Discover (magazine)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Discover is an American science magazine that exists because a magazine editor kept noticing a pattern in his sales figures. Leon Jaroff worked at Time, and he saw that issues sold better whenever the cover featured a science story. He read that pattern as proof of a real public appetite for science writing, and by 1971, he was pushing to build a whole magazine around it. Jaroff's persistence paid off in 1980, when Discover launched under Time Inc. Over the following decades, the magazine was rebuilt more than once and passed through several owners, some with little connection to science publishing at all. What was Discover built to prove, and how far did it drift from that original idea?

• 2. A Magazine Born From a Hunch

  ›

  A former colleague explained the resistance Jaroff faced this way: "Selling science to people who graduated to be managers was very difficult." Even inside Time Inc., pitching an entire magazine built around science was a hard sell.

  Discover positioned itself between two established rivals: friendlier than Scientific American, yet more rigorous than Popular Science.

  A year earlier, the American Association for the Advancement of Science had already launched Science 80, distinct from the AAAS's flagship journal, Science. Science News and Science Digest also changed their formats to chase the same trend that Discover and Science 80 had started.

• 3. Hard Science, Skeptical Eyes

  ›

  During these early years, Discover leaned into rigorous "hard science" reporting and steered clear of fringe subjects such as extraterrestrial intelligence.

  Stephen Jay Gould, Jared Diamond, and Stephen Hawking were among the well-known scientists who wrote essays for most issues. A frequent feature was a biographical profile of a working scientist, usually woven together with mentions of other researchers active in the same field.

  The "Skeptical Eye" column took direct aim at pop-science scams. It became the venue where magician James Randi published the results of his Project Alpha investigation. Jaroff later said Skeptical Eye was the most-read section of the magazine at its launch.

• 4. Chasing a Wider Audience

  ›

  By the mid-1980s, Discover stood almost alone in its market, as the wave of rival science magazines had already fallen away. Rather than stay put, the magazine decided to broaden its audience by adding articles on psychology and psychiatry.

  Jaroff told the magazine's editor-in-chief that psychology and psychiatry were not "solid sciences." He was then sent back to Discover's parent company, Time, Inc.

  The "Skeptical Eye" column disappeared along with several other features. New articles covered more controversial, speculative topics, including a piece titled "How the Universe Will End." The new format proved a major success and stayed largely the same for the next two decades.

  Gilbert Rogin, an editor at Sports Illustrated, was brought in during 1985 to revive the magazine.

• 5. The Business Behind the Pages

  ›

  In 1986, Time purchased the subscription lists of two shuttered rivals, Science Digest and Science 86, folding their readers into Discover's own base. That growth showed up in the numbers: circulation reached 925,000 by May 1987.

  Revenue for 1986 came to $6.9 million, but the magazine still posted an annual net loss of $10 million.

  In January 1987, Time appointed a new publisher, Bruce A. Barnet, who had previously run the test magazine Picture Week starting in August 1985. Barnet replaced James B. Hayes, who moved on to become publisher of Fortune.

• 6. Sold, Then Sold Again

  ›

  In 1987, Time, Inc. sold Discover to Family Media for $26 million. Family Media also owned Health, Golf Illustrated, Homeowner, 1,001 Home Ideas, and World Tennis.

  Between January and July 1991, Discover lost 15% of its advertising, though the magazine remained profitable. Family Media then shut down entirely, suspending every one of its magazines and putting them up for sale. The last Discover issue under Family Media appeared in August 1991, with circulation at 1.1 million copies.

  In September 1991, the Walt Disney Company bought Discover for its Disney Publishing's Magazine Group. The magazine's main office moved to the Magazine Group's base in Burbank. One third of the staff stayed behind in a small New York editorial and advertising office.

  Disney kept Family Media's editor-in-chief, Paul Hoffman, in place. It also doubled the photography and content budget, making up for two issues skipped during the shutdown.

  In 1993, Disney Magazine Publishing Inc. launched a trade advertising campaign with the firm Ziff Marketing. The goal was to convince advertisers that Discover was an accessible, general-interest magazine in the science category.

• 7. New Owners, New Century

  ›

  In October 2005, Bob Guccione Jr., the founder of Spin and Gear magazines, bought Discover from Disney along with a group of private equity partners. As CEO, Guccione oversaw a full redesign that debuted with the April 2006 issue.

  By October 2007, Guccione was ousted as CEO, in what was described as "a falling-out over philosophical differences with his financial backers." Henry Donahue, Discover Media's chief financial officer, stepped into the CEO role, and by 2008 he had taken on the title of publisher as well.

  In October 2008, Corey Powell, the magazine's executive editor, became editor-in-chief. Around this time, Discover settled into publishing combined issues in January and February and again in July and August, totaling ten issues a year.

  In 2010, Kalmbach Publishing bought Discover. Kalmbach's other titles lean toward craft and hobby subjects. Its modeling titles include Model Railroader, FineScale Modeler, Scale Auto, Classic Toy Trains, Garden Railways, and Model Retailer. It also publishes beadwork magazines such as BeadStyle, Bead&Button, and Art Jewelry, along with outdoor titles like Birder's World, Cabin Life, and American Snowmobiler. Its only other science title is Astronomy.

  In August 2012, Kalmbach announced that Discover would move from New York City to the company's headquarters in Wisconsin, effective January 2013. Stephen C. George became editor-in-chief in December 2012. Becky Lang later held the role, serving as editor-in-chief until mid-2020.

  On the 1st of May 2024, Kalmbach Media announced the sale of most of its titles to Firecrown Media. The deal also included Kalmbach's Books division and its related e-commerce sites. That left Discover as Kalmbach's sole remaining publication. On the 8th of November 2024, LabX Media Group acquired Discover from Kalmbach.

• 8. Beyond the Page

  ›

  The Discover website hosts a collection of blogs tied to the magazine's brand, including Cosmic Variance, Carl Zimmer's The Loom, and Melissa Lafsky's Reality Base.

  From 1983 to 1990, PBS aired a monthly hour-long news magazine called Discover: The World of Science, drawing its topics from the print publication. The show was hosted by Peter Graves, putting a familiar face on Discover's science reporting for public television audiences.