A Letter From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

Aug. 24, 1985. Three journalists are waiting in an airport lounge. The voice of an anchorman floats from a flickering television screen: "The Kremlin's new leader remains a mystery . . ." As his words fade, the three men, all TIME editors, board a flight for Moscow on their way to the first interview that Mikhail Gorbachev granted to any Western journalists.

Cut. Print. The editors were played by actors, but the scene was based on fact. It was re-enacted for a 30-second television commercial that will be launched this week in 20 cities. The first of three such TV spots, it ends with a simple reminder: "Week after week, there's no substitute for TIME."

The magazine has had a number of advertising campaigns over the years, but this one is different. The basic message: We know you watch the evening news and read the newspapers. You probably feel saturated, even overwhelmed with information. Well, TIME is not just another medium. While television and newspapers give you a glimpse of the news, TIME digests it all, then tells you what happened, in a framework that goes beyond the clutter to make sense of the world. Thanks in part to the clout of our 29 million readers and the unique relationship we have with them, the magazine has unparalleled access to the people who shape the news. Raisa Gorbachev, in Washington last week, pronounced herself a regular reader.

Our new TV campaign deals only with actual stories. A second commercial will show broadcast reports of a presidential candidate's withdrawal, newspaper headlines about church scandals, and shots of reporters mobbing the latest figure in a Wall Street insider-trading scheme. These disparate events were connected and given perspective earlier this year in a TIME cover story, "What Ever Happened to Ethics." A third spot will show how TIME went beyond the headlines of the Wall Street crash to examine America's leadership crisis.

The new commercials are the work of a team headed by Robert Cox, a Young & Rubicam executive. "Our not so subtle message is that if you're not reading TIME, you're missing something," he says. Directed by Tony Scott, the prizewinning Briton who made Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop II, the images are fashioned to convey the same idea: the energy, intelligence, excitement and authority that go into each issue of TIME.