Downe Communications was a publishing company founded by Edward Downe, Jr. that produced several popular magazines and provided subscription fulfillment services from 1967 to 1978.
Downe was a trained journalist who worked at newspapers before becoming a magazine editor. In 1966, Downe purchased Family Magazine, a newspaper insert similar to Parade Magazine. He founded Downe Communications the following year. [1] The company acquired the Ladies' Home Journal and The American Home in 1968 from Curtis Publishing Company for $5.4 million in stock. [2] [3] Argosy magazine was purchased that same year. [4] [5]
Look magazine ceased publication in 1971. [6] Two months prior, the circulation department had completed the development of its new computer system that stored the names and addresses of customers on magnetic tape. This new fulfillment system gave rise to the idea for a new business, with six Look employees looking for their first client. Publisher Edward Downe, Jr. agreed to not only be the company’s first client, but also its owner – if the company was named after him. Thus, on April 1, 1972, Downe Computer Services opened with 172 employees and one client. [7]
In 1977, the Charter Company in Jacksonville, Florida, started buying Downe Communications’ stock. Downe sold his controlling interest in the company to Charter for approximately $9 million in 1978. [1] The company name was changed to Charter Data Services (CDS); today, it is known as CDS Global.
Ladies' Home Journal was an American magazine last published by the Meredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States. In 1891, it was published in Philadelphia by the Curtis Publishing Company. In 1903, it was the first American magazine to reach one million subscribers.
The Saturday Evening Post is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influential magazines within the American middle class, with fiction, non-fiction, cartoons and features that reached two million homes every week. The magazine declined in readership through the 1960s, and in 1969 The Saturday Evening Post folded for two years before being revived as a quarterly publication with an emphasis on medical articles in 1971. As of the late 2000s, The Saturday Evening Post is published six times a year by the Saturday Evening Post Society, which purchased the magazine in 1982. The magazine was redesigned in 2013.
Morris Communications, headquartered in Augusta, Georgia, is a privately held media company with diversified holdings that include magazine publishing, outdoor advertising, book publishing and distribution, visitor publications, and online services.
Stock photography is the supply of photographs which are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, has established models including traditional macrostock photography, midstock photography, and microstock photography. Conventional stock agencies charge from several hundred to several thousand US dollars per image, while microstock photography may sell for around US$25 cents. Professional stock photographers traditionally place their images with one or more stock agencies on a contractual basis, while stock agencies may accept the high-quality photos of amateur photographers through online submission.
Charter Communications, Inc., is an American telecommunications and mass media company with services branded as Spectrum. With over 32 million customers in 41 states, it is the second-largest cable operator in the United States by subscribers, just behind Comcast, and the third-largest pay TV operator behind Comcast and AT&T. Charter is the fifth-largest telephone provider based on number of residential lines.
Retlaw Enterprises, originally Walt Disney Miniature Railroad, then Walt Disney, Inc. (WDI), and then WED Enterprises (WED), was a privately held company owned by the heirs of entertainment mogul Walt Disney. Disney formed the company to control the rights to his name and to manage two Disneyland attractions that he personally owned. The name, Retlaw, is Walter spelled backwards.
The Curtis Publishing Company, founded in 1891 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, became one of the largest and most influential publishers in the United States during the early 20th century. The company's publications included the Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, The American Home, Holiday, Jack & Jill, and Country Gentleman. In the 1940s, Curtis also had a comic book imprint, Novelty Press. The company declined in the later 20th century, and its publications were sold or discontinued. It now exists as Curtis Licensing, which licenses images of and from Curtis magazine covers and artwork.
Look was a biweekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa, from 1937 to 1971, with editorial offices in New York City. It had an emphasis on photographs and photojournalism in addition to human interest and lifestyle articles. A large-sized magazine of 11 in × 14 in, it was a direct competitor to market leader Life, which began publication months earlier and ended in 1972, a few months after Look shut down.
Sport was an American sports magazine. Launched in September 1946 by New York-based publisher Macfadden Publications, Sport pioneered the generous use of color photography – it carried eight full-color plates in its first edition.
CDS Global, Inc. is a multinational corporation based in Des Moines, Iowa, that provides business process outsourcing and customer data management to various industries worldwide.
Sweetwater is the largest online retailer of musical instruments and pro audio equipment in the United States, based out of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The Country Gentleman (1852–1955) was an American agricultural magazine founded in 1852 in Albany, New York, by Luther Tucker.
The Charter Company of Jacksonville, Florida was a conglomerate with more than 180 subsidiaries that was in the Fortune 500 for 11 years beginning in 1974 and ranked 61st in 1984. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in late 1984, eventually selling off all of its businesses and purchasing Spelling Entertainment Inc. to form Spelling Entertainment Group Inc in 1992.
The American Home was a monthly magazine published in the United States from 1928 to 1977. Its subjects included domestic architecture, interior design, landscape design and gardening.
Edward Reynolds Downe Jr. is an American businessman and socialite.
Macfadden Communications Group is a publisher of business magazines. It has a historical link with a company started in 1898 by Bernarr Macfadden that was one of the largest magazine publishers of the twentieth century.
William Austin "Bill" Emerson Jr. was an American journalist who covered the Civil Rights Movement as Newsweek's first bureau chief assigned to cover the Southern United States and was later editor in chief of The Saturday Evening Post.
Martin S. Ackerman was a lawyer and businessman known for mergers and acquisitions.
Curtis Circulation Company, LLC, is a magazine distribution company.
Aon Hewitt was a provider of human capital and management consulting services headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois in the United States. From 500 offices in 120 countries, it provided consulting, outsourcing, and reinsurance brokerage services. The "Aon Hewitt" brand and legal entities have now been absorbed into the "Aon" business, leaving obsolete the names "Hewitt" and "Aon Hewitt."