Teen magazines

19 - magazine for women in their late teens. The cover above is from 1977

19 [closed] Back to top

IPC SouthBank, monthly, 1968 - May 2004
Young women’s glossy aimed at 16- to 19-year-olds. The established magazines in this sector all steadily lost sales after 1980. 19 was the last survivor of the three big IPC titles: Honey merged with 19 in 1986 after circulation almost halved in five years; a similar fate befell Look Now in 1988. These mergers helped 19, but its sales were still down by about a fifth in 1990 over the decade. When it finally closed, IPC said: 'Over the last few years, the face of the teenage market has changed. The boundaries between the teen market sub-sectors have become blurred and sales patterns suggest that readership at the older, young women’s end appears to have migrated to the fashion and celebrity markets.' Final editor was Helen Bazuaye. The publisher launched Teen Now, a spin-off from its celebrity weekly Now in spring that year and in March Emap had closed The Face and J-17 (Just 17).
IPC profile
Teen sector in distress

Aneka Yess! cover from 10-23 December 1999

Aneka Yess! (Indonesia) Back to top

Fortnightly teen title for girls. Stapled title that uses better quality, coated paper for outside pages and poster centre spread.
Aneka Yess! website

First issue cover of B in June 1997, which wanted to attract older Sugar readers

B [closed] Back to top

Attic Futura (North South) / Hachette Filipacchi UK. Monthly. June 1997 - March 2006
Attic Futura and North South put £1m behind the launch of B, which was designed to take up older Sugar readers (£1.80). It covered fashion, beauty and lifestyle and went up against Emap's Minx. It was edited by former Sugar editor Jo Elvin with a target readership aged 16 to 22.

HFUK gained control of B when it took over Attic Futura in August 2002 for £40m. The company suspended publication in March 2006 after falling sales - the July to December ABC 2005 circulation figure fell by 10% to 150,536.
HFUK profile

Big! Back to top

Emap Metro. Fortnightly / Monthly. 14 Mar 1990-
Music-based youth title youth title launched with a print run of 150,000 copies - which was increased in July after the company said the first issue had sold out.

The launch was designed to strengthen the group's share of the teenage market. It came out as a monthly, going fortnightly - to alternate with pop title Smash Hits - on April 11. It focused on TV, music and film celebrities and cost 60p. Big sought out the same age group as Smash Hits, with an average age of about 15. It was promoted in Smash Hits and Just Seventeen.

The managing editor was Bev Hillier, a former Just Seventeen editor; editor David Bostock had been art editor of the same title.

Emap was aiming for an average 120,000 sales in the first year. In the first half of 1991, sales were at 257,584, while the company's Smash Hits fell 24.4 per cent year-on-year to 420,239. Dawn Bebe appointed editor in 1993; she went on to launch Bliss in 1995 and edit New Woman in 1996 (where she instigated a Weird Willy spot).

Relaunched in December 1999 with the Back Street Boys on the cover and the tag line 'Closer to the stars'.

Bliss / It's Bliss Back to top

Emap/Panini UK. Monthly. June 1995-
It's Bliss was Emap's response to Attic Futura's launch of Sugar. It was marketed as a ‘younger sister’ to Emap's Just 17, looking for readers aged 12 to16. The first issue of It's Bliss cost £1.30 for 116 pages - with a free horoscope magazine in a carrier bag. Dawn Bebe was its editor. A free copy was attached to the March 15 issue of Just 17 and the March issues of Big and Horse & Pony, giving an initial print run of 760,000. Emap invested heavily in the title, including TV advertising in autumn 1996, to catch market leader Sugar.

In 2002, editor Helen Johnston relaunched the title (£1.75; 240 pages) in A5 format with a cover gift of a see-through plastic shoulder bag.

In 2003, Amy Astley, editor of Teen Vogue in the US, said she was shocked by UK titles such as Bliss. 'They are really bad,' she told the Observer newspaper. 'They are really smutty. They have a real focus on sex and that's not what we are doing at all. That is not our focus.' Astley, whom the article by Paul Harris described as a 'protegee of legendary Vogue editor Anna "Nuclear" Wintour', produces a fashion-based title with a no-sex rule.

In December 2006, Panini bought the title from Emap with sales at 151,729, having bought Mizz from IPC in March. Both teen titles had seen substantial falls in sales in the previous year, which was put down to competition for teenagers' money from other media and the switch to web and mobile-phone based products. At the end of 2008, sales had dropped to 107,112.
Emap profile
Panini profile
Bliss website

Blue Jeans - issue 14 in 1977


Blue Jeans - issue 568 in 1987

Blue Jeans [closed] Back to top

DC Thomson, Dundee. Weekly. March 1977 -?

