Magazine launches & events 2005
Magazines listed by cover date with most recent at top. Also with alphabetic
links to magazines on the right. Launches in other years.
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Feb: Grazia shakes up women's sector with fashion weekly launch |
Dec: Ex-Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie loses shirt in Highbury fiasco |
Aug: OK! launches in US and sells 1m; but loses Zeta Jones case to Hello! |
Jan: political pressure forces BBC to sell women's monthly Eve to Haymarket |
In development and news beat:
- Murdoch's Love It to launch as sample with Sun
- Burda Living & Gardens due out 2 February
- Sunday Times Inside Out homes title 16 March
- 'The nationals can't compete,' Closer editor tells The Independent
- Editorial Intelligence for journalists and PRs (24 November)
- Fashion weeekly at NatMags – Project Z
- ACP-Natmag to launch Real People weekly in January 2006
- NatMags-Rodale planning to bring Prevention to UK from US
- FHM compact for summer 2006 at Emap following trial success
- News International to launch True Lives and
Inside Out in spring. Follows
Guardian report
- Robin Derrick, creative director of Vogue, was inspired
in his career by a Vogue cover in 1976, he tells The Independent
- Muffin the Mule and Zap comics at Future
- Women's rights magazine editor arrested in Afghanistan.
BBC News
- Vogue's Anna Wintour hit with pie in fur protest
- Trinity Mirror real-life magazine, Reality
- Independent on Sunday goes tabloid (Oct 16).
- Guardian columnist Roy Greenslade fears for press in distribution changes
- Burda sees dirty tricks in Tesco delisting Full House
- Higher frequency for the Economist's lifestyle annual Intelligent Life
- Undisclosed £9m weekly from Future France
- GQ Style for September
- Weekly fashion title at IPC
- Film weeklies from IPC and Emap; KO! for men at Northern & Shell
|
ACP title The Australian Women's Weekly – country's best-read magazine |
|
Magazine mogul Packer dies
Dec 26. Australia’s richest man, Kerry Packer, who controlled
most of the country’s magazines through Publishing
& Broadcasting Ltd, has died, aged 68. A family statement
released through his Nine Network television station said: ‘He
died peacefully at home with his family at his bedside.’
He inherited the family company, which has been run by his
son James for several years. Kerry was the son of newspaper
and magazine mogul Sir Frank Packer and began his career working
in the printing room of one of the newspapers.
When his father died in 1974, Packer became chairman of Australian
Consolidated Press, now the magazine arm of PBL. He inherited
television and radio stations, newspapers and the biggest magazine
publisher in the country. In 1977, he bought limited-overs cricket
to television with players in multi-coloured kit – ‘pyjamas’.
The 190cm – 6ft 2in – Packer was flamboyant and a gambling ‘whale’, playing baccarat
around the world and buying Melbourne’s Crown Casino,
Australia’s largest. |
For emigrants |
|
Australia and New Zealand magazine
Dec 05/Jan 06. Merricks. £3.75; 124pp. Ed: Anna Scrivenger
The latest in a range of titles from Merricks covering lifestyle,
buying property and travel to various countries. The range focuses
on advice for people who want to migrate. Australia
(six a year); limited distribution: only WH Smith; sponsored
by Currencies Direct.
Travel sector profile |
|
|
Beano publisher buys Soduko company
Dec 15. DC Thomson, the family-owned company that publishes
The Beano, Shout and Scottish newspapers such as The
Courier and Sunday Post, spent £85m on Puzzler
Media, publisher of 50 titles, including Puzzler Sudoku.
Puzzler Media claims the title of 'the world's largest puzzle
content provider'. The company traces its roots back to Home
and Freezer in 1983 and is based in Redhill, Surrey. Puzzler
Sudoku sells 280,000 copies a month and is the group's bestseller.
DC Thomson profile
Puzzler Media
|
|
|
Guardian picks top 20
Dec 12. The Guardian's media section named Private
Eye, The Economist and The Week as its top three
titles out of 20. It's a news-based list with just seven
monthlies. Take a look at the BSME awards list for some similarities
and contrasts
'Covered
in glory'
BSME awards |
For the tattooed |
|
Inked
Undated (c) 2005. Inked Productions (US). $3.99/£4; 146pp.
Ed: Mike Salman
'Mindset, style, culture, art', in this case the art being tattooing.
Glossy US quarterly distributed by Comag.
Inked |
Naughty Nuts – it's official! |
|
Zoo and FHM block Nuts
7 December. Zoo and FHM publisher Emap has
won a ruling against IPC's Nuts to prevent it claiming
the title 'best-selling men's magazine in Europe'. IPC made
the claim in an email based on selling 301,671 copies a week
of the title. However, Emap complained to the Advertising Standards
Authority that monthly FHM sold 560,167 copies each
issue. The ASA backed Emap.
ABC sales figures |
Busy style differentiated Spin |
|
No more Spin at Future
November 30. Future has closed Spin, the cricket title
it bought in a £30m deal with
Highbury House in April. The magazine was launched
in March (April cover date) and was helped by
the buzz surrounding the England team's success.
Future profile
|
|
|
Publicis Blueprint is top agency
Publicis Blueprint has been voted customer magazine agency of
the year by the Association of Publishing Agencies. John Brown
Citrus picked up five awards and Haymarket three. River won
editor of the year for the Sunday Times Travel Magazine.
Customer publishers profiles
|
Grazia – launch cost £12m |
|
France holds back Emap
A raft of problems has held back Emap profits – at a time when
it has spent a total of £16m on the launches of Grazia
in the UK and Closer in France. Interim pre-tax profits
were flat at £75m, even though revenue rose 6 per cent
to £554m. In France, its TV listings magazines TéléStar
and TéléPoche have struggled to sell
advertising in the face of new competitors, sales on the news-stands
have been difficult – and the rioting of the past weeks will
not have helped. French profits were halved. In the UK, recruitment
advertising fell 14 per cent, but the company blamed NHS budget
constraints rather than a shift in spending to recruitment websites.
FHM, Heat, Zoo and Grazia were
plus points.
Emap view
on French market (Web Archive)
Emap profile |
Queen from 13 December 1967 |
|
Bazaar NatMags drops Queen name
National Magazines plans to change the name of
Harpers & Queen back to Harper’s Bazaar
(it adopted the Queen when it took over the latter
in 1970). Harper’s Bazaar dates back to 1867
and was bought by Hearst in 1912. It launched in the UK in 1929. Queen is even older. It was founded as a society weekly by Samuel Beeton in 1861.
NatMags profile
|
|
|
Magazines thrive in China
Magazines are thriving in China, as advertising income
growth starts to eat into that of television, says the Wall
Street Journal. A November 15 report, ‘Subscribing
to China's Masses’, cites Nielsen Media Research showing
that spending by mass-market and luxury consumer brands in consumer
magazines was up 28% last year over 2003, outpacing the growth
rate for newspapers and eating into the 80% share of television.
Although there are obstacles such as a fragmented market, advertisers' preference
for established titles, political land mines and ambiguous circulation
numbers, the barriers for magazines, especially
lifestyle titles, are lower than for TV.
|
Mixmag – redesign in 2004 |
|
Development Hell buys Mixmag
Word publisher Development Hell has bought
clubbing magazine Mixmag from Emap, paying 'a seven-figure
sum' for the 46,470-selling title. Rivals Ministry
and IPC's 1995 launch Muzik closed since in 2002 and
2003. The Ministry of Sound tried to launch another title, Trash,
as a contract magazine with Condé Nast in 2003, but this
was an embarrassing failure. Word sells 33,376 a month
for £4.20. Emap bought Mixmag from independent
music company DMC in 1997 for an undisclosed sum. It then had
an 80,000-circulation, having been launched 14 years earlier
as a newsletter for DJs. The £3.85 Mixmag may
have been too small a niche for Emap, which has developed radio
stations around Kerrang!, Q and Mojo.
Development Hell profile
Emap profile
|
Zoo: big on boobs |
|
Zoo ridicules ASA
Zoo publisher Dan Cotton has ridiculed the
Advertising Standards Authority's criticism over the magazine
running a 'boob job competition'. Retail Newsagent
quoted him saying: 'This kind of thing is entertaining for our
readers'; 'Our readers could not give two hoots about the ASA';
and 'Hopefully this will drive readers to the news-stand.' The
ASA listed a dozen complaints about the Emap magazine's competition.
ASA website
Emap profile
|
July 1932: the first photographic cover, shot by Edward Steichen for editor Alison Settle |
|
Vogue puts covers on website
Condé Nast has put some British Vogue
covers since its launch in 1916 on its website as part of a
celebration of 10 years of Vogue.com. Unfortunately, it is a
limited selection and some have been heavily cropped
How to find cover images
The secrets of cover design
Condé Nast profile
|
Fashion supplement by Tank for Observer |
|
O: Observer Fashion Supplement by Tank
Winter. Tank/Observer (GMG). Free with Observer newspaper.
100pp. Ed-in-chief: Masoud Golsorkhi. Art dir: Nina Lawson
The Sunday Observer presses ahead with its free supplement
strategy. This fashion quarterly – produced by photography-led
Tank – follows sport and music monthlies, in addition to the
weekly magazine. Large format (266mm by 320mm) enables O:
to show off the photography and it is thick enough with perfect
binding to feel like a real magazine (26 pages of ads, including
a four-page advertorial for Getty Images/Cointreau).
Tank
Observer profile |
Clint in his Dirty Harry days is the cover icon |
|
Uncut DVD
Nov/Dec. IPC Media, London. £3.99. 148pp. Ed: Allan
Jones. Pub dir: Andrew Sumner
IPC Ignite has launched a quarterly spin-off from Uncut,
its film and music title, which will cover films on DVD. The
first issue features Clint Eastwood and has a history of The
Sweeney. With an editor's letter that starts 'The last
time I essayed this sort of introduction...', it could do with
better subbing.
IPC profile
|
|
|
Crime Confidential
Oct 25-Nov 7. Hachette Filipacchi, London. 70p (£1.40).
68pp. Ed: Nick Chalmers
Hachette Filipacchi's Crime
Confidential has a 70,000-90,000 sales target. The fortnightly
will be sold alongside women's weeklies. Cabal tied to launch
Crime Weekly in 1999 but this never appeared after
IPC put out a 'spoiler', Chat Crime and Passion.
Hachette Filipacchi profile
|
The best US magazine cover in
past 40 years: Rolling Stone from January 22 1981
|
|
Best US covers of 40 years
Oct 17. The 1980s was a low point for magazine covers in
the US, according to The American Society of Magazine Editors.
