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.
Wallpaper*, the international design, fashion and lifestyle magazine, is celebrating the very best and brightest from 10 global superpowers of style and innovation in a special November issue.
Commercial digital print operation Headley Brothers has made available a comprehensive web-to-print solution which offers an advanced print service provision to its customers.
Bauer Media's glossy weekly Grazia has partnered with 11 leading High Street fashion retailers to produce its first-ever fashion range.
Online betting site Paddy Power has just issued the odds for the 30 shortlisted covers in The Maggies.
Comedian Ricky Gervais has re-created the iconic Esquire Muhammad Ali cover from 1968, showing the boxer with six arrows in his body, in a special Guest Editors’ issue of Esquire UK.
Building on its strategic alliance with Tokyo-based Vanfu, Polestar Applied Solutions is strengthening its geographic reach further, this time with a leading communication media management company based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
UPM Shotton was officially awarded its Queen's Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development by Her Majesty's representative Lord Lieutenant Trefor Jones CBE at the newsprint mill on Deeside Industrial Estate yesterday.
New FIPP president and CEO Chris Llewellyn joined the association yesterday from Bauer Media, the UK subsidiary of Europe’s largest privately owned publishing group, where he was international managing director.
To be launched on launched on 29 October, How It Works is a new magazine from Imagine Publishing, that aims to “feed minds, and provide nutritious entertainment to the ever-growing ‘QI generation’ of readers.”
Haymarket’s ENDS and Marketing magazines claim to have become the first UK titles to adopt a Carbon Trust label displaying their carbon footprinting commitments.
Haymarket prescribing guide MIMS is celebrating its 50th anniversary by sending a special edition to 39,000 GPs in the UK.
Polestar Wheatons has become the first company within Polestar to achieve ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 accreditations at the same time.
Dennis Publishing has announced an agreement with New York based American Media Inc for the international expansion of Men's Fitness. In an additional move, Dennis Publishing also acquires the rights to publish Men’s Fitness in the UK and Ireland.
NatMag has joined Havas Worldwide, Virgin Radio and MTV as key media partners of the celebrity-studded campaign which has been launched ahead of December's UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen.
Future plc, the international special-interest media group, has announced the appointment of John Marcom Jr as President of its North American business, Future US.
