Don’t panic! (31/03/08)

Newspaper Industry Sees Biggest Ad Revenue Decline in More Than 50 Years

Don’t panic!

A wee bit of news from across the Atlantic, courtesy of Folio: magazine. The headline says it all really.

Publishers Prepare for Recession: Where publishers are investing and where they are cutting

Clattering through the categories (2) – current affairs

Today we’ll be looking at the news and current affairs market, The Economist, The Spectator, New Statesman, The Week and Prospect. Who’s doing well, who’s surviving, and who’s waiting for the defibrillator?

Editor leaves. Ship not sinking: official.

Press Gazette: “Giles Hattersley, editor of Bauer’s men’s monthly Arena, is to return to the Sunday Times after only a year at helm of the title. Hattersley…was brought in to revamp Arena but a redesign … has so far failed to stem sales, which dropped 27% year on year to 25,532 for the second half of 2007.”

The Guardian: “Bauer, which completed its purchase of Emap’s consumer magazines business in January, said …that Arena remained a “crucial part” of its magazine portfolio and advertisers had welcomed the changes to the title.”

Time to get the C.V.s polished up guys.

MOT failure

So farewell then Used Car Buyer, headed for the great breaker’s yard in the sky.

Finances in Wonderland?

The attached puff piece in The Guardian about Wonderland magazine (you know, the one on Dragon’s Den) caught Frazer’s eye this morning because certain bits of it don’t seem to add up. “International expansion”, “survived and prospered”, “burgeoning publishing empire” combined with what the writer implies is a need for cash.

Perhaps the key paragraph is this one: “Although both titles are filled with an impressive array of advertising …, the last accounts filed by Visual Talent show that it had less than
£70,000 in the bank.”

And the claimed sale of 80,000 (“half of them overseas”)? With no ABC return it’s impossible to be definitive, but have you ever seen a copy of it? Anywhere?

Buyer needed! And in this climate? Perhaps another impossible thing before breakfast.

Clattering through the categories 1 – personal finance

With the fun and games at Charterhouse Communications and the sale of Money Observer to Moneywise, I thought it might be worth a look at the whole personal finance category and try to pick a favourite for the ‘out’ tray.

Hall of fame contender

The Business had train wreck written all over it from the start. A meglomaniac Chief Executive, a flawed business plan, a reinvention of a previously failed product (The Business newspaper) and absolutely no raison d’etre, it’s a wonder it limped on for over a year.

Connoisseurs of tragic misadventures can look forward to its latest incarnation as The Spectator Business (odds of 3/1 against that ever appearing).

They should have seen it coming

RIP Paranormal magazine, now traveled across to the other side.