New York Magazine’s Amy Larocca in a profile of Monocle Magazine publisher Tyler Brule writes that Monocle will debut a new weekly show on Bloomberg TV…
But Monocle is not only the magazine. There’s Monocle radio, which offers up interviews with the Estonian prime minister live from Tallinn, and with the best Lebanese fashion designer working in Paris these days. There’s Monocle retail; there are now several Monocle stores around the world, including one that just popped up on Hudson Street. And starting December 18, there will be Monocle TV on the Bloomberg network. It’s a weekly hour of what Brûlé describes as “gentle, good, informative viewing” not unlike old episodes of 60 Minutes or even CBS’s retro Sunday Morning. The show will feature magazine-style reports from Monocle’s correspondents that are unhurried in tone. About it he says this: “I hope it will be a return to more elegant television.”
The key to comprehending the Brûlé philosophy is to understand it is developed chiefly via great enthusiasms. Monocle is not naïve about the world (though reading it, you could be excused for thinking the Japanese are incapable of bad design or deflation), nor is it cynical. “Through the darkest hours of a sagging economy, there’s always an optimistic tone,” says Brûlé. “There’s lots of hectoring voices out there, a lot of anger about things, but that’s not why people come to our brand.”
