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.
In this tech-driven interconnected age, where you can switch the oven on half way home and ask a metal box for a weather forecast, it’s somehow touching that people like reading about all this stuff in a print magazine! Alan Geere browses six tech ti
Jim Foster’s publishing world…
Haymarket Media Group this week filed annual accounts showing a substantial increase in operating profit to £16.0m (2016: £4.3m), boosted by the divestment of non-core motorsport and agricultural brands.
AOP and Deloitte reveal a 6.7% increase in publisher revenue from £77.6m in Q3 2016 to £82.8 in Q3 2017, coupled with a boost in industry confidence.
Brides magazine has announced they will partner with Ocean Media Group to deliver the next Brides The Show event, the luxury bridal show.
This February, Future’s rock titles talk to the women changing rock, metal and progressive music.
Future has announced the appointment of Luke Edson as its US Chief Revenue Officer, effective from the 29th January 2018.
Two leading cross-industry standards bodies in the UK and US this week announced they are aligning many of their key initiatives to create a consistent approach to tackling the big issues facing digital advertising and to increase industry adoption.
Combat & Survival magazine has launched a brand new responsive app, built by Rhapsody, which is available now on the iTunes and Google Play App Stores.
With the start-up of PM5, described as the most modern packaging machine of its kind, Leipa says it will be transforming nearly 1.5 million tonnes of recovered paper back into high quality paper and packaging products in 2018.
Canvasflow has announced the release of Canvasflow 3.0, its cloud-based content authoring and management platform.
Dennis has announced the appointment of Nick Flood in the newly formed role of Deputy MD of Digital.
Air Business has announced that it is to be a PPA Strategic Partner for the ninth consecutive year.
James Evelegh's editorial from this week's edition of InPubWeekly.
Stylist magazine this week publishes its 400th issue, a special collectors’ edition entitled The Robot Takeover.
