MediaPost's page-flipping column Magazine Rack took an in-depth look at Rodale's Men's Health and Time Inc.'s Health, comparing everything from their rapid weight loss plans (Health gets the edge!) to between the sheets pointers (this one goes to the Z-man, natch).

Here's a brief run-down of all the categories and final rankings:

In addition to the aforemention accolades, Men's Health also reigned superior in the realms of features and writing quality and quality of relationship advice. Meanwhile, Health gets props in the pop science, most useful info, though the two mags tied in terms of overall aesthetics.

And while we don't disagree with the final verdict (MediaPost gives the edge to Men's Health for being "more literate and memorable") we acknowledge that one or two other factors may have contributed to our decision.

CONTINUED »

On his way to reviewing Washington Monthly, MediaPost blogger Larry Dobrow takes the scenic (and newspeg-worthy) route before expunging on a political magazine that's looking more Us Weekly than Washingtonian.

Mostly, the post is a worthwhile tongue-in-cheek (we're hoping) nudge at ASME for not inviting him as a guest or presenter at tonight's Ellie Awards. He's been hurt! "Don’t tell me you weren’t looking forward to the staged banter between me and an impossibly lithe Harper’s Bazaar editrix as we handed out the statuette for Least Obtrusive Use of Sidebars, 250,000-1,000,000 circulation," he writes. And, well, we were looking forward to that. At least as much as we are Ellen DeGeneres' video opener.

So instead of pushing past the check-in desk at Lincoln Center tonight, Larry is biding his time with a review of Washington Monthly — a magazine, as you might imagine, that hasn't been nominated for anything this year.

You'd be hard pressed to get us to open a copy of Cooking Light, or even Food & Wine or Gourmet, if we weren't at a party celebrating one of their issues and needed something to occupy our attention and hands while we waited for the arrival of a friend we baited into attending with us. So you might imagine how much harder it was to open MediaPost's Magazine Rack email column about Intermezzo, the foodie mag where food is just a starting point for lifestyle. But we did click. And we were happy we did. Columnist Larry Dobrow shits on with the writing skills Intermezzo's editors wish they employed.

CONTINUED »

We thought it might stop with Gotham and Hamptons, and even Departures. But no, the number of magazines for the affluent continues to rise. Their number now stands at 456, "a 407 percent over the mere 90 publications that targeted the nation’s upper class in 1997." Which is, like, a lot.

The reason for the increase stems from an overall surge in the number of niche or targeted publications in the market, as well as the nation’s growing affluence, said Deborah Striplin, editorial director of The Standard Periodical Directory. “We think that affluent publications are becoming more popular because more and more people are becoming affluent, think they are or want to be,” she said.

And also, if Jason Binn can do it, well, you can see there's nothing to scare publishers off.

AdAge: "Magazine Ad Pages End Year as They Started: Flat"

• The sky is falling! The sky is falling! But you're already well aware. [E&P]

• In magazine land, Bush, Beyonce, Tom Ford's naked ladies, and digits make for fast-moving covers. [WWD]

• There's no place for Time in Time Inc.'s web endeavors. [WSJ]

• Congratulations to MSNBC's Contessa Brewer, who eschewed the network's questionable future to beat fellow anchor Alison Stewart to the alter. [ICN]

• InterActivCorp's Barry Diller isn't sitting out this this YouTube thing. [HWT]

When we hit three local newsstands one summer afternoon in search of copies of InStyle, Bazaar, Elle, Vanity Fair, and Men's Vogue for an item we were working on, we were dismayed to find our Union Square distributors – while happy to unload a Post or a Daily News – barely had any of our selections in stock. No, we didn't need (another) copy of King or XXL; we needed attempts at serious fashion to mock Charla Lawhon. (It never did work out.)

So to hear Barnes & Noble – already the reigning king of magazine offerings – wants to expand its glossy roster, Magazine Publishers of America board members weren't the only ones to click their feet together in excitement. More options than row after row of Art Forum, Bust, Bomb, Adbusters, and 2600?! It couldn't be so. But that's what B&N's chief Stephen Riggio claims he wants to do. Though, he hasn't said how he wants to expand, or what new magazines he'll bring into the fold. But if there's a polybagged Blue waiting on the third level of the Union Square Barnes & Noble, you can be certain we'll eschew the crappy newsstands below.