The decade threw up just three covers from the past 40 years,
whereas the years 1965-1969 alone produced 11 (including four
from Life, three from Esquire and two from
Time).Overall, Rolling Stone’s January
22 1981 cover of John Lennon and Yoko Ono was named the top
cover, with Vanity Fair’s cover featuring a naked,
pregnant Demi Moore (August 1991), ranked second. In third place
was Esquire’s April 1968 issue depicting Muhammad
Ali as St Sebastian with six arrows in his body. The Economist
made the list with its September 10 1994 cover showing two camels
copulating and the words: 'The Trouble with Mergers'. The ASME
tried to pick the top 40 US covers of the past 40 years – but
ended up choosing 41! The total included four winners from Esquire,
Life and Time; three from The New Yorker;
and two each from Harper's Bazaar, Newsweek, National Geographic
and People. The most recent cover was Vogue's May 2004
cover of Nicole Kidman.
ASME
press release (Web Archive)
|
Joaquin Pheonix talks about portraying Johnny Cash in Walk the Line |
|
Another Man
Autumn/Winter. Another Man Publishing. £4.50 322pp.
Ed: Jefferson Hack
Jefferson Hack and Rankin Waddell – the people behind
Dazed and Another Magazine – have produced a picture-fest
tomb of men's fashion. It includes a 10-page shoot of Kate
Moss modelling Dior Homme's autumn clothes. It begins: 'She
sells beer, she sells cigarettes and clothes...' She is also
Hack's former girlfriend and mother of their daughter. The
issue probably went to press before the 'Cocaine Kate' scandal
broke in the Daily Mirror because it carries Burberry
advertising with Moss (the company has since dropped her).
Dazed profile
|
Old name; new mag |
|
She relaunches
November. National Magazine Co, London. £3; 84pp. Ed: Matthew Line
This is more than a relaunch: NatMags got rid of all the
old staff, so this is a new magazine under the same – 50-year-old
- name. Line has been developing the title for 18 months, before
which he was editor of Homes & Gardens. Before
that he worked on contract titles at Redwood. Cover lines:
Help!
50 secrets and solutions to everyday dilemmas
Beautifully simple meals with no washing up
One colour scheme to transform any room
Are you using the wrong painkiller?
Fashion classics that really flatter
Discover how to
– Download music
– Use the real da vinci code
– Create a firework display
– Read palms...& teach your dog tricks!
Free pull out and keep health chart, cookery cards and decorating guide.
www.shemagazine.co.uk
National Magazine Co profile |
Joining the gambling bandwagon |
|
Flush
November. Flush Magazine. Dennis, London. 99p (£1.50);
84pp. Ed: Steve Muncey
Another gambling title a month after
Poker Player. The website says 100,000 copies of this
online gambling guide, covering sports as well as poker, will
be distributed. The first three issues are to be sold in WH
Smith with copies (presumably free distribution) also going
to airport business lounges and private members clubs. The
publishers must have had a hard time with advertising though,
because the promise of 'minimum 100 pages' is not met. Ex-footballer,
film actor and airline-rager Vinnie Jones is on the cover.
|
From the Psychologies stable |
|
Mood for French teens
October. SNC Selma (Hachette), Paris. €2.50; 148pp. Directrice
de la rédaction: Cécile Lestienne.
Publicité: Fabien Livet
Fun feel for a teen magazine from the
team that launched Psychologies in 1988 – Jean
Louis Servan-Schreiber and Perla Servan-Schreiber. Compact
format (185mm by 224mm). Print run is 400,000. Hit
the streets 21 September. Used special advertising rate card
for the first three issues. Backed by a €3 million (£2m)
marketing budget through radio, poster, online, press, viral
and 'street' marketing. The website seen as an important
part of the package, with a spread on pages 10 and 11 promoting
the online element. The home page features a counter giving the
number of days since the issue came out, which changes to the
next issue countdown a week in advance.
|
Poker showman Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliott on Dennis' latest launch |
|
Poker Player
October. Dennis, London. £1 (£1.50); 68pp.
Ed: Dave Woods
Dennis has never been slow to spot a trend and on the back
of Total Gambler, distributed free with September's
Maxim and other Dennis titles, comes monthly
Poker Player. The launch is backed by
a TV advertising campaign through agency BLM and creative
services company Flint. It is shown alongside poker programmes and
aims to give viewers interested in poker the chance to sample three
issues of the magazine through interactive TV. At 68 pages,
the magazine feels thin, but the launch price is held at £1.
Future has Online Gambler, a free monthly launched
in March with a print run of 500,000. It is distributed with
Future's titles that have an audience of men aged 21-45, such
as PC Format, PC Gamer and T3.
Seymour is the distributor for Total Gambler, with
the second issue due on sale 20 October priced £1.50.
Dennis profile
|
Project Gotham Racing 3 cover for Xbox title |
|
360 from new publisher Imagine
Not dated (on sale 18 August). Imagine, Bournmouth. £4;
132pp. Ed: Mark Denton
360 is dedicated to the Microsoft Xbox 360 videogames
console and aims to piggyback on the games hype that starts
in the run-up to Christmas. The magazine comes in a sealed
cardboard case with a quality feel that is reminiscent of a
Future launch. It aims at gamers aged 25-34 who see the console
as a 'digital hub' for music, film, etc. But it is not without
competition: XBox 360 Official from Future and existing
XBox titles from Highbury are on the shelves also. Beware
confusion with Threesixty, a bodyboarding magazine.
Publisher Imagine is based in Bournemouth and was formed in 2005
by the former directors of Paragon, which was sold to Highbury in
2003 for £32m. The company is backed by venture capitalists
and corporate financiers. It has also launched Mac Creative
for advanced users and plans more launches. Seymour is the
distributor, with the second issue due on sale 29 September.
Imagine Publishing profile
|
Larded with awards |
|
Gongs issue of Styling Lard
Summer (biannual). Mark Denton Design, London. £10;
80pp. Ed: Mark Denton
For the self-glorification of awards-obsessed advertising
creatives. 'The first magazine to give mediocre advertising
a wide berth.' Lists both the top 50 copywriters and top 50
art directors. Two covers: one for Gongs, the other
(upside down) for Styling Lard.
|
Craving for the Old World |
|
Men's Vogue (US)
Fall (20 September UK on-sale date). Condé
Nast, New York. £4.30/$4.95); 300pp. Ed-in-chief: Jay Fielden
Rare Italian wine, Geneva, Sotheby's, Julian Opie, Berkel
meat slicers, Fiat's Gianni Agnelli, Panerai watches, tailor-made
suits, Barker Black shoes, pilot bags, Bentleys, picture framers,
Swiss watches, English furniture, a Hamptons golf club, GPS
phones, $1,400 desk lamps, Paul Smith suits, English shooting
parties, Roger Federer. The contents of this launch issue scream
that the New Yorkers who produce this magazine (the editor
came from The New Yorker) want to be anywhere but the
US at the moment. Old World Europe is the place to be. They
aspire to James Bond glitz (that of the books with their supercharged
Bentleys, not the films) and they are aiming their magazine
at people they believe can afford such trappings – men aged
34 and up who earn $100,000 a year or more. Half of the 400,000
printed in the US were sent to men fitting the target profile,
with the remainder going to newsagents. However, the paper feels
surprisingly thin and the launch unambitious. Of three Soho newsagents
where I tried to get a copy, there was only one left and one
owner bemoaned only being sent 10. Clearly, the magazine has
to differentiate itself from stablemate GQ
, though that has to some extent been dragged into Maxim
territory. Some reviews have compared Men's Vogue
with the Esquire of yesteryear, and it's certainly
no Maxim, but stepping back in time is no option and
a glance at the cover shows it is no Esquire . More like
the FT's How To Spend It.
Magazine publishers profiles
Men's magazines case study
|
Italy's oldest games title |
|
Future buys Italian and French titles
20 September. Future has spent €3.7m (£2.5m) on
a clutch of computer games magazines in Italy and France. Italy's
longest-running games title The Games Machine was
bought from Milan-based Xenia Edizioni Srl for €3.5m. The
deal also includes smaller titles PC Action, PC Action Games
, Videogames and the website www.tgmonline.it. In France,
Consoles Plus from Emap France cost €0.2m.
It is one of the leading multi-platform titles in France and
was founded in 1991. It is a strategy the company has used
before. In August 2004, Future bought Computer & Video
Games – regarded as the UK's oldest games title – with
its website. It closed the magazine but kept the website
Future profile
|
Jordan on the cover of Attitude in September 2004 |
|
OK! set to sell a million
Richard Desmond's OK! has printed about 2 million
copies of the first part of Jordan & Peter Andre's wedding.
Only about 20,000 of them were returned early by retailers,
suggesting it will sell in excess of a million copies, but
probably not the 'nearly 2m' that Desmond's Express has suggested.
Northern & Shell profile
|
|
|
Newsquest buys Exchange & Mart
United Business Media is to sell Exchange & Mart
and Auto Exchange to Exchange Enterprises, a subsidiary
of local newspaper group Newsquest, for £50.25m. The
titles turn over about £35.8 million a year, and trade
sources had suggested a sales multiple of up to three (which
would have fetched £100m). The Exchange & Mart
website gets about 5 million page impressions a month.
Exchange & Mart started in 1868 and sells almost
90,000 copies a week. Auto Exchange is free on Fridays
from supermarkets and petrol stations
Exchange & Mart
UBM profile
Newsquest profile
|
Set for the small screen |
|
Living, Etc expands into TV
IPC's home and interiors magazine Living Etc, is
to front a cable TV series. Discovery Networks International
has commissioned a 15-part series of 30 minute programmes on
modern home design 'through the eyes of' the magazine. The
series, which will use the magazine's name, is to be broadcast
on the Discovery Travel & Living network in late 2005.
Several members of the editorial team will contribute to the
series.
IPC profile
|
Dummy for Berliner |
|
Guardian switches to Continental size
Monday, 12 September. The Guardian newspaper switches
to full-colour and a Berliner format, which is smaller than
a broadsheet but larger than a tabloid. Ironically, the specialist
sections (Media on Monday) get bigger, from tabloid to Berliner.
However, the G2 section goes down to a half-Berliner,
feeling very insubstantial. Paper's redesign in 1988 by Pentagram's
David Hillman was a watershed in British newspaper design,
bringing in the concept of white space to newspaper pages,
though it met a mixed reception at the time. It marked the
start of the domination of modular layouts, larger pictures
and fewer words to a page in English papers. However, although
these look clean in design terms, they lack dynamism in many readers'
eyes. The often-intriguing 'briefs' that were used to fill
in the bottom of columns on papers such as the Telegraph
disappeared, losing an easy way in to reading papers, particularly
for younger readers. The Berliner Guardian goes further
down that route.
Guardian article on redesign and front page gallery
Guardian profile
|
Luxury glossy for men and women |
|
Wonderland seeks luxury buyers
Sept/Oct. £4.95; 295pp. Visual Talent, London.
