“Buck, the men’s magazine, is to switch frequency from a monthly to a bi-annual publication after lower than expected sales.” [Media Week]
January 31, 2009
January 29, 2009
Lies, damn lies and growth forecasts
You’ve got to feel sorry for trade bodies such as the PPA and APA. They’ve got to keep maintaining that the publishing model is just about as perfect as it can be and that everyone is doing wonderfully well – continuing to try to justify their existence while the world collapses around their members’ ears. One of the ways they do this is to commission ludicrous research that proves that everything is great and will get even greater (so keep on coughing up the membership fees).
The latest example of this is the APA’s wonderful statement that Customer publishing set to top £1bn despite downturn. (more…)
January 27, 2009
RBI’ll be off then
Hot on the heels of the news of wage freezes and job cuts in the US arm of RBI this report from Press Gazette states that 35 of their UK staff are also being shown the exit.
Given the parlous state of the market and the fact that no one at Reed Elsevier actually wants to keep RBI going, these won’t be the last of the losses; more interesting than these little bits of pruning will be the titles that get closed down or which go web only. (more…)
January 16, 2009
Horse’s ass
January 15, 2009
He speaks sooth
Tam o’Shanter’s off to Tim Brooks, Guardian News & Media’s managing director, who in an interview with Media Week came up with this:
If I had a pound for every title that will close in 2009, I’d have enough money to subscribe to both Monocle and Intelligent Life – but that would be pointless, because neither of them will be around by the end of this year.
A man after Private Frazer’s own heart.
January 14, 2009
Don’t panic! (14/01/09)
A collection of various bits of data for us all to get worried about.
Over in the US the Publishers Information Bureau reports an 11.7% drop in consumer magazine advertising pages between 2008 and 2007. The whole year was bad, but the fourth quarter showed just how fast things were declining – it was 17% down on the previous year. (From Folio with some more comment here. The most telling sub head in the article is “No Silver Lining”) (more…)
January 13, 2009
Cardiac arrest
Heart stopping news from Haymarket – MIMS Cardiovascular has closed. And over at William Reed, Food Ingredients, Health & Nutrition is merging with Food Manufacture.
January 11, 2009
Two into one gives one
It’s Centaur week here in Walmington. The latest news is from their ‘consumer’ arm Ascent Publishing which specialises in titles for property owners (don’t laugh). At the end of last year they bought Real Homes from Hachette and have now merged it with their existing title, Move or Improve?. Connoisseurs of corporate doublespeak may like to cut out and keep this from their website:
As part of our ongoing development and commitment to providing you, our readers, with the best possible product, Move or Improve? has purchased home improvement title Real Homes and is combining the two to bring you Real Homes: The Complete Home Improvement Magazine.
January 8, 2009
Bye Buyer
It’s been a busy old time in the parlour with new bodies arriving by the moment. Latest is Dennis Publishing’s Computer Buyer which will be closing down merging with Computer Shopper after its March issue.
Next!
Public, private, folded
A wee bird from Centaur sends through this little snippet of news
Centaur are closing Public Private Finance magazine after publication of the Feb issue.
It was a B2B publication essentially for the construction/finance & legal companies who are involved in the delivery of the governments PFI & PPP infrastructure programme.
Was sold on an extortionately high subscription basis – £900 per year for a single issue! – that was falling like a stone both in circulation number and revenue.
Advertisers were mostly financial institutions of some description and companies linked with construction. The writing has been on the wall for some time now. There’ll be about 5 redundancies . (more…)