Barnes & Noble CEO Wants More Magazines in Stores [Ann Marie Kerwin, AdAge]

Back at the American Magazine Conference in Phoenix (we promise, it'll end tomorrow .. or, at the latest, next week), attendees are battling – or being barraged by reporters asking – the question: "What kind of business are major magazine publishers in today?" Let's tune in:

• "We're in the brand business. We have brands that people feel pretty passionate about and we produce material that can be put together in different ways." —Nina Link, chairman/CEO of MPA

• "We are in the business of producing content. And I didn't say the only way to do it was print. But it is still core of what we do." — Rick Smith, CEO and editor of Newsweek

• "We produce content that can exist in a multimedia world. We're not in the railroad business anymore but the transportation business." — Christy Hefner, CEO of Playboy

And since Us Weekly's Janice Min couldn't be there, she phoned in her response: "We're in the business of throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks in Jennifer Aniston's hair."

The Magazine Industry Ponders Its Future [Myrna Blyth, NYS]

In a shocking bit of news to come out of the American Magazine Conference, the Magazine Publishers of American's own study concludes print is not the firey pit of banality and irrelevance some marketers believe it to be. Rather, there's good news: magazines are part of some sort of "purchase funnel," leading three of four "funnel stages." It's not quite clear what either of those ad industry terms means, but if they have anything to do with properly distributing kerosene to construct a flaming path of destruction, we're in agreement.

At Deadline: MPA Study: Mags Still Effective Ad Buy [Media Week]

• Ya think? [Fresh Intel]

• New York Times readers will not tolerate fair-weathered Mets fans. And neither will the Observer. [NYO]

• We don't think NYC needs to get all San Francisco with baby names like "Moonclover" and "Ashbury." And while they're very nice names, we thought New Yorkers could get more creative than Michael and Emily. [1010 Wins]

• Seriously? Barnes & Noble is poly-bagging ArtForum? Come on, we've seen moms in the kids section wearing sluttier outfits than that. [Page Six]

• We are so relieved. Some areas of Brooklyn aren't so full of futons and pregnancy tests that the crime stops. [Curbed]

This just in:

Kate White and Cindi Leive just got off the phone with Victoria's Secret. 200 water bras are being shipped for their staffers.

Magazine World Still Flat [Nat Ives, Ad Age]

As much as we love the ladies of Women's Wear Daily's Memo Pad, today we couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the second story. Bringing up the rear on the coverage of Hearst's "we're is the best company ever party" WWD gives us literally the only detail about the party we haven't heard yet. We heard about the Tower cocktails and the hot caterers
. But! We bet you didn't hear about his.

By now, everyone has heard the highlights from the Hearst Tower opening party held Monday night in New York — the glad-handing between every media mogul in town. Mayor Bloomberg. Cirque du Soleil-like dancers. Stevie Wonder. Cocktails.

But few know how the east facade of the building stayed candlelit for nearly six hours without burning down the brand-new house Hearst built. Bronson Van Wyck of event planning firm Van Wyck & Van Wyck confessed the candles were actually wax columns with LED lights. "We didn't want to have any risk of fire," he explained. "It's a grand opening and a historical experience for the company. We just didn't want to go there."

Wow! We had not heard about those Van Wyck "candles." And really? Somebody thought having a fire in the new building would have been a bad thing? That totally explains why they don't have big fancy events in the Conde Nast building. Surely there are people looking for any excuse to burn that place down.

After Party [Stephanie D. Smith, WWD]

• Lindsay Lohan's father just never stops. For this we will forgive her bathroom activities for at least four days. [FBLA]

• A bit of a scuffle occurred at the 15-year-anniversary party for New York's first gay weekly, HX. Ah, the casualties of putting 200 gay media folks on a boat. [Queerty]

• Falling asleep at your computer? Gawker recommends doing a shit ton of Adderall. Not as harsh as coke, will keep you skinny, and it's not really that illegal. We would say "yoga" but that's why we're losers. [Gawker]

• Paris Hilton is a pothead? That might be a good campaign for keeping kids off drugs. [FBNY]

• Does Sandra Bullock not understand that when celebs get chubby, the paparazzi creams themselves over the idea of a (cha-ching!) baby on board? And she confesses that maybe she can't have kids. [OAN]

We learn (through Radar of all places!) that Rush & Molloy have confirmed our previous report that Vanity Fair wrangled Andy Warhol's whole Factory crew together for a photo shoot. They, apparently, have more embedded spies than we, and tick of the names you should expect to see come (what we believe will be) February. (Note, of course, the People-style missing accreditation.)