Ed/pub: Huw Gwyther
A thick first outing for the luxury magazine that came about
as a result of a TV programme, BBC2's The Dragon's Den, to find young entrepreneurs – though positively skinny
compared with the same month's Wallpaper at more than
400 pages. The bi-monthly's print run set at 140,000 copies
with target sales of 100,000, about half of which are expected
in the UK.
Glossy throughout but cover marred by marks – work will be
needed in post-press handling. Huw Gwyther, who had been a
studio manager for photographer Mario Testino, received 175,000
in backing from telecoms millionaire Peter Jones after appearing
on TV, but the total launch budget was only £250,000.
The launch PR was by Max Clifford Associates.
Wonderland website
|
Meg Ryan fronts the magazine
for 'third wave' women |
|
Psychologies looks for 'third wave' women
October. Hachette Filipacchi UK, London. £2.50 (£3);
180pp. Ed: Maureen Rice; ad manager: Caroline Lawley
Psychologies claims to have identified a new market of
'third wave' women – 4.7m 30- to 55-year-olds who do not read a women's monthly.
Furthermore, HFUK's research (by the Future Foundation) suggests
a third of women in this age group have no interest in reading
about fashion (HFUK publishes Elle and Red).
Psychologies aims to open up this market,
by offering 'positive living' and 'strategies for a richer life
and better relationships' (dubbed 'self-help' in the trade press).
Psychologies defines itself 'your personal coach'; 'accessible
and useful'; 'an emotional and psychological toolkit for modern
life'; 'mind-shifting and inspiring'; and 'about what we're
[women] really like, not just what we look like'. The media
pack shows editor Maureen Rice, beauty editor Delphine Lamandé-Frearson
and features editor Rebecca Alexander all dressed in white
shirts against a white background – very clinical, the sort
of look adopted by Vision Express and Boot's for its opticians.
A 28-page sample of Psychologies was distributed with
the previous Sunday's Observer newspaper. The news
stand sales target is 100,000 copies after a year. About 300,000
distributed for the first issue.
The research-based approach echoes the niche Emap and Hachette
(who were then in partnership) proposed for the launch of
Red in 1989: 'middle youth'. That term
had been around at Emap for for several years, known as 'Project
Miriam'. It described women who had grown out of Elle
and Marie Claire but were not ready for 'middle-aged'
Good Housekeeping. Red aimed for
women aged 28 to 44, with a core audience of 30 to 39-year-olds.
Kevin Hand was then Emap chief executive but lost his job over the
disastrous purchase of Petersen in the US; now he leads HFUK.
Psychologies is a top 3 women's magazine in France (launched
1970, sells 350,000 copies a month) and there are Italian (October
2004, 200,000) and Spanish (March 2005, 340,000 sold of first
issue) editions. Hachette plans to launch the title in China,
Russia and the US. Maureen Rice is a former editor of Options
and 19.
It is the first launch by HFUK since it was formed by splitting
off from a joint partnership with Emap and taking over Attic
Futura in 2002, when it said it aimed to become one of the
top three UK consumer publishers within five years.
*Third wave is a term relating to the development
of feminism. The first wave was campaigning for women's suffrage.
This was followed by 1960s demands for positive action. The
third wave of the 1990s involves recognising gender diversity
and involving men in social change (gender mainstreaming).
Hachette Filipacchi UK profile
Psychologies
|
'Save £115,000' with
the first issue |
|
How to be Better Off
Autumn. BBC/FT Business, London. £3; 100pp.
Ed: Matthew Vincent
While Seven Publishing, below, goes straight for the Millionaire
throat, the BBC and FT Business take a more laid-back approach:
'We deliberately didn't call this magazine How to be Rich
'. The first issue has 'payback' boxes with each article
listing the potential saving – a total of £115,303.
|
|
|
MacKenzie takes over at Highbury
Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of the Sun tabloid
newspaper and head of The Wireless Group, took over as executive
chairman of Front to Popular Patchwork publisher
Highbury House Communications this week. He had
built up a 20% stake
in the embattled publisher in the past month.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
£1.50 for first issue |
|
Who Wants to be a Millionaire
Oct (but no stated cover date, only off-sale 6 Oct). £1.50
(£1.95); 100pp. Seven Publishing/Celador, London. Ed:
Sarah Giles
Chris Tarrant is on the cover and inside hugging the editor
of this puzzle monthly spin-off from the TV show. The print
run was 200,000. The programme's logo is carried on most pages,
cementing the relationship with production company Celador.
The first launch since Seven bought puzzle specialist Cottage
Publishing a year ago. Puzzles supplied by Dilemma (UK).
info@7publishing.co.uk
Seven profile
|
Haymarket's What Car?
now faces Evo and Top Gear in Russia |
|
Car magazines open up new fronts in sales war
UK motoring monthlies Top Gear, What Car? and Evo
this month find themselves competing for readers and advertising
in a new marketplace – Russia.
Dennis has launched its fourth overseas edition of Evo
magazine in a licensing deal with Mediasign Publishing House,
a Russian publisher with a portfolio of titles from several
UK publishers. The first edition featured a 3D image on the
cover. Haymarket unveiled What Car? in August with Russian
partner Open Systems, which publishes Haymarket's
Stuff, Champions and Management Today
under licence. Both will come up against BBC Magazines' Top Gear
(which has 10 international versions, the latest being with
Media Pulse in Thailand). However, Russia is the only country
in which the three go head-to-head, though Top Gear
and What Car? both appear in China, while
Top Gear and Evo fight it out in the Philippines.
| Top Gear |
Evo
|
What Car?
|
|
China |
France (2005) |
China (2005) |
|
Indonesia (2002) |
Greece |
India (2005) |
|
Korea |
Italy |
Russia (2005) |
|
Middle East |
Malaysia (2005) |
|
|
Netherlands |
Philippines (2005) |
|
|
New Zealand |
Russia (2005) |
|
|
Philippines |
|
|
|
Romania |
|
|
|
Russia (2005) |
|
|
|
Thailand |
|
|
Car magazines case study
BBC Magazines profile
Dennis profile
Haymarket profile |
 |
|
Murdoch ends newspaper price war
3 September. The price of the Times has risen to
60p, the same as the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian
, ending a price war that started in September 1993 when proprietor
Rupert Murdoch cut the price of his paper from 45p to 30p
(and 10p on Mondays). Within a month of that cut, sales rose
30%. In a front-page editorial, the Independent appealed
for readers' support because 'The intention, as
Times insiders are prepared to admit, is to drive
this newspaper, the Independent, and the Independent
on Sunday, out of business.' The move led to a crisis
at the Independent that saw the company change hands
several times. The Express, which like the Daily Mail
cost 37p, was also hit. The Daily Telegraph was forced
to cut its price, but even so saw the sales gap over its rival
contract dramatically. The resulting financial decline played
a part in the takeover of the paper by the Barclay brothers
last year. Even so, complaints of predatory pricing were rejected
four times by the Office of Fair Trading.
By June 2001, the Times's circulation had almost doubled
and Murdoch increased the price to 40p. However, the Independent
switched to its 'compact' format in September 2003, which
resulted in a boost to its sales. The Times has since
followed suit (and the Guardian in September).
In the year to June 2004, Times Newspapers (which also publishes
the Sunday Times) lost £40m, up by a third from
the previous year (£29m) and more than double the £16.3m
loss of the year before that.
News International profile
|
Michael Heseltine – as featured on GQ's launch issue in 1992 |
|
Heseltine heads up distribution campaign
Lord Heseltine – former Conservative deputy prime minister
and founder of Haymarket – is leading a campaign against changes
to the magazine distribution system. The changes, proposed
by the Office of Fair Trading, would see wholesalers such as
WH Smith, John Menzies and Dawson News, and regional distributors
lose their exclusive right to distribute magazines. However,
the change would also end the guarantee of universal distribution
of magazines and hence the livelihood of small newsagents.
Magazine publishers have warned that 1,000 titles and 12,000
retailers are endangered. The industry also believes the supermarkets
- whose share of magazine sales has risen from 4% to 27% in
15 years – would gain a stranglehold.
|
|
|
ABC figures: launches do well
Women's weekly launches Grazia, Reveal and
Pick Me Up, listings title TV Easy
and monthly Easy Living all met targets
with their first audited sales figures:
- Emap's fashion weekly Grazia – 155,000
- NatMag's Reveal – 273,159
- IPC's "real life" title Pick Me Up – 503,950
- IPC's TV listings mag TV Easy – 340,000
- Condé Nast's Easy Living – 171,000.
One disappointment was Dennis's Test Drive at 67,190.
This has been relaunched and the price halved to £1.45
for September's issue. October's will be £2.99. No figures
were released for Northern & Shell's monthly shopping title
Happy (which is set to raise its price
by 10p to £1.90 for September's issue) or its TV listings
title Take 5, or Burda's women's weekly Full House.
|
|
|
ABC figures: economy hits sales
Falls in house prices and lower consumer confidence dented
magazine sales in the motoring and home and interiors sectors.
Most titles in both sectors saw falls. It was a different story
in current affairs, with The Week up 14%, the
Spectator and Economist up 5% and
Private Eye up 2%.
|
|
|
ABC data: sales grow in men's market
Fears of the men's weeklies hitting sales of the monthly
lads' mags have been confounded by the latest sales figures.
Ten of 14 titles in the sector saw sales rise – weekly Nuts
up 5% to hit 304,751 and rival Zoo leaping 30% to 260,317.
Loaded jumped back ahead of Maxim – thanks to
a relaunch and price cut – to regain second place among the
monthlies. But there were casualties: FHM down 4% and
Front and Bizarre both losing 12% (the former
is owned by troubled Highbury House and the latter was recently
redesigned).
|
Maxim – already in China, now to be used to brand nightclubs in the US
|
|
Felix Dennis rules out men's weekly in the US
15 August. Felix Dennis, founder of the eponymous company
that publishes Maxim and The Week, has ruled
out launching a men's weekly in the US. "It is interesting
that no one has rushed to launch one in America and anyone
who does will be utterly crucified because there isn't anywhere
to sell it. There's not a supermarket in America that would
touch [Emap's and IPC's weeklies] Zoo or Nuts," he told the
Guardian. He also foresaw brand extension for Maxim in the
US, and said Maxim steak houses and nightclubs were
on the horizon. On Test Drive, launched last year, he
said:
"This was a brilliant launch with a cocked-up editorial
product which is now a brilliant editorial product ...We ripped
up the gameplan which was obviously flawed. We did the necessary,
put in new people and refused to walk away. [Rival] What
Car has been around a long time ... When I see a whale
hanging about in a lagoon getting fatter and fatter my immediate
reaction is to reach for my harpoon."
