Feature: Middle Youth Sector Strains As Two More Titles Plan To Launch

Women in their “middle youth” will soon have two new lifestyle magazine titles to choose from, as publishers Gruner & Jahr and Dennis Publishing each line up their new offerings in this sector. G&J’s code-named Florence and Dennis’ Project Denise both target women in their late 20s and 30s and have an up-market slant.

This sector is currently divided between older, established titles and newcomers. The most direct competitors to the new magazines are EMAP’s Red and NatMags’ She. She was born in 1956 and had a monthly circulation figure of 211,000 in the latest ABC report; Red, which launched in 1998, currently sells around 170,000 a month. Candis and Woman’s Journal are older titles with established readerships and also in this sector are Tatler and Harpers & Queen which target the more up-market reader and tend to have a ‘mid-youth’ readership profile.

The market however is not strong. EMAP’s Frank, which renewed interest in the sector when it launched in 1997, is now reduced to publishing bi-annually to prevent further losses. Circulation figures for both Red and She have been falling in the last few years: Red slipped almost 11% in the latest ABC report; She fell by almost 13%.

The women’s sector as a whole has been experiencing a downward trend in recent months with titles with a younger profile, typically 18-35, also recording losses – albeit less dramatic than the mid-youth market. In the latest ABC report all glossy monthly magazines except Marie Claire and B suffered, but the overall drop was only 1.1% for the younger sector. Amongst the titles for older women shown here, the overall fall in sales was 10.8%.

So why are publishers deciding to launch to this group? Agostino Di Falco, strategic planning director at Starcom, believes that the sector is under-exploited at present. “The magazines out there already are dealing with dated views of older women. New titles need to redefine their view of older women as less domesticated and more experienced in the workplace. I’m surprised that the category has not taken off and believe it still has potential.”

Susan O’Hare, publisher of the soon-to-be-launched Project Denise believes she has found the secret to tapping this market. Her new magazine is based around the burgeoning home shopping market in the UK, which is currently worth £13 million. “We are targeting the new generation of home shopper. Women of this age group want high quality shopping in a magazine format, something which has never happened before.”

Each feature of the magazine will have details of where to purchase products listed and an internet portal is planned for the same launch day as the magazine, according to O’Hare. With the surge of women’s portals on the internet in recent months and their emphasis on e-commerce this could be the factor to finally give this sector the push it needs.