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.
Looking outside your own market is always a smart way to get new ideas, as the chances are another publisher has already grappled with the same problem as you. Carolyn Morgan attended SIPA’s recent conference in Washington DC and flew back with lots
Imagine Publishing launched eight years ago, with six magazine titles. Now, the company publishes twenty magazines, 275 bookazines alongside numerous website and apps, and it is highly profitable. Meg Carter talks to Group Managing Director Damian Bu
Rock Sound magazine’s enterprising use of social media was recognised with a Media Pioneer award earlier this year. Publisher Patrick Napier describes how this small independent publisher uses Twitter et al to punch way above its weight.
As the publishing business becomes more international, what can we learn from other markets around the world about how to market subscriptions? That question, writes Jim Bilton, lies at the core of a topical report from the PPA.
Burned-out on "Words With Friends"? Finding "Five Minutes to Kill Yourself" too slow-paced? Well, why not try Karlene Lukovitz’ trivia quiz.
Creating a digital product that’s optimised for all the different devices that consumers might be using is a huge challenge for workflow management. Jo Bowman reports on how publishers are streamlining the process.
Print circulations continued their steady decline in the last ABC period, but, writes Jamie Higginson, the growing success publishers are enjoying across multiple platforms shows that the public still has a healthy appetite for magazine content.
David Hepworth's regular column, in the September / October 2013 issue of InPublishing magazine.
Successful digital media is not about software or hardware, writes Colin Morrison, but about shifting from being a producer of products to a provider of services.
One of the most pronounced changes within publishing companies has been the blurring of the boundaries between different departments, most noticeably between editorial and commercial. Immediate Media’s Duncan Tickell explains how tighter integration
In the second of our new series by leading figures in the world of digital publishing, Rebekah Billingsley tells us why she particularly likes Lakeland Magazine.
As traditional publishing transitions to digital content, whether web, mobile, social, video, data, events or communities, so the rules of the game are changing, writes Carolyn Morgan.
The Supplier Q&A for the July / August 2013 issue of InPublishing magazine was, How should publishers foster community and build engagement? It was answered by Oscar Carlsson of Cint, Andy Guy of Circdata, Andrew Perry-Smith of Linkz and Richard Step
Are you talking to Mail Publisher Solutions? If you are a consumer magazine publisher, particularly if you are targeting the female or middle England markets and want to acquire more readers, then, says MPS’s Tracey Hart, you should be! If you are a
The social networks are where a lot of our readers spend a lot of their time, so clearly publishers need to be there too. But simply being there is not enough, writes Amanda MacArthur. You need to make sure you fit in!