Dennis profile
News magazines: 'I see a whale'
|
|
|
MacKenzie takes stake in Highbury
Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of the Sun and,
until recently, chief executive of Wireless Group, has built
up stake of almost 15 per cent stake in troubled
publisher Highbury House.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
|
Highbury retrenches
8 August. Highbury House has cut back its lifestyle division,
selling Real Homes to Hachette Filipacchi UK for £500,000
and closing the loss-making Home and Inspirations
, all of which had been relaunched in April. Male lifestyle
title Front and Gardens Monthly are being retained,
but the company is focusing on titles it gained in 2003 when
it bought Paragon, which are mainly in the computer and games
sector.
Highbury expanded in 2003 but got into problems in 2004.
A £96 takeover by Future fell through
this year but Highbury sold 38 UK titles and its US division
to Future for £30.5m. Highbury is in the process of selling
its South African division.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
|
Sodoku publisher 'could fetch £100m'
August 8. Press reports have speculated that Puzzler Media,
which publishes puzzle magazines and sells sudoku puzzles to
newspapers such as the Times and the Sun, cold
fetch up to £100m in a trade sale. The buzz around the
number puzzles has prompted private equity fund ABN Amro Capital
- which bought the company for £36.7m in April 2002
- to look at strategic options including a sale.
Puzzler Media website
|
Pop star Jessica Simpson on the cover
An example of OK! buying up picture rights
How the Jessica Simpson cover appeared in Australia |
|
OK! takes on People in US
August. Northern & Shell. $3.29; 100pp. Ed: Sarah Ivens;
Publisher: Gaby Fireman
Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell plans to spend $100m
(£57m) over six years to establish OK! in the
US with $10m spent on the launch. Its Hola!/Hello!-like
strategy of 'working with' celebrities by paying for exclusive
access and offering copy and picture approval, puts it up against
the more invasive People from Time Warner (which sells
the 3.7m copies a week and is often seen at the country's most
profitable magazine); Star and Celebrity Living. In the UK, OK! has been in a running battle of words
and court cases
with Hello!.
The print run was 1.3m copies and 110,000 shelf positions
had been bought at retailers. The first issue carried interviews
with actresses Tara Reid and Mariska Hargitay, others from
Desperate Housewives and the OC, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. Advertising of 20 pages
included copy from Estée Lauder and Hérmes at
a page rate of $28,000. In comparison, People runs to
50-odd pages at this time of year.
UK women's weeklies
Northern & Shell profile
|
Flesh goes weekly in Spain |
|
Zoo launches in Spain
1 August. The first international edition of Emap's men's
weekly Zoo has been launched in Spain. It is published
in partnership with Focus Ediciones (part of Swiss publisher
Edipresse), which publishes FHM in Spain under licence.
Recently launched weekly Sie7e (Seven), has been re-branded
as Zoo Sie7e. Emap and IPC are in a race to launch their
men's titles internationally after they lost out when Dennis
took Maxim, then a distant third in the UK to
FHM and Loaded, in the US. FHM has
30 editions worldwide. FHM came in with its first audited circulation
figure of around 250,000. The target circulation for Zoo Sie7e
is 100,000 within 18 months. FHM sells 250,000 copies
in Spain. The move follows the June launch of Closer
in France.
Edipresse website
Emap profile
|
To halve price
for one issue |
|
Test Drive halves price
September. Dennis. £1.45 special price (usually £2.99)
Dennis is to halve the cover price of Test Drive for
the September issue, which appears in August – a critical time
for buying new cars. Test Drive was
launched last year and had a first ABC sales figure of 109,880
Dennis profile
|
|
|
Grazia at £1 – ahead of 20p rise
11 July. Emap. £1 special price (usually £1.50);
116pp inc 16pp beauty section
Emap is to increase the cover price of fashion weekly
Grazia by 20p to £1.70 after this week's special
trial of £1. The cover story was of Kate Moss's plans
to marry Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty, having split up
with Dazed & Confused publisher Jefferson Hack.
Nat Mags' Reveal is also using price this week – 50p
rather than the usual £1.
Other price changes this week include Cosmo Girl!
up 10p to £2.10; August's Future Music up a
whopping 74p to £4.99; Heat up 5p to £1.55;
Private Eye up 10p to £1.40;
Rolling Stone up 30p to £3.50; and Top of the
Pops up 10p to £2.10. Going the opposite way is Bauer's
weekly Full House, from 70p down to 60p.
Emap profile
|
Robot Archie features on the first cover
The Steel Claw, as it appeared in Valiant |
|
Lion and Valiant heroes reappear in Albion
Characters such as The Steel Claw, Robot Archie, Captain
Hurricane and The Spider that appeared in Lion and
Valiant comics in the 1960s are to re-appear
in Albion, a six-part monthly series, published by DC
Comic's WildStorm imprint. Albion is plotted by Alan Moore
and features covers by Dave Gibbons, who together created Watchmen.
The characters have been licensed by IPC to the US company,
both of which are divisions of Time Warner.
IPC profile
Profile of The Steel Claw at International Hero
Lion history at Comics UK
Profile of Robot Archie at International Hero
|
Pam Anderson on the usual size cover
|
|
FHM bigger – and smaller
August. Emap, London.£3.40; 244 pages. Ed: Ross Brown;
art director: Dan Knight; managing director: David Pullan
FHM is being published in three sizes this month:
- a 'compact' edition measuring 230 x 170mm;
- the usual, slightly wider than A4; and
- a 'big as a house' version (350 x 257mm).
The company claims the move as a world first and hopes to
increase copy sales by 30%. It has tried the giant size in
Russia in June 2004 and Spain in April 2005. Pamela Anderson
is on the cover, in a heavily touched-up image. The same image,
not so touched up but reversed, was on the front of FHM
US in July. The content was the same, apart from a section
of images of very large things (in the big and usual sizes)
or very small. The compact version was unable to carry some
loose inserts; a bound-in insert for Sony Ericsson (neither
was the big version); and two tip-on sachets. All carried a
16-page advertorial 'Better Bible' section for Heineken on
heavier paper.
NB: FHM no longer carries a month in its dateline.
Given that the August/8 issue is on sale at the end of June,
does Emap plan to increase the number of issues a year?
Emap profile
|
|
|
TES for sale
3 July. News International, publisher of the Times
and Sunday Times, is to sell the Times Educational
Supplement and two other specialist titles in an auction
for an expected £250m. It would be the first newspaper
disposal by the group since Rupert Murdoch bought the Times
group of titles in 1981 (for £12m!). The weekly TES
, its higher education sister, THES, Nursery World
and Times Literary Supplement (not included in he
auction) form one of the UK's most profitable specialist newspaper
publishers.
TES
THES
News International profile
|
|
|
Radio Times backs Live8
Radio Times has published eight different covers
to celebrate the Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park on July
2. Coldplay, Bob Geldof, Annie Lennox, Paul McCartney, REM,
Joss Stone, Sting and U2 are on the different covers.
BBC Magazines
|
For girls who surf |
|
Cooler
Summer. Action Sports Media, London. £2. 132pp (plus
gatefold). Ed: Cathy Struthers
The 'first boardsports lifestyle magazine' for women aims
to pick up on a trend for the 'macho, guys-only line-ups' of
the surfing world to be shaken up. Features cover spas, zen,
beauty and 'The sexiest men in surf' as well as fashion and
beauty. Has a very US feel, possibly down to the advertising
and small A4 format. Front cover has a a reverse gatefold,
which is rarely used because it does not stand up well to the
treatment it gets in shops. Published in English, French and
German. Company also runs Surf Europe and Kingpin
(skateboarding).
Extreme sports publishers profiled
|
Fleet Street in 2004 looking west. The Express building is on the
right with the Telegraph beyond. On the left is the
sign of the Old Bell pub, which is in front of St Bride's church
(picture from David Flint's History in Focus)
|
|
Murdoch reads last rites on Fleet Street
15 June. News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch returned
to Fleet Street for a church service to remember the area's
association with the national press. It was sparked by the
move by Reuters – the last major news organisation with headquarters
on Fleet Street – to new headquarters in Canary Wharf.
The irony was that Murdoch broke the back of Fleet Street
- and the powerful print unions – in 1986 when he moved News
International, which included the Sun and News of
the World tabloids and Times and Sunday Times
broadsheets, to Wapping to the east of Tower bridge. Within
four years, the other dailies had fled Fleet Street, though
their names still grace the buildings.
The street runs between St Paul's cathedral and the Strand,
so it was close to the law courts, the City and a hop away
from Westminster. But the name covered the whole area (some
papers, such as the Times, were never on the street).
Banker Goldman Sachs moved into the Telegraph's old
headquarters and another bank took over the iconic Art Deco
Daily Express building (known as the 'Black
Lubjanka'). The move from hot metal typesetting to computer-based
technologies meant newspaper owners were able to make fortunes
selling the properties, which included huge print plants,
and move into smaller offices in cheaper areas. Reuters has
sold its building, designed by Edwin Lutyens, to developers.
However, St Bride's, the journalists' church where the service
was held, remains. Alongside is
St Bride's Printing Library
, which traces the roots of printing and publishing back
500 years. It began when William Caxton's apprentice Wynkyn
de Worde, who was later buried in St Bride's Church, brought
the printing press to the area. The newspaper tradition began in
1702 with the Daily Courant.
Agence France-Presse and Scottish group DC Thomson remain
on Fleet Street. As do the pubs, such as the King and Keys,
haunt of Telegraph hacks and renowned for its fights,
the Tipperary, favoured by the News of the World, and
El Vino's. Aficionados of such pubs should read Alan Watkins'
chapter on Fleet Street watering holes in Secrets of the
Press: Journalists on Journalism, edited by Stephen Glover
(1999).
Reuters website
|
New for old
|
|
'Convenience size' for Essentials
July. IPC, London. £2.40; 180pp. Ed: Julie Barton-Beck;
publisher: Ilka Schmitt
The price is about the only thing that's the same on this
one: smaller, 'convenience size' format; new logo, typefaces
and cover style; and colour-coded sections. The target reader
is a 32-year-old suburban women – the realm of Hachette Filipacchi's
Red and Haymarket's Eve – and 'life
support' is the theme of the revamped title. A 16-page, perforated
section of ideas, 'Essentials to go', is designed to be torn
out and kept. The title saw a 14 per cent drop in circulation
in February's figures. Julie Barton-Breck was editor of IPC's
Family Circle, but swapped jobs with Karen Livermore
last October.
IPC profile
|
|
|
Covermount madness
July issues. It's that time of year again when the women's
magazines lard their cover with free gifts to jack up the sales
figures towards the end of the first-half accounting period.
