McDonell was named editor of Esquire magazine last month.

Mr. Lipstein said last night that he would buy out Mr. McDonell's shares.

Christopher Kimball, Norris

Publishing's president, was publisher of Cook's magazine, which has ceased publication.