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.
No one could accuse Barbara Cardy of not trying again. Even the realisation that consumers of porn prefer pictures to words has not dampened her enthusiasm. In the last of her series, will Barbara strike gold?
An awareness of what’s gone before makes for better planning and decision making. In direct marketing this is achieved through a culture of testing and documentation. James Evelegh talks to Natmag’s Karen Louth about her knowledge based approach to m
What else are you selling to your readers in addition to their subscription? If the answer is “nothing” then you are missing a trick. Successful publishers have realised that the real value of a subscriber is in what else you can market to them. Pete
In the final part of his data series, Qbase’s Gary Olive urges you to think outside the box. Opportunities that were just pipe dreams a few short months ago are now in play but you need to think big to realise them.
Collectively, specialist magazines are massively important to the industry. Yet, individually, many of them are small-scale and are often produced by independent publishers who feel very vulnerable to the forces that are currently shaping the supply
Perpetual motion and no rest are the secrets of success for business titles in the newstrade – that and having quality product. Martin Parr, newstrade manager of Reed Business Information talks us through the ins and outs of marketing RBI’s titles th
Of all the sets of eyes pawing over the recent concurrent release, perhaps the most critical and analytical were those belonging to the media buyers. Steve Goodman, director of press at MediaCom, looks at the underlying trends and sees a buoyant sect
We spend a lot of time ranting and raving about supermarkets and perhaps not enough time studying them. A better understanding of how the big multiples operate would not only put publishers in a better position to negotiate with them but would also h
What stops us testing; arrogance, ignorance or both? As with circulation modelling, everyone pays lip service to testing, but surprisingly few actually do it; odd really, when you consider that an intelligent approach to testing is one of the charact
Australia is UK publishers’ second largest export market. This is despite the fact that its population is a third of our own spread over a land mass thirty times our size. On top of that, it’s quite a long way away. Vicki Day, of Australian distribut
In our last issue, Barbara Cardy recounted how, in May 2001, she launched In The Buff – an erotica magazine for women. Here she chronicles her ongoing struggles to build subs through increasing her profile in the sex industry. Will scoring PR success
Your database is one of your most valuable assets, but extracting maximum benefit from this asset requires work. It needs to be regularly updated and enhanced. Objectives need to be set for both data quantity and data quality and, as Andrew Guy write
Data protection compliance is a minefield. Too many direct marketers have failed to keep abreast of the legislation and are, says Jenny Moseley, risking prosecution. Getting it right will keep you on the right side of the law, help foster a culture o
The acid test. Your marketing database is ready to use and you’re under pressure to show results. The answer, says Qbase’s Gary Olive, is a communications strategy based on customer segmentation.
On 11 November the PPA held its annual Magazine Subscriptions conference at the Grosvenor House in London. Over 25 different speakers across 13 different seminars and presentations were squeezed into the day. James Evelegh went to the Creative Master