Kit yourself out with:
- sunglasses – Tatler
- cotton vest – In Style
- sarong – Company
- designer bag – Eve
- beach bag – Marie Claire
- beach mat – New Woman
Once you are suitably settled on the beach, take out:
- Red for a free copy of weekly OK! and anti-ageing cream
- She for a copy of weekly Reveal
- Harper's & Queen for its supplement on the 100 most beautiful women, and skin cream
- Cosmopolitan for its male centrefolds
IPC's Woman & Home took a different strategy:
it is selling special issues of Ideal Home and 25
Beautiful Homes in a bundle for £4.90 at WH Smith.
|
|
|
Performance Bikes relaunch
July. Emap, Peterborough, London. £1.99; 140pp. Ed:
Tim Thompson
'Free of tawdry gifts. Buy it for the mag' – that's the coverline
in contrast to the women's glossies on this relaunch. What's
immediately different is the special price, almost halved (was
£3.70). It does have a four-page, fold-out trackday planner
as part of a poster, though. The title's sales fell 19 per
cent sales drop in the latest audited figures. Press Gazette
reported new editor Tim Thompson as saying the focus was
on information "for people who actually own sportsbikes and
who want to improve or modify them." Also, the title had decided
to cut the number of naked girls in its pages. The other bike
mags do have covermounts, including Emap's other titles
Bike (a DVD) and Ride (a kit guide), IPC's Super
Bike (book and poster) and Haymarket's TWO (tyre
pressure gauge).
Emap profile
|
|
|
Morgan to buy Press Gazette
June 6. Former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan
is to buy the 40-year-old newspaper industry trade magazine
Press Gazette this week from Quantum Business
Media. Quantum's owners, ABN Amro Capital, have already sold
off the company's other titles, including Media Week, which was bought by Haymarket. Morgan is backed by celebrity
PR Matthew Freud.
www.pressgazette.co.uk website
|
|
|
Essential buys TV Hits
June 1. Hachette Filipacchi has sold teen entertainment
title TV Hits to Essential for an undisclosed sum. The
title has seen a slide in sales. Hachette also announced a
cover-mounted book for All About Soap, which also has
sales problems. Essential bought fortnightly Real
last year from Bauer.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
|
VNU tests 'compact' Personal Computer World
July. VNU, London. £2.75; 230pp (includes gatefold
cover). Ed: Rob Jones; publisher: Richard Wilson
It was once king of the computer monthlies with a pedigree
going back to 1978, but PCW's editorial confidence was
knocked in late 1989 by a damaging strike, which lasted six
months and saw many top journalists leave. This opened the
way for upstarts Future, Dennis and Ziff. Furthermore, changes
to the market and increasing specialisation of titles led
to PCW's sales falling from 142,000 in 1999 to 93,000
last year. The new 239mm by 169mm version, which is being
tested for four issues in selected retailers, has all the
content of the A4 version but no cover DVD (at £4.99)
or CD (£3.25). Publisher Richard Power hopes the lighter,
cheaper version will attract younger readers.
VNU profile
|
Expert and friendly
|
|
Scrapbook Inspirations
June. Future, Bath. £3.35; 100pp. Ed: Jenny Dixon;
group publisher: Katherine Raderecht
Computers, knitting, fast cars, scrapbooks – is there no
keeping the people in Bath down? 'Anorak' publishing is alive
and well at Future. The company does well when it sticks to
its knitting and only becomes unstuck when it tries to go
mainstream, such as the music title
Bang. This launch is full of practical ideas
for making scrapbooks for weddings, father's day and so on.
It comes with transparent stickers to use with pictures and
a scrapbook kit with a dozen sheets of special papers and graphics.
Subscribers get a mini paper trimmer. It was a popular craft
with the Victorians – take a trip to the Fishermans' Reading
Rooms in Southwold to see some examples – but has taken off
in the past decade with the growth of craft retail warehouses
around the country. Scrapbook Answers is being developed
at Future USA.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
Has first drive of Mitsubishi Evo 9 as a cover scoop |
|
J-Tuner
June. Future, Bath. £3.99; 164pp. Editor: Steve Chalmers;
publisher: Mike Lamond
The free cover-mounted DVD Japanese Power 'blasting
out of your screen' sums up the street-racing, power-hungry
nature of this mag. For lads who tune their own hot-rods based
on Japanese cars with a 26-page technical section
Magazine publishers profiled
|
The 'official' pictures
Hello!'s spoiler |
|
Hello! wins spoiler legal case against OK!
The court battle between the two celebrity titles over
snatched pictures taken at the wedding of Catherine Zeta Jones
and Michael Douglas took a new turn on May 18. The appeal court
over-ruled the decision to award £1 million in damages
to Northern & Shell's OK! over Hello!
sneaking a photographer into the wedding, held
in New York in 2000, for which OK! had paid to gain
exclusive access. Hello! will still have to pay the Hollywood
couple £14,600 damages. OK! can appeal to the
House of Lords.
Hello!
Northern & Shell profile
|
Nothing but 911s
|
|
Total 911
June. 9 Publishing, Matlock. £4.25; 116pp. Publishing
editor: Philip Raby
This certainly has a focus – the Porsche 911. 'Nothing else
matters.' Total 911 is looking for an international
readership from the start. It has appointed editors in the
US and Australia, and is being distributed in the US by Borders
and Barnes & Noble. Some 25,000 copies are going out in
the UK. Written and photographed by and for the sort of men
who like nothing better than impressing their girlfriends by
drifting 911s. The company also publishes
Total MG.
Total 911
|
Apology: May 16 issue |
|
Is it Newsweek's reputation down the toilet?
When Newsweek alleged in its May 9 issue that US
interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran
down the toilet, it was reported as sparking protests in Afghanistan
that left 17 people dead and many more injured. The magazine
apologised in its 16 May issue, but the Guardian said
the magazine 'came out fighting in a double-edged apology buried
inside'. BBC Radio 4's PM programme ran a trailer for
its report that ran: 'Is it Newsweek's reputation that
is down the toilet rather than the Koran?'
The Guardian
John Simpson's view
|
Pared down in size and content to fit on the arm of a chair |
|
TV Easy
April 7-13 May. IPC tx, London. 30p (35p); 116pp. Ed in
chief: Colin Tough; ed: Richard Clark; creative dir: Andy Cowles
Launch of the A5-sized listings weekly after last week's
sampling
exercise brings the total to 8 titles in a sector selling
about 5 million copies a week. This magazine is pared down
to the listings with no added features. IPC is clearly trying
to segment the sector further:
- TV Times (80p) and TV & Satellite Week
(90p) IPC's premium titles up against the BBC's Radio
Times at 93p – one of the most profitable titles – and
Bauer's Total TV Guide (85p);
- What's On TV, the best-selling magazine in the
UK, with an ABC of 1.6m, at 40p, up against Bauer's TV
Quick at 65p;
- Bargain basement TV Easy at 35p and Bauer's
TV Choice (30p).
First 12 spreads cover: welcome; peek at the week; drama
(3pp); true life (2); entertainment (1); soaps (7pp); films
(4pp). Then 6 spreads devoted to each day with the pages tagged
in the same day colour (Saturday to Friday): picks; terrestrial
listings; digital; films; factual and sports; at-a-glance summary
from 7pm. Three pages of advertising in first third (Orange;
KFC; mail order for charm bracelet; ) plus back cover (The
Mob music downloads).
TV advertising started on May 2, the day before the magazine
appeared, which runs until May 29. They drive home the title's
main innovation, its compact size, this being 'perfect for
the arm of a sofa' and describe it as 'your handy quick-flick
TV guide'. Intriguingly, tveasy.co.uk
website with TV listings already exists, but appears to
have nothing to do with IPC.
IPC Media profile
|
Star Wars promotion |
|
Empire's 'breathing' cover
June. Emap East, London. £3.90; 196pp. Ed (acting):
Will Lawrence; art editor: Ian Stevens
The film magazine's latest wheeze is a collector's card inside
the front cover; when the cover is opened, the card emits the
sound of Star Wars villain Darth Vader breathing. The
card is in subscribers' copies and those sold with a special
sticker at large multiples. Release of Revenge of the Sith
will probably spark the magazine's biggest sale of the year.
The cover is embossed and there is a big subscription drive
based around the film.
Emap profile
|
Foody lifestyle |
|
Fresh
June. Naked Media, London. £2.80; 164pp. Ed: Fiona
Shoop; publisher: Neil Presland
Food and lifestyle magazine on-line that focuses on recipes
that use the freshest seasonal ingredients. Cover has blueberries
as a brain food, Mediterranean delights from Ed Baines and
93 recipes. Website includes a programme to free a battery
chicken by sponsoring her.
|
How to add hardware and upgrades |
|
Computer Upgrade
May. Future, London. £3.49; 132pp. Ed: Adam Evans;
publisher: James Binns
Future has found yet another niche to develop in the PC magazine
marketplace. Markets itself on its coverage (every upgrade),
use of plain English and step-by-step guides.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
|
Fresh Start
May. Fresh Start Media, Brighton. £2.99; 132pp. Ed:
David Creffield
For people seeking to relocate overseas. Feels more like
a show catalogue than a magazine. Promoted the show of the
same name. Website (www.freshstartmagazine.co.uk) failed to
work |
Sample issue free with three women's weeklies |
|
TV Easy launch in free trial
April 30-6 May. IPC tx, London. Free (35p); 116pp. Ed in
chief: Colin Tough; Ed: Richard Clark; creative dir: Andy Cowles
A5-sized listings weekly backed by a £10 million marketing
campaign. More than 1.5m copies of the 35p title to be given
away with the company's Woman, Now, and Pick Me Up
weeklies. First 12 spreads cover: welcome; peek at the week;
drama (3pp); true life (2); entertainment (1); soaps (7pp);
films (4pp). Then 10 pages devoted to each day with the pages
tagged in the same colour: picks; terrestrial listings; digital;
films; satellite and sports channels; at-a-glance. Three pages
of advertising in first third (Northern Rock loans; mail order
for Shapely bras; KFC). The magazine will sponsor of the British
Soap Awards on ITV in May.
Ahead of the launch, Bauer halved the price of Total TV
Guide to 45p and it carried an extra half cover stressing
it was 'best for digital TV' (23-29 April). IPC also announced
that the price of What’s on TV would revert to 40p from
31 May 'in line with the long term strategy for the tx listings
portfolio', having been cut in January.
IPC Media profile
|
|
|
Top of the Pops goes fortnightly
27 April-10 May. BBC Worldwide, London. £2; 62pp.
Ed: Peter Hart; publisher: Alfie Lewis
Ten-year-old TV spin-off TotP is going head-to-head
against Emap's Smash Hits by adopting a fortnightly
frequency. The change is backed by a shoulder bag and an A1
sheet of posters.
BBC Worldwide profile
|
May's Loaded has a DVD of Lucy Pinder and Michelle Marsh; June's DVD will show Abi Titmuss with a cover price of £2.50 |
|
Loaded relaunches – and announces price cut
May. IPC Ignite!, London. £3.40 (with DVD); 188pp.
