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Launches & events 2001Back to launches & events
Magazines listed by cover date, most recent first; by name on right |
Focus - closed then taken over
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| Woman's Journal - closed
as IPC axes titles November 12: 74-year-old Woman's Journal,
Your Life (launched April), Your Garden,
Homes & Ideas closed and Complete Guide to Pregnancy
folded back into Practical Parenting. Weekly Your Life
had been relaunched in October as 'the weekly that thinks it's a glossy'
with a £1.5m advertising campaign. August 17 press release had
claimed it was 'well on target for a first ABC [sales figure] of 125,000
next February' IPC profile |
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Company - price war with
Glamour
November; monthly; National Magazines, London; £1.50 - was £2.60 Sales had fallen 14% since Glamour launched. A similar fall recorded at She. Nat Mags chief exec Terry Mansfield had not responded in August when Conde Nast ran double-page adverts in trade magazines - and even on the front-page of The Daily Telegraph - flaunting Glamour's success and claiming to have overtaken Cosmopolitan as the top-selling women's monthly on UK news-stands (ignoring overseas sales). Nat Mags profile |
| Star - closed
October 23; fortnightly; BBC Magazines, London Teenage title had an ABC figure of 130,000 but sales reported to have fallen in a tough teen market. Closed almost exactly a year after its launch. BBC profile |
| Time Inc buys IPC Media
October 17. For £1.15 billion. IPC had paid the price for a lack of ambition since a venture capital funded management buy-out from Reed International IPC profile |
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The Net - closed
October; monthly; Haymarket, London; £2.75; 124pp. Editor Robert Jeffrey. The Net had led the sector in the last set of ABCs with a circulation over 51,000, but the collapse of the dotcom market and increased competition brought it down. Haymarket sold subscriber list and masthead usage rights to Future, who merged it with .Net. In return for swap deal on Total Football (see below) Haymarket profile |
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Q - TV show and radio station
September. Emap Performance Network announced it was to launch a masthead TV show based on Q magazine. The show will be called QTV. And Radio Q will be broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days a week across north London, starting on October 6 Emap profile |
| Total Football - closed
September; monthly; Future, Bath; £3.10; 116pp. Editor Gary Tipp. After celebrating an ABC sales figure of 81,490 for its first issue (1995), final figure for July to December 2000 was 24,954. Robert Price, publishing director of Future’s entertainment division, was quoted in Press Gazette: “With the massive expansion of TV, internet and newspaper coverage of football over the past few years, we’ve witnessed a progressive slowdown in the general football magazine market for titles that are not related to a specific football club.' Haymarket took over assets of Total Football and merged title with FourFourTwo (see The Net above). The BBC closed Match of the Day after it lost the rights to screen premiership football highlights to ITV. IPC’s Goal was suspended in 1998 and merged with FourFourTwo by Haymarket Future profile |
| Sleazenation - 'animated' cover
October; monthly; Swinstead Publishing, London; £3.20; 132pp. Editor Steve Slocombe. Cover sponsored by Absolut vodka, who also had 'animated' lenticular advert on back cover. Similar technology to Shine. |
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Ice
October; monthly; Ice Publications, London; £3; 148pp. Editor Jonathan Richards. Targets men aged 18 to 30. Initial print run of 200,000, aiming for settle-down sales of about 100,000. |
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Elle Girl
Autumn; quarterly; Emap, London; £2.20; 132pp. Editor Sarah Bailey. Fashion-based: 621 fashion finds. 'For girls who love to shop'. Free Elle Girl vest. Aiming for the12 to 17-year-old teen girl market with a £1m marketing budget. Second issue due out in January. Emap profile |
Cosmo Girl! |
