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.
With so much publisher focus now centred on apps and paywalls, it is tempting to think of ‘search’ as so last decade. Surely, it’s one less thing to worry about? This would be a mistake, writes Amanda Watlington, because the search game continues to
Imagine being asked to name the greatest prime minister of the past century and then finding that the list of candidates excluded Thatcher, Attlee, Churchill and Lloyd George. That would, writes Peter Jackson, pose a bit of a problem, wouldn’t it?
In the first of a new series by leading figures in the world of digital publishing, Dennis Publishing’s Alex Watson tells us why he particularly likes TRVL.
Henry Ford once said that the only real mistake we make is the one from which we learn nothing. Rebekah Billingsley strongly believes that’s what a lot of publishers are doing right now with their digital magazines and are in danger of being left sta
A lot of publishers are struggling over their strategic direction. One that does not appear to be is Forbes, which is enjoying continued success in print combined with rapidly growing digital advertising revenues. Ciar Byrne talks to Forbes CEO Mike
In 1896, Henry J Heinz came up with one of the all-time great marketing coups when he introduced the slogan ‘57 Varieties’ to describe the breadth of his company’s product range. And therein, writes Ian Eckert, lies a valuable lesson for today’s publ
Good content is still king, but, writes Paul Lomax, without technology to match, publishers may not reach the audiences they once enjoyed.
With the plethora of new reading devices and the consequent audience fragmentation, the task of measuring readership has become a mightily complicated one. The National Readership Survey took a big step forward last September with the release of PADD
David Hepworth's regular column, in the July / August 2013 issue of InPublishing magazine.
With the demand for video content seemingly insatiable, it’s no surprise video is becoming a significant revenue stream for some publishers. Yet, writes Jo Bowman, monetisation strategies are still in their infancy and the pace of change is rapid.
Just in case you’d missed it, the PPA is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. To mark the occasion, former PPA Chief Executive, Ian Locks, give us a whistle-stop tour of the key moments in magazine publishing.
Publishing has changed forever, writes Carolyn Morgan, and media owners will have to learn a whole new set of digital survival skills to thrive in a world of digital content – before brands, retailers, government and start-ups eat their lunch…
Thanks to digital media, specialist publishers are gradually morphing into all round providers of services for targeted communities. The Specialist Media Insights research has been tracking this transition since 2010, with the support of InPublishing
Amid a mood of growing urgency, writes Karlene Lukovitz, this year's Retail Marketplace conference (held in mid-June in Philadelphia) featured some notably frank discussion of the challenges facing the US newsstand business and what can be done to st
The independent magazine scene is thriving. It is a corner of the magazine market where passion pays. Peter Houston looks at what lessons we can learn from the vibrant Indie scene.
