On Newsstands, Allure of the Film Actress Fades

Pity the poor Hollywood film stars: they can’t open movies the way they used to and now they can’t sell magazines.

Even a few years ago, the prize for a magazine editor was in luring an A-list Hollywood star onto the cover. But just as much critical attention has shifted to television from theatrical releases, readers are now more likely to pick up a magazine featuring a television actor, reality star or musician.

“There was a day when movie stars were the gold standard for magazines,” said Jess Cagle, the managing editor of Entertainment Weekly, where the frequency and sales of TV-oriented covers are catching up with film covers. “But movie stars are less revered than they used to be, and also audiences have shifted their allegiance in large part to television.”

Glamour featured film stars on half of its covers in 2012. But the May 2012 issue featuring Lauren Conrad, the former star of the reality show “The Hills,” was the year’s best-selling issue, at 500,072 copies. The magazine now expects to make film stars the minority presence in 2013. 

At Cosmopolitan, the best-selling cover this year featured Kim Kardashian in April, with 1.2 million copies sold, followed by the singer Miley Cyrus in March with 1.1 million copies. In 2012, three out of five of Cosmopolitan’s top covers featured the celebrities Demi Lovato with 1.379 million copies sold, Khloé Kardashian at 1.354 million copies and Selena Gomez at 1.334 million copies. 

Vogue’s best-selling cover in the first four months of 2013 featured Beyoncé with 340,000 copies sold. In 2012, Lady Gaga commanded the cover of Vogue’s September issue and sold nearly double the number of copies of the January 2012 issue, featuring Meryl Streep.

It’s not just younger women’s magazines that are moving away from film stars. When Redbook landed an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow for its January issue, the magazine featured her with her trainer Tracy Anderson and not in what the magazine’s editor in chief, Jill Herzig, called the “traditional A-lister in a ball gown kind of way.” 

Magazine editors credit these changes to the improvement in the quality of television programs and the strength of musicians. These kinds of celebrities also are often more approachable than their film star equivalents. Lesley Jane Seymour, the editor in chief of More magazine, said that more highly regarded actors are taking parts on television instead of film and more people are watching better quality television — critical hits like “Mad Men” and “Homeland.” 

While top-notch stars often remain inaccessible and surrounded by handlers, reality television stars are opening up about their struggles with weight, romance and family, which readers grasp more than the musings of a flawless film star. Television stars and musicians also connect with their fans far more frequently. Fans watch their programs on a weekly basis or hear their songs on a daily basis, compared with seeing an actor in a film once a year.

After Ms. Cyrus appeared on the March cover of Cosmopolitan, she posted to her more than 12 million Twitter followers that they should visit their newsstands and place Cosmopolitan in the front. It also spawned a hashtag #BuyMileysCosmo.

Cindi Leive, editor in chief of Glamour, called singers like Beyoncé and Rihanna the “Mick Jaggers of today” whose digital presence translates into newsstand sales.

“They do an incredible job of connecting with their fans,” she said.

That is not to say television stars overrule all film stars. When Vanity Fair published a May 2012 television issue, it was the magazine’s worst-selling issue of the year, with 183,511 copies sold. People’s recent cover featuring the actress Angelina Jolie sold a robust one million newsstand copies. Joanna Coles, editor in chief of Cosmopolitan, said celebrities like Ms. Jolie sell well because they attract varied audiences. “Angelina is not just a film star,” Ms. Coles said. “She is a spokesman for something bigger.” 

For nearly four decades, magazine editors followed the formula coined by People’s founding managing editor, Richard B. Stolley, who remembered it as: Young is better than old. Pretty is better than ugly. Rich is better than poor. Film stars outsell television and music stars. Anything sells better than politics, and nothing sells better than a dead celebrity.

“There was a kind of crown on Hollywood that a movie star was bigger, new, more important, more interesting than television stars,” said Mr. Stolley, who was managing editor from 1974 to 1982. “Television did not promote itself and did not have the kind of push that movies did.” 

Film stars carried so much more influence that Ms. Seymour of More, who previously edited Redbook and Marie Claire, said some movie stars refused to appear on magazines if they would be following a cover featuring a television star. At the time, Ms. Seymour said, film stars would say: “Your magazine is too low for me. Why would I be on it?” 

But that assumption has drastically shifted as television enters a boom time rich with characters. “Television is a medium that cultivates a really personal connection. Zooey Deschanel is not someone you see in a film once a year,” Ms. Leive said of the television actress seen in “New Girl.” “If I have a work problem, I actually want to call Olivia Pope from ‘Scandal.’ ”

Mr. Cagle, who noted that less than 5 percent of Entertainment Weekly’s circulation came from newsstand sales, said that he often measured the success of a cover by its social media impact. The casts of television programs like “Pretty Little Liars” and “Vampire Diaries” — along with their fans — are more likely to post an article link on Twitter or share it on Facebook. 

“When Ian Somerhalder tweets out your cover, that’s really great,” said Mr. Cagle, referring to the “Vampire Diaries” star. “Your cover has this whole life.”

As television stars have become more accessible, women’s magazines have fewer options coming from Hollywood. A recently published study by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism showed that the percentage of female characters with a speaking part in the nation’s top movies each year reached its lowest point in the past five years in 2012, at 28 percent. Ms. Coles said it had become so difficult to find female film stars to feature from this summer’s blockbusters that her magazine was publishing an article about the problem.

“There are a lot of movies right now that don’t speak to women,” Ms. Coles said. “Since ‘Sex and the City,’ there haven’t been those big, rah-rah movies for women.”

The holdout seems to be men’s magazines. Dan Peres, Details’ editor in chief, said that in the last three years, the number of film stars on his magazine’s covers grew from seven in 2011 to all five covers so far in 2013. He noted that while women might be drawn to a more relatable television star or musician, men could relate to plenty of film stars.

“With men, at least from where I am sitting, it’s a little bit different. We still want to emulate a little bit. We still want somebody who is a little bit of an icon,” Mr. Peres said. “Johnny Depp,