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NME - launched in Russia
October; weekly; IPC IPC profile |
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Hello - attack on America issue
Bulk of issue given over to photographs of aftermath of terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11. Hello profile |
| Freekick [later
closed] September; monthly; Freekick Ltd, London; £2.50; 100pp. Editor Chris Nawrat . 'No fans - no football'. |
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Spruce [later closed] Autumn/Winter; quarterly; Wallpaper Magazines, London; £5/$10; 348pp + patterns for trousers and skirt. Editorial Director: Tyler Brule. Second spin-off from Wallpaper stable. (Though sports fashion title Line had failed - rumours of return as a sponsored magazine). Advertising-heavy; with his and her covers. Men's magazines case study IPC profile |
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Kingsize - closed
After only launching in April Emap profile |
| MCN Sport
July; monthly; Emap Automotive, Peterborough; £3.50; 148pp. Managing Editor Rob McDonnell. Spin-off from Motorcycle News Emap profile. |
| Upstreet [later closed] July-August; monthly; Westmag Ltd, London; £2.80; 132pp. Editor Romain-Dominique Ibanez. 'What becomes a legend most'. |
| Bare - closed
July; monthly; John Brown, London. Closure came as no surprise after company sold other titles to IFG. Aim was to concentrate on contract titles. Women's glossies profiled |
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Sky - closed |
Later - closed |
| Escape Routes - closed
July; monthly; Emap Elan, London The travel/holiday market is difficult, as the BBC had found with Holidays in the early 1990s. Emap profile |
| Mondo - closed
May/Jun; monthly; Cabal, London; £3; 164pp. Editor: Push. The magazine 'for the sharper man' had never really taken off since a November 2000 launch and made just five issues. |
| Emap sells US arm
Emap drew a line on its disastrous purchase of US company Petersen by selling it for £366m to Primedia. Had paid £1bn for the company in 1999. Carried on with FHM in US and announced £10m investment in expanding FHM from 15 to 20 countries, including Russia in September. Emap profile |
| Viz, Bizarre and Fortean
Times sold to IFG
John Brown Publishing sells its consumer titles to concentrate on contract publishing (Guardian May 26, p27). Buyer for £6.4m is I Feel Good, a small publisher founded by ex-Loaded editor James Brown in 2000 and backed by multimillionaire publisher Felix Dennis. |
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Nova - closed (again)
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| PS - closed
May/June; 6 times a year; Dennis, London; £2.50; 132pp. Editor Rachel Shattock. Magazine/web catalogue format ('smart shopping, easy living') failed to catch on since March 2000 launch. Women's glossies profiled |
| Economist - colour redesign
May 12-18; weekly; The Economist Newspaper Ltd (part of Pearson), London; £2.70; 148pp. Editor Bill Emmott. First full redesign since 1987 introduced colour ('used in a cool, restrained way') on all editorial pages; more navigational information (including spread for contents); new type faces (Officina and a redrawn Ecotype); a new, standalone cartoon. www.economist.com and www.economistgroup.com |
| Business 2.0 - closed
May; monthly; Future Publishing, London; £3; 132pp. Editor Marcus Austin 'The voice of the new economy'. European editions (UK, Germany, Italy) closed within a year of launch. Options being explored for US version included sale. Followed closure of European edition of US internet business magazine Industry Standard. Parallels with closure of UK version of Wired a couple of years before. Future closed several smaller titles in spring 2001 after being hit by fall in advertising after a year of expansion: revenues had halved in six months. Entire German division Future Verlag closed. www.thefuturenetwork.plc.uk (tediously slow splash page |
 The Face set out its stall on cocaine with a brilliant cover. Art director was Craig Tilford |
The Face cocaine issue |
| Web Active
May; monthly; VNU, London; £0.75.; 84pp. Editor Jonathan Parkyn. Targets men aged 25 to 38. Print run of 90,000 |
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Kingsize