Chatterbox [closed] Back to top

BBC Magazines, London. Fortnightly. March 1995 -?
The BBC was seen as trying to develop a new niche with the launch of two fortnightly titles for the younger, 'no boys' end of the youth market, Chatterbox and Girl Talk, which sold about 86,418 and 80,044 copies respectively.
BBC Magazines profile

Clothes Show - cover from spring 1988 with newsreader Selina Scott on the cover

Clothes Show [closed] Back to top

BBC Magazines, London. Monthly. 1984?- December 1997
First of the modern BBC-related launches. Originally this style magazine was licensed by the BBC to a small London publisher, Focus Publishing. It was based on the TV series of the same name fronted by Jeff Banks and aimed at 16-to 24-year-olds. In 1990, Focus folded, but it had shown the way for the BBC. The title was taken over and revamped by BBC/Redwood but never fully accepted as a BBC brand. When it closed, Clothes Show was seen as struggling to compete against Looks, 19 and Sugar, selling 150,494 copies a month, a figure down nearly 3% on the previous year. The publisher felt too much money would have had to be invested to hold that circulation. Sugar's sales had increased 31% to 474,104.
BBC Magazines profile

First issue cover of Cosmo Girl! The magazine came with a set of Eminem stickers

Cosmo Girl! UK [closed] Back to top

National Magazine Co., London. Monthly. October 2001-September 2007
Celia Duncan was chosen as editor for the UK version (£1.49; 148pages) of this teenage lifestyle title, which had been launched in the US in 1999. The magazine has the tagline: 'For fun, fearless teens.' The launch issue came with Eminem stickers and cover lines included '85 favourite celebs' and '176 fashion and beauty finds'. In 2007, NatMags chose a new name, Jellyfish, for a digital teen magazine rather than sticking with the Cosmo Girl! brand. The digital title and Cosmo Girl! were closed at about the same time, though it did outlive rival Elle Girl. The US version is still distributed in the UK
www.cosmogirl.co.uk (diverted to US website)
Nat Mags profile

Date (August 27 1960)

Date [closed] Back to top

Odhams, weekly, incorporating Picturegoer, 1960-?
Date was printed by Odhams (Watford) for Odhams Press, Long Acre, WC2 and the editorial office was at 189 High Holborn, WC1. It cost 5d for 40 pages, measuring about 12in by 9in. Regular features included a ‘Coffee Club’ hosted by Sylvia Lamond and the 'Jean Age Beauty Club'.

Elle Girl magazine first issue cover. Hachette's magazine 'for girls who love to shop' lasted four years

Elle Girl [closed] Back to top

Emap / Hachette Filipacchi UK, London. Quarterly. Autumn 2001 - autumn 2005
Fashion-based title 'For girls who love to shop' (£2.20; 132 pages; editor Sarah Bailey for the launch issue). Aimed for the12 to 17-year-old girl market backed by a £1m marketing budget. The first issue came with a fashion vest (in cool black or lipstick pink) plus stickers.
Emap profile
HFUK profile

The Face: style bible of the 1980s. This 1986 cover is of Isabella Rossellini, who had appeared in David Lynch's Blue Velvet

(The) Face [closed] Back to top

Wagadon/ Emap. 1980 - May 2004
Nick Logan launched The Face in 1980 using his own money after Emap turned the idea down. Iconic design by Neville Brody. Strong music base; developed to embody cutting-edge youth culture in the 1980s. Emap bought the title in 1999, along with Arena, from Nick Logan's company Wagadon. The closure - along with that of J17 - was blamed on the changing marketplace and falling sales.
Background to The Face launch
Emap profile

Girl - 22 February 1964, still in a comic format

Girl - 12 September 1964. Sultry-looking Bobby Shafto was on the front and the Hollies on the back

Girl - issue 225 from 1 June 1985

Girl - relaunch numbered from 1 (4 May 1988)

Girl [closed] Back to top

Hulton/Odhams/Longacre, London. Weekly. 1951-64
There have been two incarnations of this title. The first was 'sister' to Eagle comic. Like Eagle, it used a large (A3-ish) format with colour printing and bold graphics. Its Dan Dare equivalent was Kitty Hawke. Although pop music became a big feature of the title, the comic strip cover was maintained until 1964 when it was replaced by a pin-up. Contents of 22 February issue:

• Belle and Mamie in 'The Star Makers' (p1-3)
• Star Time by Ann Peters: Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers (p4 - half of a colour poster - and p5); Horoscope by Maurice Woodruff
• Sally Brompton interviews the cricketing Bishop, the Rev David Sheppard (p6)
• Pete's Pop Page: Rolling Stones, Swinging Blue Jeans and Gene Pitney (p7)
• Knitting (p8)
• 'The Cross-Channel Caper'. First part of a serial by Anne Digby; illustrated by Bill Baker (p9)
• 'Model in America' strip; Look and Listen (film and record reviews) (p10-11)
• 'The Day of the Triffids' strip (p12)
• 'Charm School' by Jenny Hughes (and Maurice Woodruff): detailed horoscopes illustrated with Ingrid Bergman and Julie Andrews (p13)
• 'Gale Warning' short story by Mary Sullivan; illustrated by L Houghton (14 & 15)
• Mandy's Merry-go-Round
• 2nd half of Cliff Bennett colour poster (p17)
• Wendy & Jinx in 'The Witch's Curse' strip
• Pete & Penny's Postbox; 'Lettice' strip by (Captain Pugwash creator) John Ryan
• 'What's Cooking' (actually a half-page advert from the Gas Council) and 'Talking About Pets with Tim Taylor' (back).