Ed: Martin Daubney; art editor: Craig Brooks
IPC has put £2 million in marketing behind the relaunch
of the iconic men's magazine, which saw a mauling in the
last round
of sales figures. Most of the money seems to be going on
top-shelf-style DVDs, which – with a classification rating warning
of 'nudity, strong sex references and language' – mean the magazine
cannot be sold to anyone under 18. The company seven months
of research and development led to 'a comprehensive rethinking
of the contents, design and navigation'.
The June issue of Loaded – which will be 90p cheaper
at £2.50 – will again have a cover-mounted DVD, this
time of Abi Titmuss (on sale 4 May).
IPC Media profile
|
New look for Bella |
|
Relaunches: Bella and Marie Claire
- Bella: 26 April. Bauer, London. 70p; 68pp.
With front and rear half-cover promoting coverage: real life;
beauty; celebrity fashion; recipes; and your home
- Marie Claire: April. IPC Southbank, London.
£2.50; 364pp. Ed: Marie O'Riordan. With 'talking advert'
based on a chip embedded in a bound-in card. Sandra Bullock
on cover
- Others: BBC Gardeners' World; IPC Homes &
Gardens; Highbury trio Real Homes, Inspirations
and Home; Emap's New Woman
|
Compact's masthead
Biggest TV seller |
|
IPC to launch compact TV Easy
IPC Media is to launch TV Easy, an A5-sized TV listings
weekly backed by a £10 million marketing campaign with
TV advertising. More than 1.5m copies of the 35p title will
be given away with the company's Woman, Now, and
Pick Me Up weeklies from Tuesday, April
26. The first paid-for issue goes on sale on Tuesday, May 3.
Colin Tough, editor-in-chief for What's on TV, will
take the same role on TV Easy also, with Richard Clark,
editor of Web User, moving to editorship of the new
title. The prices of both What's on TV and Bauer's
TV Choice were cut
in January, ahead of the launch of Northern & Shell's
Take 5.
IPC Media profile
|
|
|
Future pulls out of Highbury bid
Future has pulled out of the near-£96m bid
to buy Highbury. The announcement followed the surprise
decision by the Office of Fair Trading's to refer the deal
to the Competition Commission. The OFT was concerned that
'the combination of the largest supplier of computer games
magazines in the UK with its largest competitor may be expected
to lead to a substantial lessening of competition'. Had the
deal gone through, Future would have leapfrogged the BBC and
Bauer to become the UK's third-biggest magazine group (after
IPC and Emap). Highbury – which has had a challenging past
two years and instigated a strategic review as well as selling off
magazines – was hit with crisis as its share price fell by more
than a third.
A statement by issued by Future said: '15 April 2005 – Following
Future plc's statement yesterday, noting the Office of Fair
Trading's announcement that it had referred to the Competition
Commission the anticipated acquisition by Future plc of the
issued ordinary share capital of Highbury House Communications
plc ('Highbury') and that, consequently, the offer for the
issued ordinary share capital of Highbury dated 11 March 2005
had lapsed in accordance with its terms, Future plc believes
that it would not be in the interests of Future plc's shareholders
to pursue further a possible acquisition of the issued ordinary
share capital of Highbury. Future plc will accordingly approach
the Competition Commission to seek a cancellation
of the reference.'
Magazine publishers profiled
|
Handbag-sized |
|
House and Home Ideas
May. Giraffe Media, Taunton. £2; 212pp.
Ed: Rachel Harries-Darke; art editor: Rob Bennie
It seems every sector has a niche for a 'compact' title,
so along comes this one. As always though, these A5 titles
have a hard time shouting from the shelves. To overcome this,
Giraffe, which also publishes Wedding Ideas, provided
display boxes holding two copies of this title alongside each
other.
|
100% shopping |
|
Happy from Northern & Shell
May. Northern & Shell. £1.80; 196pp.
Ed: Eilidh Macaskill; creative dir: Mark Hayman
A magazine devoted to shopping in the belief that fashion,
style, beauty and interiors are all it takes. Unusually for
a N&S title, production values are high with very glossy,
heavy cover. Reminiscent of Dennis's failed attempt at home
shopping magazine PS in 2000.
Northern & Shell profile
|
|
|
Health Plus spin-off from Emap
May. Emap Esprit, London. £2.40; 132pp.
Ed: Colette Harris; art Ed: Angela Cheung; head of advertising:
Sarah Lawrence
Health Plus had been marketed as a special for Emap's
Yours, which aims at women over 60. It
was published every two months. The relaunch – backed with
£1m in marketing to reach the UK's 7m 40+ women – sees
it go monthly, pitching it against Emap's own Top Santé,
which sells about 142,000 copies (1993
launch), and NatMags’ Zest (111,000; 1994
launch). Both of these saw sales rises of 7-8% in the latest figures,
although Emap's Here’s Health and Dennis's Shape
closed. Health Plus sold about 82,000 copies per
issue and the new print run is 215,000 copies. The front cover
shows Holby City actress Sharon Maughan,
who first came to fame in romantic encounters in coffee adverts
with Anthony Head (who went on to do Buffy the Vampire Slayer). The ads were for Gold Blend in the UK (1987 to 1993) and
Taster's Choice in the US (1990-97). In Love Over Gold
, a novel developed from the ads, Sharon's character was a
features editor on a glossy London magazine. The book was a bestseller
in 1993.
Emap profile
|
Channel 4 presenters on the cover |
|
Location, Location, Location TV spin-off
May. Brooklands Media. £2.80; 180pp.
Ed: Martyn Hocking
The magazine of the Channel 4 house-buying series with the
presenters, Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer, on the cover
and acting as associate editors.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
Sponsored supplement |
|
GQ gets sporty
May. Condé Nast, London. £3.40; 272pp.
Ed: Dylan Jones; art dir: Paul Solomons; publishing dir: Jamie
Bill
'Three for the price of one' is the selling proposition on the
back of this month's bagged issue. Along with the mag comes
the 56-page GQ Sport, a supplement sponsored by BMW cars,
and a best dressed men supplement (TAG Hauer). The lead sports
piece is about 4,000 words long, dishing London's bid for the
Olympics (under the highly unoriginal 'Bored of the rings' headline).
Magazine publishers profiled
|
'New attitude' to age
May edition in UK
|
|
Woman & Home South Africa
April. Caxton (CTP), Johannesburg. R17.50; 164pp.
Ed: Frith Thomas
Frith Thomas promises 'a brand new attitude' that means 'it's
not your age that matters it's how you live your life' from
Woman & Home. The title is aimed at
upmarket women (Living Standards Measure groups 7-10) aged
35+. It is the second magazine Caxton has licensed from IPC
(the first was Essentials in 1995). The publisher is
South Africa's largest with 12 other titles, including
Bona, which has a readership of more than 2m, and the weekly
People. It is the first international edition of the 78-year-old
IPC title. Caxton has had an agreement to use material from
IPC magazines since 1995.
Woman & Home SA website
CTP/Caxton website
IPC Media profile
|
|
|
Simply Knitting from Future
April. Future, Bath. £3.95; 100pp (+double-sided
A2 poster). Ed: Debora Bradley
Future has made itself a success by adopting an 'anorak'
approach to publishing. It started with computing but quickly
moved to hobbies such as needlecraft and mountain biking,
so knitting – which is making a big comeback among younger
women – is right up the company's street. Magazine has extra-thick
cover, suggesting it will collected, and the poster is designed
for club noticeboards.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
|
Witch TV spin-off from BBC
April. BBC Magazines, London. £1.85; 50pp.
Ed: Vincent Vincent
Based on a Disney television series and merchandising. Middle
section is a 30-page manga-style comic (the second half of
which was of poor printed quality – may have been lifted from
previously printed material). The name is formed from the initials
of five girls, each of whom has control of a different element
with a duty to protect the earth from evil from a parallel
dimension. With a cover gift of a lockable notebook and pen.
|
|
|
You Are What You Eat
May. Brooklands Media (under licence from Celador). £2;
164pp. Ed: Francis Cottam
A magazine "inspired by" the Channel 4 television series
and licensed from producers Celador. Launch coincides with
the second series of the nutrition show. Contents cover diet,
fitness and leisure; lead cover feature is 'Sexier in seven
days'.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
|
Sales of new launches
It's too early for official sales figures, but trade sources
suggest the following:
- Grazia: Emap has set a target of 150,000 copies
as a settledown figure for the glossy fashion weekly. Industry
rule of thumb suggests a settledown of about 70% of the first
issue sales. So the figures are on the low side:
- issue 1: 200,000-220,000
- issue 2: 170,000 – 175,000
- issue 3: 140,000 – 150,000
- issue 4: 130,000 – 140,000
- Full House (Burda): 1.5m print run, sales about
650,000 for first issue, though many retailers have expressed
concern about its low price (40p) devaluing the weekly sector.
Retail Newsagent reported owner
Dr Herman Burda flying to the UK to see for himself
- Take 5: if retailers expressed concern about
Full House, some were positively hostile about Northern
& Shell's latest low-quality effort. Initial reports
suggested a 250,000 run, but it may have been 100,000. Sales
of first issue look as low as 20,000 against a target of
150,000
- Pick Me Up IPC may have a hit on its hands, possibly
as good as Emap's Closer, with sales as high as 500,000
- Easy Living: first issue of this monthly estimated
at 300,000 against publisher target settledown of 150,000-200,000
- Reveal: The Guardian has reported industry
estimates of fewer than 200,000 copies a week, which would
be disappointing for NatMags
|
|
|
Cricket monthly Spin
April. Highbury Lifestyle, London. £1.50 (first issue);
116pp. Ed: Duncan Steer
Spin aims to cover world cricket, building on the success
of the new style Twenty20 Cup, recent success of the England
team and extensive coverage of recent Test matches on Channel
4 and Sky TV. Also adopts a more modern approach to sport already
seen in golf particularly. Well known names writing include
Channel 4's Simon Hughes, Pakistani legend Imran Khan, and
Indian pundit Navjot Singh Sidhu. Main interview with Phil
Tufnell (recently seen in TV's I'm a Celebrity… Get Me
Out of Here). As well as reporting on games, a masterclass
section aims to show readers how to play better. Will compete
with statistics-driven The Wisden Cricketer and national
press coverage.
www.spincricket.com
Magazine publishers profiled
|
Lucy Pinder on the beach for Nuts |
|
Nuts switches to Tuesdays
11-17 March issue. IPC Media, London. 60p (usually £1.20);
108pp. Ed: Phil Hilton
Nuts, which saw its lead over Emap's Zoo cut to
just 30,000 in the most recent sales results, has brought its
publication day forward to Tuesday and halved its cover price
for the week. It came straight up against a 124-page
Zoo, including a 16-page 'investigation' into
bikini babes. Despite the move, the Nuts TV advertising
campaign is still based on the theme: 'Girls, don't expect
any help on a Thursday'.