Photog Todd Eberle gathered such disciples of the Pope of Pop as Viva, Sylvia Miles, Holly Woodlawn, Paige Powell, John Cale, Bob Colacello, Taylor Mead, Jane Holzer, Pat Hackett, Monique van Vooren, Marc Balet, Ronnie Cutrone and Jay Johnson. Missing from the portrait was Brigid Berlin. "Brigid is very conscious of her weight, so she asked Vincent Fremont to bring a photo of her. Todd said that wasn't going to work." Viva brought her own documentary crew to the seven-hour shoot at Serge Becker's 205 lounge on Chrystie St. "Some of these women still think they're 'superstars,'" a spy tells us. "Ultraviolet said, 'I have to leave in five minutes!' As if she had someplace to go." ...

Honestly, we were more excited to see it before we realized what a botched collection of has-beens is actually left of this debacle of a crew. But, as it goes in the world of Vanity Fair profiles, if it's important to Jane Sarkin and Ingrid Sischy, it's going to be important to you damnit.

Side Dish [Rush & Molloy, Daily News]
Earlier: Vanity Fair to Pay Ultimate Homage to Andy Warhol?

Vanity Fair has had some recent drama in the fashion department. (Can you imagine?) Most of it has to do with new people being brought in and some shuffling around, upward movement, and the hiring the children of every Tom Ford employee as assistants.

With all the changes, fashion and style director at large, Elizabeth Saltzman has a new title. And has sort of been meshed into the newly created position of "international social editor."

She will oversee the magazine's social coverage and also report on a wider variety of areas, including architecture, design and the arts, as well as fashion ...

"She is a significant figure on the international scene and this new post gives her an expanded opportunity to bring her good taste and sensibility to the pages of the magazine," said VF's editor in chief Graydon Carter.

Oh, we just can't wait. Please, please, can they run photos of Hudson Morgan and Peter Davis yachting in Istanbul? Or Jessica Joffe having cocktails at Japonais? We really just can't get enough of that stuff!

DIVIDING LINES [Amy Wicks, WWD]

Maybe today is just a strange day, or maybe we didn't get enough sleep last night and are hallucinating, but ... what the hell is this about Blender? And why exactly are they torturing their contributors?

Blender magazine editors chose Starship's 1985 hit "We Built This City" as the worst song of all time. Now they've assigned contributor Russ Heller to set a world record for repeatedly listening to the worst song ever.

He'll sit in a plexiglass booth at the Best Buy in NoHo starting Friday at 8 a.m. and grit his teeth as "We Built This City" is played at least 324 times over a grueling 24 hours.

Maybe it's some kind of Blender ritual we've never heard of? Or maybe this is left-over angst from the mag's Andy Pemberton days? Anyways ... if you're bored on Friday, watching how Blender says "thanks" to its freelancers makes for a really nice time-wasting activity.

AUDIO AGONY [Page Six]

• Paris Hilton claims she's getting a restraining order against Shanna Moakler. The entire world curses the fact that Moakler won't be able to kick her ass again. [Star]

• People who never knew John Lennon, who weren't alive when he died, and who don't even know the difference between him and Ringo celebrated his birthday today. We're sure he wouldn't have found anything superficial or cliche about it. [AP]

• So, the neighbors surrounding the Dr. Phil House full of crack addicts and crazies aren't pleased? Not even Dr. Phil himself would be able to explain that one. [TMZ]

• Despite everyone under the sun screaming about dropping ad sales all year, it turns out magazines actually sold some advertisements. Not too sure about copies, but, they sold ads. [Craine's]

• "Diane Sawyer" and "fucking harder than anyone" gets strung into one congruent sentence. And Brian Stetler blows his load. [FBNY]

We don't know what we're more confused about: this mysterious Ad Age "Freeloader" or the fact that we thought we knew who the only four reporters invited to this coushy/douchey "Hearst is amazing!" party last night.

But Ad Age does have a few little bits about the event. Who was there (Oprah, Richard Johnson, Helen Gurley Brown, Mayor Bloomberg); what they ate (pizza, curried chicken, and shellfish served by Ann Hathaway's stunt double); and which rival pubs showed up (Conde Nast).

And apparently some people were under the impression that this was a big, fabulous event.

Outside on Eighth Avenue, uninvited onlookers leaned on police barriers, asking what the party was about and who was inside. One was said to flash her breasts to a police officer in an unsuccessful bid to get in. "New York!" another yelled, apparently just pleased with the spectacle.

Yawn. Sounds like that party really sucked. We are so glad we had the "we weren't invited" excuse so we could stay home and watch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Hearst Officially Unveils Its Contribution to New York's Skyline [Ad Age]