VNU Spends £4m On New Title

VNU Business Publications is entering the mass consumer magazine market with its biggest ever launch: the new computer magazine Computeractive. The £4 million budget which VNU is allocating to the new title makes it the most significant computer magazine launch of the past five years and includes a substantial national TV, press and poster advertising spend.

The title, which will be launching next month, will target the broad majority of existing and potential home computer owners and buyers who are not regular computer magazine purchasers. It will be published fortnightly, which is unusual in the computer market where most titles are monthlies.

Publisher Juliet Parker says: “We’re challenging existing preconceptions about computer magazines. The typical home computer buyer and the market have moved on hugely in the 1990s, but the magazines serving them have not. Computeractive is not what you’d expect from a computer magazine: it’s easy to understand, interesting and informative…It’s for people who want to get more from their computer, but don’t want to wade through pages of technical articles and unintelligible jargon.”

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