Now Magazine – First Issue Review

Today sees IPC’s ‘biggest magazine launch in eight years’ – Now magazine – ‘The smarter women’s weekly’.

Aimed at BC1C2 women aged 20-44 the title launches into what is becoming a fairly crowded women’s weekly market and unfortunately offers nothing very new or different.

The magazine’s content varies little from magazines likely to be its main competitors – namely, Bella, Best, Woman’s Own and Here!, with items on cookery and beauty/fashion features along with true life stories and celebrity interviews. First issue highlights include; ‘Queens of the Desert’ about 70+ year old women who still take part in Las Vegas’s Miss Exotic World contest and Mel Gibson and his fight against drink – although like Here! magazine celebrity interviews, they do not have the ‘exclusive’ feel achieved by Hello or OK magazines. On the whole they tend to use library pictures and write about rather dated topics in the celebrity’s lives – although in truth both titles are really only using celebrities to add spice to their format rather than to seriously compete in the celebrity market.

With an initial print run of 1.3 million the magazine is expected to settle to sales of around

370,000, which is around the same level as G&J hope to achieve for their recently launched title Here!.

In a market in which cover price plays a large part in purchase Now will be slightly more expensive than its rivals at 60p, following its introductory 30p offer – virtually all others are 55p, including Here! magazine which having initially announced a 70p cover price reduced to 55p almost immediately.

This first issue has 60 pages, 5 of which are given over to advertising (including 1 dps), giving it an ad:ed ratio of 8:92. Advertisers are Persil, Hotpoint, Lux and Persona. A full colour page costs £9750.

The title is slightly larger than A4, is full colour and saddle stitched.

IPC: 0171 261 5000