IPC Media profile
|
Amber Valletta is hidden behind the Michael Caine film
Leading role for New Scientist in the hands of about-to-be-kidnapped Dr Radcliffe |
|
Esquire gives away Ipcress File DVD
April issue. National Magazine Co, London. £3.95;
174pp. Ed: Simon Tiffin; art director: Alex Breuer; publisher:
Tess Macleod Smith
Esquire has decided to use DVD covermounts as its selling
point and jacked up the price by 50p in the process. The
Ipcress File, the 1965 spy thriller that made a superstar
of Michael Caine, is the second choice for Esquire's DVD
collection. Look out for the opening scenes,
which use an 8 October copy of New Scientist to establish
part of the plot. Len Deighton's book is even better, introducing
home-ground coffee and Italian cooking to swinging London in
the early 1960s. Note that Caine's boss looks down on him for
shopping in a new-fangled 'supermarket'.
National Magazines profile
|
For black women |
|
Noir
March/April. Brownstone (address unclear). £2.80;
116pp. Ed: Victoria Thomas
Black lifestyle magazine. Has the feel of a magazine put
together on the cheap in terms of editorial and design, though
with good paper quality.
|
Alabaster complexion's on the cover
|
|
Wallpaper* Russia
March. Axel Springer Russia, Moscow. 150 roubles; 228pp.
Ed-in-chief: Yulia Korsounskaya; publisher: Philipp Georgi;
associate publisher: Anton Krasovsky
A confident debut with alabaster-skinned cover models for
the magazine that gives 'access to the best the world has to
offer'. IPC has licensed the first national edition of the
London-based title. The magazine, with a print run of just
25,000 copies, aims to attract 15 to 40-year-old members of
a 'new Russian bourgeoisie'. The target readers are younger
and earn more than those of competitors such as local editions
of AD, GQ, Harper's Bazaar, Officiel and Vogue. The
gender split should be about 60/40 male/female.
IPC profile
Axel Springer
|
True life weekly |
|
Full House from Burda
8 March. Hubert Burda Media, London. 40p (usually 70p);
68pp. Ed: Carl Styants
The German group has again set its toe in the UK waters,
after the failed launch of Amber in 2003. A package
of true life stories, celebrity, prizes and puzzles sets
Full House against Bauer's bestseller Take a Break
, and recent launches of ACP/Natmag'sReveal and IPC's
Pick Me Up. Reported as having £9m launch
budget. Backed by a nationwide TV campaign.
To add spice to the competitive equation, Burda's UK division
is headed up by Alan Urry, until July last year managing director
of German rival H Bauer. Also, editor Carl Styrants is a former
deputy editor of Take a Break. Simon Hesling, ex-
Take A Break publisher, worked as a consultant for the
launch of Amber and Full House, and becomes managing
director.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
|
Take 5 from Northern & Shell
11-17 March issue. Northern & Shell, London. 60p; 24pp.
The production values of a cheap newspaper supplement hit
the magazine shelves with this Northern & Shell effort.
The print run is 250,000, with a sales target of 150,000. Some
sources blamed the price cuts of What's On TV and
TV Choice in February to 35p and 30p respectively, on
this coming launch, which devotes 24 pages to TV listings.
Take 5 had been reported
as a Sunday supplement for Daily Star Sunday. Other
commentators saw it as prickly proprietor Richard Desmond trying
to annoy ACP/NatMags by taking the name of one of APC's biggest
sellers in Australia.
Northern & Shell profile
|
Dramatic cover: issue 7 |
|
Time Out Chicago
March 3-10. Time Out Chicago Partners LLLP. $2.50; 132pp.
Ed-in-chief: Ed Schlegel; art dir: Michael Coleman; ad dir:
David Garland; senior marketing manager: Eva Penar
Sets out its stall as 'the where-to-go what-to-do weekly'.
Covers highlight the number of free events listed each week:
152, 151 and 161 in the first three issues. A subscription
deal offers 51 issues for $19.99. Ownership split between Time
Out Group and Joe Mansueto, founder of Morningstar, an investment
research firm. Mansueto lost out to Tribune, owner of the
city's paper, in trying to buy
Chicago Magazine in 2002. He has been quoted as saying: 'I'm a magazine
junkie.'
Time Out Chicago
Time Out profile
|
|
|
Condé Nast launches Easy Living
April. Condé Nast, London. £1.90; 306pp. Ed:
Susie Forbes
Colour-coded sections mark this title out from the competition.
It also feels hefty at 306 pages. About 20 pages each devoted
to: real life; fashion; emotional intelligence; beauty &
health; food & entertaining; home life; and tried &
tested. The title is Condé Nast's first launch since
Glamour in 2001. It aims to attract women
aged 30-50, with a massive marketing budget of £15m to
set it up against NatMags' Good Housekeeping. The target
sales figure is 150,000-200,000. Printed about 600,000 for
the first issue. Ran a sampling exercise with the Daily Mail
in the last week on sale.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
|
Archant buys Highbury division
10 March. Regional newspaper group Archant has bought six
monthly lifestyle magazines from Highbury for £6.1 million.
The glossy A4 titles – Southwest, The Hill, The Guide,
Living South, The Green and Northwest – are distributed
through estate agents, garages, supermarkets, and by door-to-door
delivery, with a total circulation of nearly 400,000. They
are aimed at upmarket homes in north, west and south London.
The sale continues the splitting up of Highbury, which has
agreed to sell
its consumer titles to Future and sold its trade
titles
in February. In the same month, Archant bought Romsey Publishing
Group, owner of nine magazines, including The English Garden,
The English Home and Canal Boat.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
It may take even more than Sophie Howard, Charlotte Marshall and Lucy Becker to revive Loaded's fortunes |
|
Zoo closes sales gap on Nuts but Loaded fades
19 February. Six-monthly audited sales figures released
today show the damage done to monthly sales by the launch of
the weekly duo, IPC's Nuts and Emap's Zoo .
The former saw its sales fall slightly to 275,459 compared
with Zoo gaining to 240,215. The gap between the two
has narrowed from 90,000 to 35,000 copies. But it was Loaded
that appears to be the main victim, falling 16% year-on-year
to 220,057 and being overtaken by Maxim and Men's
Health. Front – which looks set to come under the
control of Future in the takeover of Highbury – was another
faller.
The big titles among women's monthlies and celebrity titles
all saw rises.
| Top 10 men's lifestyle magazines |
Position
(Aug 2004) |
Title (publisher) |
Sales
(Jul-Dec 2004)
|
| 1 (1) |
FHM (Emap) |
580,027 |
| 2 (2) |
Nuts (IPC) – weekly |
275,459
|
| 3 (6) |
Zoo (Emap) – weekly |
240,215 |
| 4 (4) |
Maxim (Dennis) |
234,183 |
| 5 (5) |
Men's Health (NatMag-Rodale) |
229,116 |
| 6 (3) |
Loaded (IPC) |
220,057 |
| 7 (7) |
Q (Condé Nast) |
125,016 |
| 8 (9) |
Bizarre (Dennis) |
85,852 |
| 9 (8) |
Front (Highbury) |
84,093 |
| 10 (10) |
Stuff (Haymarket) |
74,570 |
| Source: ABC |
|
Kate Moss: secrets |
|
Grazia on the news-stands
21 February 2005. Emap Elan. £1.50; 124pp. Ed-in-chief:
Fiona McIntosh
'Kate Moss: the secret reason she'll never marry' is the
cover story gracing the first issue for sale of the glossy
weekly. The cover layout is identical to last week's free
sample issue
. The flatplan was pretty near identical too, with content
devoted to: news – 'Bree kisses off those gay rumours' – with
a trend piece ('Why everyone wants to look Chav') and real
lives (to page 59); fashion (to page 85); beauty, leading on
brunette as the look of the week (to p94); health – 'Were you
born to be healthy' (to p103); Living – food, interiors and
travel (to p116); events guide (to p1210; the last inside page
is a charity-based competition. Lots of pictures, light on
text, plenty to dip into and the essential horoscope. The big
question is whether the mix is right: enough fashion for the
fashionistas; and gossip for the celeb-watchers. One thing
you won't find is the sort of heavy feature that Marie Claire
was lauded for in the early 1990s.
Emap profile
Picture gallery of preview issue at Media Guardian
Glossies cut prices ahead of Grazia launch
|
Charles and Camilla special issue |
|
Hello! goes big on Charles and Camilla
22 February. Hello! Ltd. £1.85; 156pp + 116pp separate
style guide. Ed: Ronnie Whelan
The original celebrity weekly went back to its royal roots
with a 56-page souvenir section within five days of news of
the marriage. The issue was bagged with a spring/summer fashion
special
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
|
Future to buy Highbury to jump into top 3
15 February. Future has made a bid to buy Highbury House
in a deal worth £96m. The deal would see the Bath-based
group leapfrog over the BBC and Bauer to become the UK's third
biggest publisher, after IPC and Emap. With Highbury's 70 titles,
Future will have bought 100 special-interest titles in two
years. The purchase will take Future into new sectors, such
as men's glossies with Front; Fast Cars will
strengthen its motoring portfolio – only created in January
when it bought A&S's 11 titles; and give it a near monopoly
in the computer games and consoles niches. With a series of
deals, Future has greatly expanded its product breadth and buying
power for materials such as paper and print. The only problem is
that few of the magazines it has bought are market leaders.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
Big in Australia but no relation
to OK! |
|
OK! publisher plans Take 5
13 February 2005. OK! and Express newspaper
publisher Northern & Shell is planning to launch a Sunday
newspaper magazine supplement aimed at women called Take
5, according to The Observer. It is set to appear on 28 February as a free supplement
with N&S's tabloid, the Daily Star Sunday. The title
chosen is the same as that of one of the top 10 magazines in
Australia, a women's weekly published by APC, and would have
been a potential choice for ACP-NatMags, the UK joint venture
set up to launch weeklies with National Magazines last year.
Northern & Shell profile
APC-NatMags company launch
|
Life in pink and yellow |
|
Pick Me Up selling well
The first two issues of IPC's new real-life weekly
Pick Me Up may have sold as many as 800,000 copies each,
with the third – at the full price of 60p – falling just short
of 600,000. Audited figures from the ABC will not be released
until August, but with one unofficial source estimating 75%
of copies distributed being sold, IPC may have underestimated
demand for the launch.
