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.
The UK’s ethnic communities now number over 4.5m (approx 8% of total population). This is a sizable market, made accessible by its concentration in London and a few other large cities. James Evelegh talks to Ethnic Media Group’s Mike Chinnery about t
“And what do you do?” That dread cocktail party chat up line is so easy to answer if you’re a dentist, lawyer, banker, soldier or dustman. But what if you’re a circulation director? Here, Dennis Publishing’s Julian Thorne tries to explain, in just 16
Niche publishers often bemoan the size of their marketing budgets. Yet, says MMC’s James Stringer, they have one big advantage over their mainstream rivals – a clearly identifiable audience. Armed with this, and an intelligently thought through promo
Africa was once described in the Economist as “The Hopeless Continent” – a description which might suggest that this particular publication would try to steer clear of the place. Not so! International circulation director Christopher Collins explains
It’s amazing how often publishers send out free copies of their subscription magazines in support of a circulation figure – but don’t grasp the subs sales opportunity this offers. Here, Polygon Media’s Laurie Wedd explains how they use a system of FF
Historically publishers have used list rental either to fund circulation activity or as an additional revenue stream. Here Richard Gibson looks at making the decision to rent and how to maximise revenue from one of your most valuable assets – your ma
Are you doing a good job? No, I mean a REALLY good job. Doing circulation well means never letting complacency set in, always questioning your assumptions and analysing to the nth degree. BusinessWeek’s Sara Howers poses slightly more than twenty que
In 2001 Barbara Cardy saw a gap in the market for women-friendly erotica. Armed with a firm belief in the concept and a fertile imagination, Barbara launched In The Buff. Over the next three issues Barbara will retrace her footsteps from launch to th
In-house vs outsource? It’s hard to escape that old chestnut. Qbase’s Gary Olive weighs up the pros and cons of each and suggests a third way.
Is securing sufficient marketing budget like getting blood from a stone? If it is, then don’t despair. Here Peter Hobday outlines some tried and tested techniques to help you achieve good revenue with even the most inadequate of budgets.
The industry is fighting tooth and nail to preserve the supply chain status quo. Yet, says Ian Love, the current system is far from perfect and a more imaginative approach is needed. An inability to be flexible, he says, will result in major changes
Most of the necessary steps are obvious, says Richard Heath. Yet time and time again publishers fail to plan properly and the launch fails. Here, Richard summarises the key stages and warns against taking short cuts.
Over a billion magazines are sold at retail each year so the dynamics of the retail sector impact heavily on publishers. On 30 September the PPA held its MagSell conference and awards at the Millennium Mayfair hotel in London. James Evelegh highlight
How your title is displayed and promoted at retail is of the utmost importance. Publishers invest heavily in retail promotional schemes and then spend sleepless nights worrying whether the agreements they’ve just entered into are worth the paper they
As publishers, an enormous amount of our product is sold through independent newsagents. Yet, apart from dumping our product on them, our interaction with retailers is often woeful. We don’t meet them, we don’t talk to them and we certainly don’t lis
