CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to reflect that Mary Hegarty Nowlan left Vermont Life voluntarily. We apologize for the error.
[T]he commerce agency will keep Vermont Life in house. State officials have rejected nine bids for an outside company to take over the state’s signature tourism magazine.
Michael Schirling, the secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, told lawmakers that none of the bidders, who were invited to purchase the magazine, partner with the state or contract out editorial services, found a way to substantively rebrand the magazine or change the revenue model and none would have produced enough revenue to make Vermont Life significantly more profitable.
Since his agency downsized staff for the magazine, cost savings have brought the publication back into the black, Schirling said. Last year Mary Hegarty Nowlan, the top editor and publisher, and other staff resigned. Since then, the magazine has relied on staff who are also working on marketing efforts inside the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing.
Schirling, Knight and the Vermont Life board have praised Nowlan’s work and said she successfully rebranded the magazine.
Vermont Life ran year over year deficits for more than a decade and had accrued a debt of $3.2 million as of last year as the result of changes in the media industry that have hurt newspapers and magazines nationwide.
“None of the bidders addressed paying down debt and most were envisioning cost savings already achieved by the leadership change at Vermont Life,” Schirling said.
The secretary told lawmakers that request for proposals issued on Sept. 11, 2017, did not ask bidders to come up with a plan for retiring the debt because the agency was afraid that request would have turned off potential buyers and contractors.
“If we’d asked them to address it, we may not have gotten any responses,” Schirling.
Finding a way to make the magazine profitable enough to pay down the debt, however, turned out to be the determining factor for keeping the magazine in house, according to Schirling and Wendy Knight, the commissioner of Tourism and Marketing.
The top bidder offered to buy a three year license, putting $25,000 up for the property and devised a profit sharing plan with the state. The plan would have given the state a cut of 30 percent of profits above $100,000 and 50 percent of profits above $200,000.
Schirling said the magazine has not been profitable for a long time and he told lawmakers he wasn’t sure “it’s ever shown a profit above $100,000.”
Since Knight has integrated marketing and magazine staff across the agency, efficiencies have been attained that make retaining the magazine and the Vermont Life staff more palatable, Schirling said.
The magazine is expected to break even this year and to make a profit of $40,000 in the following year, largely as a result of staff cuts, Knight and Schirling said.
Schirling said the state’s marketing efforts and magazine are focused on the Think Vermont messaging, which is geared toward drawing tourists, second homeowners and new Vermonters to the state.
“If we were faced with the state starting a Vermont Life publication today, it would make no sense whatsoever,” Schirling said. “We now have an asset that has been reworked. We wouldn’t stay in business for $40,000 but for the fact that it won’t bleed cash is now a net positive.”
Kitty Toll, the chair of House Appropriations Committee, asked how the state should balance the historic sentiment “with what we wouldn’t do today?” Is it worth the investment, she asked, “or should all of that energy go into working on finding other ways to bring people to the state?”
Schirling’s answer was yes, now that Vermont Life staff is “more embedded in the overall messaging, marketing and future recruitment for new business and new Vermonters.”
