Consumer magazines spent most of the past two decades managing decline. The more confident publishers have stopped doing that. Newsstand sales and print advertising are still shrinking, but well-made titles with loyal readers are raising cover prices and growing.
Scale matters less than it did. Bauer has made Grazia a more premium product and charged more for it, while independents such as Anthem have put print back at the centre of the business and grown their export sales. Stylist has changed format several times without losing its readers. Others have gone the other way, and Gay Times dropped print entirely to build a global audience online.
For most consumer publishers, print is our USP. It’s the anchor that makes advertisers trust us and the very thing that readers want from us.
Jon Bickley Our print strategy: Anthem
Behind the confidence sits some hard arithmetic. Newstrade is now a small share of revenue and events and ecommerce are growing from a low base. Trust has become a selling point as AI fills the web with content of uncertain origin, but the paid-for consumer model that works at scale is still being worked out.
Below you'll find some of our best feature articles on consumer magazines, from premium print and cover pricing to brand extensions, membership and the future of specialist titles, alongside our latest news and industry commentary.
For a while now, magazine publishers have been on the defensive, unsure about the viability of their traditional business model in a fast-changing world. Katie Vanneck-Smith wants to change all that.
We asked Tamar Riley, portfolio managing director at Immediate, what does best practice publishing look like in consumer media? This is what she said…
For premium titles like Grazia, Mojo and Empire, growth is increasingly coming not from extending reach but from deepening engagement with existing passionate audiences, as Lauren Holleyoake tells Ciar Byrne.
The printed magazine will be a cherished part of people’s lives for years to come, says Jon Bickley, co-founder and CEO. That is why it’s the key component in Anthem’s publishing strategy.
With the arrival of AI and the widespread availability of unattributable content, specialist publishers need to ensure that their titles are the trusted go-to brands in their sectors, Our Media’s Andy Marshall tells Ciar Byrne.
Stylist’s mission has been clear from day one: to engage with its female audience in an intelligent, positive and non-exploitative way. 16 years on, and current PPA Media Brand of the Year, they are staying true to those values, says Lisa Smosarski.
Gay Times was stuck in a rut, tied to its traditional publishing model and reaching only a small part of the LGBTQ+ community. Under the editorship of Lewis Corner, that began to change, as he explains to Ciar Byrne.
Whatever the rest of 2024 holds, two things are certain. Firstly, the bumpy economic ride will continue. Secondly, the need for media companies to have a broad base of revenue streams has never been more important or more challenging to achieve.
How do you create a specialist consumer media business that is fit for the future? What steps do you need to take to be resilient and flexible as audiences and technology evolve? Carolyn Morgan researched 20 innovators from across Europe to find out.
For many publishers, circulation is all about chasing volume, but they would be much better off chasing profitability, says Natalie Smith, client relationship manager at Warners.
For publishers experimenting with metered paywalls, where to set the free articles limit is a key consideration. You can guess at it or you can use data, specifically the ‘stop rate’ metric, to help you make a more informed decision.
Consultancy is usually associated with B2B, but B2C publisher Condé Nast is finding some success in providing consultancy services through its GQ and Wired brands. As Nick Sargent tells Meg Carter, it’s part of the 360-degree service they now offer.
As we start into a 2020 which promises even more disruption and uncertainty than ever, Distripress rounded off 2019 with its annual review of the state of the News & Magazine industry from a distribution point of view.
Everyone agrees that publishers should be staging events, but many are put off by the perceived hassle and admin overhead. But, your software should take the strain, allowing you to devote more time to delivering a must-attend event.
Using social media for sourcing and researching stories has become an essential weapon in the journalist’s armoury. Peter Sands talks to national newspaper journalists about how they use social media … and the perils that they face.
Some publishers put almost as much effort into publishing on sites such as Instagram as they do their own platforms. But with changing user habits, not to mention algorithms, it’s no easy task. Lauren Smith has some advice…
In our age of mass-produced cheap furniture, there’s still a market for exquisite hand-crafted pieces. Alan Geere looks at what reading material’s available for those fine woodworkers beavering away in workshops, garages and sheds.
James Evelegh’s roundup of some of the news stories that caught his eye over the last couple of months.
The new podcast aims to bring listeners the most important, startling or just plain weird happenings in the world of science.
The winning comic strip of the Beano Guinness World Record ’Finish the Comic Strip’ competition has been unveiled in the Thomson Learning Centre at V&A Dundee.
Forbes CEO Mike Federle this week announced the appointment of Jessica Sibley to the position of Chief Revenue Officer.
The Association for Online Publishing this week released the results of a six-month analysis into ad discrepancy levels among its members.
The English Home, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this spring, has appointed Samantha Scott-Jeffries as its new editor.
With reading habits changing rapidly and amidst growing concerns about untrustworthy content, we ask Ari Assuied, president & co-founder of Cafeyn, what publishers should be doing about it.
The Printing Charity has announced that John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief of Bloomberg, has accepted its invitation to be the charity’s 2020 President.
