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.
BBC Worldwide has signed leading footwear, apparel and accessories brand developer Established Brands to create the first ever range of Lonely Planet branded luggage, travel accessories and apparel on behalf of the travel brand.
IPC Media, one of the UK’s leading magazine publishers, has chosen SPECAL (lifelong well-being for people with dementia) as its charity of the year for 2011, following a company-wide vote.
PPA has announced that it has changed its official name from the Periodical Publishers Association to the Professional Publishers Association.
The annual FIPP Research Forum and Awards will take place in France on 7-8 April 2011 at the Prisma Presse offices in Paris.
Bauer Media has appointed The Brooklyn Brothers to handle brand communications for its flagship, fashion glossy Grazia.
A saturated magazine market, with a depressed advertising climate and pressure on consumer spending needn’t put you off exploring opportunities in a new territory, says Joanna Marshall, BBC Magazines’ head of licensing and syndication.
Classic Bike Guide, from Mortons Media Group, is being relaunched with its February issue.
Haymarket Media Group has announced that Autocar will launch its 16th international edition and 9th Asian edition in Vietnam in January 2011.
The 34th annual What Car? Awards took place last Thursday, 13 January, 2011.
Egmont Publishing Group has signed a deal in the UK with Turner CN Enterprises to publish content across both print and digital formats based on the popular Cartoon Network series Generator Rex.
2009 saw Wessenden Marketing teaming up with InPublishing to undertake a pilot survey of the UK publishing business. 2011 starts with the publication of the second Publishing Futures survey which this time is sponsored by PPA and probes even deeper i
Twelve of the top consumer magazines, by ABC, are customer publications. It’s a huge subset of the publishing industry, yet, because most of the action takes place away from the newsstand, it’s sometimes forgotten about in traditional publishing circ
Running an independent publishing company offers the potential for a fulfilling life and a good income. But, for most, the real money is made when the time comes to sell up, yet few publishers devote much time to preparing their businesses to appeal
It is tempting to assess the challenges facing publishers purely in terms of the digital choices they face. Yet, most publishers continue to make most of their money from the print product and to produce vast numbers of copies every year. So, writes
Company magazine, the glossy monthly women’s title published by the National Magazine Company, will this week be editing the March issue of the magazine at Heathrow Terminal 5 – a world first for the magazine industry.
