2008 round-up: Magazines
It was a year of contrasting fortunes for the magazine industry in 2008, with titles closing and circulations falling for many, although there were signs of where the future could lie as digital mags began to take off and free titles showed their worth.
There was big news at the start of the year as Emap sold its B2B magazine business to a joint venture between Guardian Media Group and private equity firm Apax Partners (see Emap Sells B-2-B to GMG).
The £1 billion deal followed the £1.14 billion sale of Emap’s consumer magazine and radio assets to Bauer Consumer Media in December 2007.
In February, Bauer suspended NW and First from publication, ahead of the consumer magazines ABC release for July to December 2007 (see Bauer Suspends Publication Of NW And First).
Dennis Publishing revealed that it would be launching a second digital only magazine in March, following on from the success of online lads’ mag, Monkey.
iGizmo, a consumer technology mag, launched on 11 March, distributed as a free email (see Dennis Launches Second Digital Only Magazine).
In what was a busy period for the publisher, Dennis also launched a customer publishing arm, Dennis Communications.
Headed up by Tim Farthing as commercial director, Dennis Communications was launched with a focus on producing and delivering print and digital customer magazines (see Dennis Launches Customer Publishing Arm).
The end of the first quarter was marked by a MediaTel Group seminar on the ‘Future of Magazines’, which looked at whether magazines are suited to an online format and what the future holds for NRS and ABC.
The importance of the correct distribution model for digital magazines was discussed (see Digital Magazines Could Be Hugely Successful), as was using online as an opportunity to engage differently with users (see Magazine Websites Should Not Just Duplicate Print Content).
Panellists also agreed that having a single metric for measuring the reach of magazines would be a mistake, but merging both the NRS and ABC business infrastructures would be a good cost-cutting move for the industry (see Single Magazine Measurement Metric Would Be A Mistake).
May saw the first MediaTel Group Forum, in association with YouGov, focusing on the consumer magazine sector. The forum followed up on some of the topics raised at the previous seminar, such as utilising the web and free magazines (see MediaTel Group Forum Takes A Closer Look At Consumer Magazine Sector).
News International revealed that it was shutting its loss-making News Magazines business in June, as the first step of widespread changes taking place at the company (see News International Set To Close Magazines Unit).
James Murdoch, who was appointed head of the company in December 2007, initiated the developments, according to reports.
June also saw commercial speech radio station talkSPORT announce the launch of a digital magazine aimed at extending its brand.
James Mallinson, former publisher of Dennis’s Monkey was brought in as publisher, with the editorial team led by author and former editor-at-large of Loaded and Maxim magazines, Bill Borrows (see talkSPORT To Launch Digital Magazine).
The big news in August was the release of the six-monthly ABC consumer magazine figures, for January to June 2008, which saw free magazines top the men’s lifestyle sector, while Glamour and Take A Break had the highest circulations in the women’s monthly and weekly sectors respectively.
Men’s free weekly magazine Shortlist had the highest circulation in the men’s lifestyle sector, at more than 481,000 copies, followed by fellow free mag Sport, with a total figure of well over 315,000 copies (see ABC Consumer Magazine Headlines Jan-Jun 2008).
At a PPA regional Magazines Summit later in the year, Max Clifford outlined his vision of how regional magazines could uplift communities in comparison to national media (see Max Clifford Reveals His Vision For Magazines), while Condé Nast Magazines’ managing director, Nicholas Coleridge, delivered a rallying cry to the magazine industry, saying it had a “rosy future” (see Coleridge Outlines His Defence Of Magazines).
In October, ABC announced a new reporting standard scheme allowing magazine publishers to publish official six-monthly online figures alongside their half-yearly print circulation figures.
ABC said that the new reporting standards had been designed to ensure ABC and ABCe meet the changing needs of publishers (see ABC Introduces Six-Monthly Online Audits To Media Owners).
Dennis Publishing revealed its digital magazine ABCe results at the end of the month, with new launches iGizmo and iMotor both hitting over 100,000 readers per issue.
Monkey, iGizmo and iMotor all proved popular, with the three digital magazines attracting more than 1.4 million readers a month (see Dennis Reveals Digital Mags Debut ABCes).
Finally, December saw Nielsen Online publish figures showing that Auto Trader was by far the most popular magazine website with 1.8 million unique users (see Nielsen Online: Top magazine sites up 30%).
Nielsen’s survey found that in November, 5.5 million Britons visited at least one of the ten most popular magazine websites compared to just 4.3 million across the group in November 2007 – growth of 30%.
BBC Good Food was the fastest-growing online magazine in the top ten, with growth of 153%, followed by the Radio Times, which saw a 76% increase.
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