April; monthly; Emap Metro Ltd, London; £3/$7.50; 132pp. Editor Ben Mitchell. 'Bigger. Louder. Faster. Whatever...' May issue out May 25. Emap profile |
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Your Life |
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Woman's Realm
- closed
24 April last issue; weekly; IPC Connect, London; 66p; 60pp. Editor Mary Frances. Launched in 1958 Merged with Woman's Weekly. Included double-page spread promoting 'merger' with 3 coupons worth 32p off next 3 issues of Woman's Weekly, which itself carried reader gifts: Morse audio book; picture frame and handcream. Both titles had seen 15% circulation falls in a year. Strategy was for older readers to go with the merger while younger ones gravitated to new launch Your Life. Interestingly, April 10 issue masthead had the 'm' covered over, making it look like a spoiler for the launch of Real. IPC Media profile www.ipcmedia.com |
| Observer Food Monthly (Observer
supplement)
22 April; free monthly with Observer Sunday paper; 66pp; oversized A4 (326x270mm; newsprint. Editor Nigel Slater Observer's owners the Guardian Media Group, continued to invest in the title with this second monthly magazine, Sport being the first in 2000. An example of newspaper coverage competing with magazines. Observer profile www.observer.co.uk |
| Celebrity Bodies
Spring; quarterly; Emap Esprit, London; £1.65; 92pp. Editor Alison Hall Emap profile |
| Real 3-16 April; fortnightly;
H. Bauer Publishing 2001, London; £1.50; 140pp. Editor Janice Turner
900,000 launch print run. Printed gravure in Germany. Laminated cover. Near monthly production values. real@galleon.co.uk Bauer profile |
| CD:UK April; monthly;
Attic Futura, London; £1.50; 68pp + 3 A2 posters; free denim bag.
Editor Jo Upcraft
Spin-off from Saturday morning Carlton TV series. target 160,000 -180,000 sales. See FT Creative Business, 6/3/01, p2. postbag@cdukmagazine.co.uk Attic Futura profile |
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Glamour |
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Web User |
| Ampersand [later
closed] March/April; Ampersand Magazine Ltd, London; £3.95; 164pp. Editor: Andrew Harvey Never got to second issue. www.amperasandmagazine.com |
| F1 [later closed] March; monthly; European Press, London; £3.50; 260pp. Editor: Niki Lauda (left after first issue) Title licensed from F1 administrators. www.f1magazine.net |
| In Style
March; monthly; Time Life, London; £2.70; 200pp + 6pp gatefold cover (+36pp hair supplement). Editor Dee Nolan. Celebrity lifestyle, beauty and fashion. High production values, including silver ink on cover and for some advertising. Some editorial looked too familiar, particularly towards the back. No website, but pages on AOL. IPC Media profile |
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Spectator website
launched (January)
The weekly, right-wing, political magazine on which the site is based was founded in 1727, making it the longest continually published magazine in the world. Former editors include Nigel Lawson, who went on to become Chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher. |
| It's Fate
25 January- 7 Feb; IPC Connect, London; 55p; 56pp Editor: Keith Kendrick Mystic magazine; spin-off from weekly Chat www.ipcmedia.com |
| Back to top | Back to launches & events |
- Ampersand
- Bare (closed)
- Bizarre (sold)
- Blue Peter
- Business 2.0 (closed)
- CD:UK
- Celebrity Bodies
- Code
- Company
- Cosmo Girl!
- Economist (redesign)
- Elle Girl
- Emap sells Petersen in US
- Enter (CD-Rom)
- Escape Routes (closedl
- F1
- Fable
- Face cocaine issue
- Focus (closed)
- Fortean Times (sold)
- Freekick
- Glamour
- Hello
- Ice
- In Style
- It's Fate
- Kingsize (launch)
- Kingsize (closed)
- Later (closed)
- Mad About Boys
- Match of the Day (closed)
- MCN Sport
- Mondo (closed)
- The Net (closed)
- NME (Russia)
- Nova (closed)
- Observer Food Monthly
- PS (closed)
- Q TV and radio
- Real
- Shine (innovative cover)
- Sky (closed)
- Sleaznation
- Spectator website
- Spruce
- Star (closed)
- Subject
- The Net (closed)
- Total Football (closed)
- Two Wheels Only
- Upstreet
- Viz (sold)
- Web Active
- Web User
- Woman's Journal (closed)
- Woman's Realm (closed)
- Your Life
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