Women's weeklies
IPC profile
|
Highbury wants more like this |
|
Highbury House offloads trade titles
Highbury House has sold its business division, BCom, for
£12.5m to US company Ergo Science. The sale covers 45
magazines, including Motor Trader, World Fishing Magazine,
Export Times, World Travel Guide and Electronics World
. The deal should be completed in April. Highbury has been
trying to offload the division for more than a year to concentrate
on its consumer magazines, such as Front and Fast
Car. The company, which publishes 200 titles and bought
up Cabal last year, has said it received an approach
from a potential bidder last month.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
Grazia and Jennifer Aniston |
|
Grazia launches with free preview
14 February. Emap Elan, London. Free (£1.50); 116pp.
Ed-in-chief: Fiona McIntosh
650,000 free preview issues of Britain's 'first weekly glossy'
were distributed through WH Smith on Tuesday and backed by
TV advertising on the day. The cover led on a Jennifer Aniston
(ex-Friends) interview with health and real-life features
also pushed on the cover. 'Hot buys' included fashion, beauty
and property. The first 46 pages were tagged as news, many
based on party photographs. There were 15 pages of advertising
and a spread of advertorial. The surprise of the issue was
the paper – a silky matt used for the inside pages with lots
of use of fluorescent yellow ink. The paper also held the distinctive
smell of gravure printing (by Polestar Purnell in Bristol).
However, the stapled spine on many copies in the shops were
showing signs of wear. The magazine included a 75p voucher
for money off the launch issue. Grazia is published 'under
license' [sic] from Italian company Mondadori with 51 issues a year
and a £16m budget.
Emap profile
Page-by-page picture gallery at Media Guardian
|
|
|
Fancy eating a magazine?
The prospect of eating magazines has been raised after
a chef modified a printer to put flavoured inks on to edible
paper. New Scientist quotes Chicago chef Homaru Cantu:
'Just imagine going through a magazine and looking at an ad
for pizza. You wonder what it tastes like, so you rip a page
out and eat it.'
|
Price cut to £2 |
|
Glossies cut prices ahead of Grazia launch
Cover prices on the March issues of Hachette's Red
(to £2), IPC's Woman and Home (£2) and
National Magazine's She (£1.90) and Company
(£1.90) have been cut ahead of the launch of Emap's
fashion weekly Grazia on February 8, with IPC's
Marie Claire (selling at £2.50 since September
2004) and Hachette's Elle bundled with bags as cover
gifts. In an Independent Media Weekly interview (February
7), Grazia editor-in-chief Fiona McIntosh identified
Elle and Marie Claire as titles from which she might
pinch readers, but said the main target would be women who had no
loyalty to any particular title. The new fashion weekly, which
is licensed from Italy's Mondadori, is priced at £1.50
and aims to sell 'in excess of 150,000 copies weekly in its
first year', suggesting an initial print run of 250,000 copies.
Emap has said it will invest 'up to £16 million to take
the title to breakeven' and recruited a host of editorial talent.
Retail Newsagent quoted Emap as saying
a retail sales value of £17m in the first year was 'realistic',
equating to average weekly sales of about 218,000 copies, or
an increased cover price of £2.20 at the target sales
figure. The original Italian version sells for £2.50
in the UK. A glossy fashion weekly has been tried before under editor
Sally O'Sullivan (now a director at Highbury) who launched
Riva in 1988 at Carlton, then a sister company of IPC
at Reed. It was closed after only six issues in October, having
lost £4.5m and running almost 200,000 below its projected
350,000 circulation. Also, magazines such as Vogue were
published twice a month for much of the year until the 1970s.
Emap profile
|
Arriving in Moscow |
|
Wallpaper* launch in Russia
31 January. IPC Media is to launch of a Russian language
edition of Wallpaper*. The magazine will be published
under a 10-year licence agreement with the Moscow-based affiliate
of Axel Springer, Germany's biggest newspaper publisher. Articles
will be translated from the English language edition, as well
as copy being written for the local market. The first Russian
language copy will be the March edition of Wallpaper*
on sale from February 28. Axel Springer Russia already has
editions of Newsweek and Forbes. The editor of
Forbes Russia, US journalist Paul Khlebnikov,
was murdered in Moscow in July last year.
IPC profile
Axel Springer
|
|
|
Buyer stalks Highbury House
The share price of Front and Fast Car publisher
Highbury House rose by a quarter after the company confirmed
that an approach had been made that might lead to a bid. IPC
and Emap have been talked about as potential buyers, as has
Future, although with a market value of £30m a private
equity buyer is also a possibility. The company has tried,
unsuccessfully, to sell its business arm and instigated a strategy
review at the end of 2004. It bought two specialist consumer
publishers, Cabal and Paragon, in 2003.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
|
TV Choice matches IPC price cut
27 January. H Bauer has cut the cover price of TV Choice
by 10p in reply to IPC's similar ploy with What's On TV
. At 30p, TV Choice is once again 5p cheaper than
What's On TV.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
TV bestseller |
|
What's On TV cuts price to 35p
26 January. IPC has cut the price of What's On TV
– the UK's bestselling magazine – by 10p to 35p. It sells
about 1.6m copies a week, comfortably ahead of BBC's Radio
Times (1.1m at 90p) and Bauer's TV Choice (almost
1.1m at 40p). However, the latter has been creeping up. Price
is being used increasingly by publishers as a competitive tool,
particularly by the celebrity
titles
and the women's monthlies – sparked by Glamour's £1.50.
IPC profile
|
TV bestseller
|
|
Future buys 11 motoring titles for £6m
25 January. Future Network has further extended its magazine
portfolio by buying A&S for £5.95m. The company publishes
11 specialist motoring titles, including Fast Ford, Retro
Cars, GoMini (launched
in 2003) and Trucking. A&S also runs eight motoring
shows.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
|
Pick Me Up – '600,000 sales target'
27 January. IPC. 30p (usually 60p); 60pp. Launch editor:
June Smith-Sheppard
The first issue was true to the free sampler
of a week earlier. The marketing blitz with TV advertising
was backed by PR, with Smith-Sheppard profiled in Press
Gazette, and IPC chief executive Sylvia Auton the cover
interview in the Independent's media section (over four
pages on Jan 24). The Auton interview gave a sales target of
250,000 copies a week; however, Retail Newsagent quoted
a target retail sales value of £20m a year – working
out at weekly sales of 600,000, about the same as Chat (which
Smith-Sheppard also edits). Although Smith-Sheppard described
the newcomer to PG as 'completely different to Chat
', the main point of difference appeared to be the design:
'We're giving readers more of what they love, but presented
in this new way that is totally satisfying.'
Women's weeklies
IPC profile
|
Eve at launch in 2001 |
|
Haymarket buys BBC's Eve
11 January. The BBC has sold its glossy monthly Eve
to Haymarket after deciding it was not linked to any of
the corporations programmes. A women's glossy marks an expansion
for Haymarket, which is controlled by former Tory minister
Michael Heseltine and has specialised in men's interest and
trade magazines. Nothing has been announced about the magazine's
quarterly spin-off, What to Wear. Eve has sales
of about 150,000 a month. It was launched in 2001 and after
a shaky start saw off Bare, Aura and Nova to
compete with Emap's Red for the 'middle youth' market.
The title claims to be the 'Britain's fastest-growing women's monthly'.
Magazine publishers profiled
|
Real life mag's logo
|
|
Pick Me Up marketing blitz
11 January 2005 (dated 20 Jan). IPC Media. Free (usual price
60p) with Woman (cover date Jan 17); 60pp. Launch Ed:
June Smith-Sheppard
The sampling issue for IPC's traditional women's weekly
Take a Break – known as Project Spitfire – was
focused on real-life stories. The 'True..' strapline was barely
broken except by Health SOS (four pages) and nine consecutive
pages of puzzles – with hunk Puzzlin' Paul offering £7,000
in prizes and the chance to win a holiday in Mexico.
The true stories included a shocker – 'Death by chips'; heartache;
mystery – a boy psychic; triumphs; crime – serial killers;
and 'true-ly hilarious'. Naked and semi-naked readers' husbands
featured in articles and the centre-spread was
a sex therapy column as part of the health section. There
were 5 pages of advertising (Clairol hair colour, Vaseline
Intensive Care, a DPS for Niquitin and Woolworths) and a house
advert for Chat.
The January 13 Take a Break – Bauer's runaway market
leader in women's weeklies – cost 72p for 72 pages. Its real-life
formula has made it the world's 'fourth biggest women's magazine'.
It includes a couple of pages on travel and fashion in the
mix. The IPC offering was glossier with a heavier cover compared
with Bauer printing in Germany and relying on self-cover gravure
paper.
IPC Media aims to 'redefine' the women's weekly sector with
Pick Me Up. More than 3.5 million copies
will be given away with Woman, Now, Chat and What’s
on TV, in what the company claims is the biggest sampling
exercise yet seen in the UK. The first paid-for issue goes
on sale on Thursday, January 20.
The company claims £6 million has been committed to
marketing Pick Me Up in 2005 with a national TV campaign.
National Magazines said it had put £16m into marketing
Reveal, which sold more than 300,000 copies
of its first two issues, according to figures released by
the company as part of a move to monthly sales figures rather
than the six-monthly ABC figures.
Women's weeklies
IPC profile
|
Catherine Zeta-Jones on the cover of Sainsbury's Magazine in 1993 |
|
Seven buys up New Crane
10 January. Seven publishing has bought New Crane, the
company set up to publish Sainsbury's Magazine in 1993
by Michael Wynn-Jones and his wife, television chef Delia Smith.
Seven also took over puzzle publisher Cottage Publishing in
September and was reported as saying the two deals would cost
up to £13.6m; reports said the New Crane deal had cost
£7.5m.
Wynn-Jones had been editor of the closed magazine Lloyd's Log and written for many others, including
IPC's Nova. He was credited with persuading Sainsbury
to license their name to a magazine, which was at first only
sold in its supermarkets. Smith – then a high profile figure
on TV who had sold 5m books – appeared on the covers of the
early issues. Seven will double in size and move to New Crane's
premises.
Sainsbury's Magazine website
Seven profile
|
2004 launch adds to NatMags portfolio
|
|
Weeklies set to be battleground for 2005
The news that IPC had chosen 'Spitfire' as the codename
for a new, traditional women's weekly suggests a Battle
of Britain spirit has taken hold in the company once dubbed
the 'Ministry of Magazines' because of its stranglehold on
the UK's magazine marketplace. And well it might, with National
Magazines having launched Reveal
in a £16m campaign to add to its Best and
Prima titles inherited from Gruner &
Jahr, and formed a partnership
in the UK to produce weekly magazines with Australian Consolidated
Press, there would be plenty to worry about, even without Emap
entering the UK arena with Italian fashion weekly Grazia.
NatMags has also strengthened its war chest for the men's
sector, signing a partnership
with Men's Health publisher Rodale. Could a men's
weekly health title be on the cards? Will Bauer return for
another round after the failure of Cut
? And then there's more – with porn-baron-turned-newspaper-and-celebrity-magnate
Richard Desmond reported to be planned KO!, a men's
weekly, and a shopping title B Happy to add to his stable
of OK!, New! and Star at
Northern & Shell. Will Emap and IPC have the strength left to go another
10 rounds over a weekly film magazine? Only 2005 will tell...
Magazine publishers profiled
|
|
