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.
Adestra has announced that Select Publishing, a DMA Certified Email Marketing and Inc. 500 company, has chosen Adestra’s MessageFocus email platform to help them meet their clients’ goals of customer acquisition.
Dennis Publishing has today announced the launch of Minecraft World, a new monthly print magazine based on the popular cross-platform computer game.
The National Readership Survey Ltd (NRS) yesterday announced that the next release of NRS PADD will be the first to incorporate comScore’s new mobile and tablet estimates, following changes to the way comScore measure mobile audiences.
InPublishing sets the question – suppliers provide the answer. Nicholas Kleanthous, Marketing and Web Analyst at YUDU, writes:
InPublishing sets the question – suppliers provide the answer. John Cunningham, WoodWing’s Country Manager for UK and Ireland, writes:
InPublishing sets the question – suppliers provide the answer. John Rahim, Head of Digital, Rhapsody Media, writes:
InPublishing sets the question – suppliers provide the answer. Mark McCormick, President, Mirabel Technologies, writes:
Photography is a growing market – cameras, lenses, gadgets, gizmos and digital software – and magazines covering the sector are big business too. Alan Geere looks through the viewfinder at the five top-selling titles.
Digital device proliferation, demanding customers, technical challenges, disruptive competition, lack of visibility… No wonder, writes Carolyn Morgan, traditional publishers are feeling slightly dizzy.
Bad design gets noticed; good design doesn’t! On a well designed page, everything is there for a reason – space, colour, font, images; it should all hang together just so. Paul Solomons talks to Meg Carter about his approach to magazine design and ho
Jim Foster on the world of ePublishing
David Hepworth on magazines and beyond
Every department has its own set of jargon; meaningful to those in the know, but gobbledygook to everyone else. Luke Bilton interprets events-speak…
Two clear themes emerge from this year’s AOP Census: the rise of programmatic and the migration to mobile. These trends look likely to underpin many publishers’ investment and staffing decisions in 2015. Tim Cain looks at these and other trends throw
Duncan Tickell has rediscovered the reading habit through apps. His current favourite is Fast Company, an app focusing on innovation in technology. Clean simple design, fascinating content and … free! Duncan’s not sure how they are making money, but
