Felix Dennis calls for magazine innovation

Felix Dennis, founder and chairman of Dennis Publishing, has said that magazine publishers should take advantage of the current economic downturn to focus on innovation.

Speaking at this week’s FIPP World Magazine Congress, Dennis urged delegates to look at the success of Maxim magazine, which he launched in the US during tough economic times in 1997.

He said that the rise of the title in the US was “relentless”, reaching 2.5 million copies a month.

It has generated over three billion US dollars in profits to date, he added, despite the closure of its UK print edition (see Dennis to close print edition of Maxim UK).

Dennis said that for those willing to take a chance in the current volatile climate “the murderous recession of 2008/2009 and perhaps 2010, will come to be viewed for what it really was – one of the greatest financial opportunities in the history of our industry”.