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.
US publishers are realising significant cross-platform audience growth as a result of investments in digital, and particularly mobile and video. Sales of digital editions, though, writes Karlene Lukovitz, continue to disappoint.
Last December, Anthem Publishing won the PPA Independent Publishing Company of the Year award. As Jon Bickley tells Jo Bowman, Anthem has small company versatility and big company ambitions, and it’s this winning mix that has enabled it to punch well
Deloitte, the business advisory firm and the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) today revealed that mobile digital advertising revenues from UK publishers grew by 80% in the first quarter of 2015 compared with the same quarter in 2014.
This week, ABC issued video ad technology company Unruly with a certificate of their compliance with the Social Video Code.
This autumn, Cosmopolitan will be launching Cosmopolitan The Fragrance.
Tatler has announced the inaugural Tatler Schools Guide Live! event on Friday 2nd October 2015.
Lucy Grosse has been promoted to the position of Advertisement Director of Glamour, it was announced yesterday by Jamie Jouning, Glamour Publishing Director.
Adestra has announced that full service email marketing agency, Dallas-based Inbox Group, has chosen Adestra as a technology partner.
At the PPA Festival last Thursday, four leading CEOs were asked what job they would be doing if they hadn’t gone into publishing…
Condé Nast has announced the launch of House & Garden Destinations, a new annual glossy travel supplement from the House & Garden Bespoke team.
Sky is launching the Sky Editorial Asset Centre, a new digital asset management platform, to enable easier sharing of its enormous stock of still images for commissioned and acquired shows and movies.
Vogue India has broken all records for views of a Condé Nast video worldwide, it was announced yesterday.
Dennis Publishing has appointed Joe Barnes as Editor of the Men’s Fitness brand. He will take up the post on 13th July 2015, moving from Bauer Media’s FHM.
Paul Cassar has been appointed as Say Media’s Vice President, International, it was announced last week by company Co-Founder and CEO, Matt Sanchez.
Launched in the UK at the beginning of April, Global Media Hub is a new entrant into the free magazine sector.
