Time Out Welcomes Hot Tickets’ Move To Newsstands

Associated Newspapers announced last week that its listings supplement, Hot Tickets, was a potential contender in the paid-for listings magazines market (see Newsline). As well as being distributed free with Associated’s Evening Standard as usual, Hot Tickets will now be for sale on the newsstand every Friday for 85p.

The major player in the London listings market is still Time Out, which has been going since 1968 and currently has a circulation of around 96,000. Seen by many as the definitive bible of entertainment in London, Time Out enjoyed a surge in sales beginning in the early nineties following the deregulation of the TV listings market in 1991 – a move which Time Out itself pushed for.

The development ended the Radio Times and TV Times’ hold on the market, and both titles suffered dramatic costs in sales when it became possible for other titles to publish TV listings. The Radio Times lost 43.6% of its circulation between the first half of 1990 and the same period in 1992, falling from 2.7 to 1.6 million. The TV Times’ circulation fell by an even greater 58.5% during the same 2 years, dropping from 2.7 to 1.1 million. Accordingly, Time Out increased its sales by over 15% in 1992. The deregulation process also inspired a number of free listings magazines and newspaper supplements; Hot Tickets is the first of these to go on sale.

Jim Heinemann, circulation director at Time Out, was frank about the market forces that another paid for listings title might put into play. He believes that the proliferation of free titles on the market, including broad sheet supplements such as the Guardian’s Guide and the Independent’s Information, whilst not providing the breadth and depth of information covered by Time Out, do make people less inclined to buy the weekly magazine.

However, Heinemann is keen to point out that almost 5,000 copies of Hot Tickets will already have been distributed free with the Evening Standard before the paid-for version hits the newsstand on Fridays: “I think that given the choice between paying for an okay free listings title, and all round consumer package, punters would choose us. Equally I do not see that many existing Time Out buyers are going to be tempted to pay 85p for something they can currently get for free.”

Time Out’s circulation showed some downward turns in the first half of 1994, and later at the beginning of 1996. These dates coincide with the launch of some national newspaper listing guides. The Guardian, for example, launched the Guide towards the end of 1993, and both the Independent and the Times introduced their listing supplements in 1996. Time Out’s losses have continued since ’96, and suffered a drop of 2.7% in sales in the second half of 1998, compared with the previous period.

Emap’s new weekly listings mag, Heat , is also a target for Associated’s Hot Tickets‘ promotion to the newsstand. Heat launched at the beginning of the year with a target circulation of 100,000, and is already floundering. Emap revealed plans this week to overhaul the title in the hope of pumping new life into its 60,000-copy circulation (see Newsline).

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