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.
Students on this year’s ACE Empower programme concluded their course by presenting the results of their research projects to industry leaders at a special event at Northcliffe House on 13th September. They made a number of recommendations on how the
The majority (58%) of UK consumers believe their family’s financial situation will worsen in 2018, according to TI Media’s annual The Briefing, Summer 2018 study, which reveals that Britain has become a nation divided by money.
Yesterday in Shanghai, The British Fashion Council (BFC) and British GQ announced that it will partner with Ruyi, and JD.com Inc for two years, as the two leading Chinese companies provide sponsorship to the BFC/GQ Designer Menswear Fund.
Bauer Media’s monthly music title, MOJO will celebrate its 300th issue this month, publishing a tribute collector’s issue commemorating The Beatles’ legendary White Album.
NME 1 has this week extended its digital audio broadcast (DAB) coverage. The station can now be heard on DAB via the local DAB multiplex in parts of central London.
Media Futures is an annual benchmarking project, now in its ninth year, undertaken by Wessenden Marketing in partnership with InPublishing. With the fieldwork for 2018 just completed, Jim Bilton looks at the top-level findings.
Jim Foster’s publishing world…
Hands up who doesn’t want to be fit and healthy? Yes, thought so. But plenty of help is at hand as Alan Geere finds down at the newsstand.
The Digital Publishing Innovation Summit in June brought together a diverse group of speakers from beyond traditional print publishing: digital start-ups, broadcasters, agencies and brands using content to attract an audience. Carolyn Morgan was ther
Thanks to ongoing consolidation, closures and print-to-digital-only conversions, it seems that there are fewer magazine media companies and major consumer titles each time that I check in with you, writes Karlene Lukovitz.
The children’s market works to a different rhythm to the rest of the consumer magazine sector. It’s a world where print still dominates, the licensor is king and where predicting what your audience will relate to is doubly challenging. Meg Carter tal
David Hepworth on magazines and beyond
The Economist has identified a potential global market of 72 million people, which means that despite a very healthy circulation of 1.4 million, there remains huge potential for growth. Marina Haydn tells Ciar Byrne about the strategies the 175-year-
James Evelegh’s editorial from the September / October 2018 issue of InPublishing magazine.
DC Thomson Media has announced the acquisition of Aceville Publications, a Colchester based magazine publisher.