The redesigned 12 September issue ran similar contents, but Belle & Mamie were moved from the cover to the centre-spread. On the back was a poster of the Hollies and the double-page colour poster was Freddie and the Dreamers. On the front, the singer is called Bobby Shaftoe; inside, he is (correctly) spelt without the 'e'.

IPC, London. Weekly. 1980 - ?
The second version was launched in 1980 as an A4 magazine.
IPC profile

Girl Talk Back to top

BBC Magazines, London. Fortnightly. March 1995 -
The BBC was seen as trying to develop a new niche with the launch of two fortnightly titles for the younger, 'no boys' end of the youth market, Chatterbox and Girl Talk, which sold about 86,418 and 80,044 copies respectively.
BBC Magazines profile

Hi! in October 1975 had absorbed Petticoat. The editor was Bill Williamson. It cost 10p for 40 pages

Columnist Sally O’Sullivan went on to become editorial director of IPC and was married to Times editor Charlie Wilson
Columnist Richard Barber became editor of Woman's Own and OK!

Hi! (with Petticoat) Back to top

IPC Magazines, London. Weekly

A4 title aimed at young women. It was printed on coated paper for the colour pages and used cheaper, uncoated stock for the rest. It took over stablemate Petticoat in early 1975.

The issue shown here featured Back Chat by Richard Barber, who was later to become editor of TV Times, Woman's Own, Clothes Show and OK! Also, the Sally’s Scene column by Sally O’Sullivan - later editor of Riva,Options, She, Harper's and Queen and Homes and Gardens; editorial director of IPC; and founder of Cabal.

Clockwork Orange's Malcolm McDowell was the main interviewee but the main focus was clothes and beauty.
IPC profile

The Hit in October 1985

The Hit [closed] Back to top

IPC/Holborn Publishing Group, September 1985
Editor Phil McNeill set out to produce a music and lifestyle weekly for 15-19-year-old men that was ‘Harder than the rest’, such as The Face. First issue included a free four-track vinyl EP with tracks by: Style Council, Jesus and Mary Chain, Redskins and Simply Red. Sales of 180,000 were predicted, but the first issue reached just 100,000, a total that fell to 80,000 by the sixth issue and the title was withdrawn. It was reported as having cost £1m and needing another £1m and a year of losses to break even, an investment IPC was unwilling to make.

Emap was also investigating the men's market but rather than a general interest magazine launched music title Q for men aged 18-30.
IPC profile

Honey [closed] Back to top

Fleetway/IPC, monthly, Apr 1960 - September 1986
Seminal fashion magazine for young women in the 1960s and 1970s. Regarded as the first teenage magazine. Launch editor was Audrey Slaughter (though only writers credited) for Fleetway Publications Ltd (Fleetway House, Farringdon St., London EC4). David Bailey did the cover shot for the Nov 1962 issue. Tag line first introduced in Oct 1960: 'For the teens and twenties.' By 1962 this had become: 'Young, gay and get-ahead.' The magazine took over Woman & Beauty in 1964 and at its height sold about 250,000 copies a month. Sales slid in the 1980s with the Jan-Jun 1980 figure of 214,349 falling to 158,438 for the same period in 1982, a drop of a quarter. In May 1986, IPC announced its closure and it was merged into 19. September was the cover date on the last issue, which featured an article on the best of Honey and promoted it as a 'collector's item'. The Times quoted publisher Heather Love as saying that the main reason for the closure was the lack of co-operation from the staff with new editor, Glenda Bailey. She had been appointed in January to give the magazine a new direction. Bailey later went on to launch Marie Claire. Back issues are sought after on eBay and regularly fetch good prices, particularly pre-1970 copies.
IPC profile

It's Hot - 8 February 2005

It's Hot Back to top

BBC magazines, London. Monthly. April 2002-July 2007
Editor Peter Hart launched this title as a monthly (£1.80; 68 pages) aiming to sell to girls aged 9 to 13 ('tweenagers'). An alarm clock with bands’ faces (4 to collect) was the cover gift for the launch issue and sample issues were given away with the previous month's Live and Kicking, which folded into the new title.

Contents included TV, pop, film and gossip. Each issue came with a 'high value' covermount, such as cosmetics, clocks or stationery. It also came with a 26-page cartoon magazine called Extra!, which carried cartoons and photo stories covering the BBC's TV soap Eastenders and bands such as McFly.

In May 2007, BBC Magazines announced it was to close It's Hot, saying it had become unprofitable.
As the table below shows, it was one of the weakest titles and sales had fallen by 11% over the previous year.
BBC Magazines profile

Just Seventeen - 17 Dec 1986

Just Seventeen - 21 Dec 1988. Cover lines included: 'What's on over Crimbo?' (a TV guide); and 'The morning after: what to do when you've gone too far'

J-17/Just 17 [closed] Back to top

Emap. 20 October 1983-April 2004
Just Seventeen, 'a brand new magazine for girls' that was 'everything a girl could ask for', was launched with Dave Hepworth as editor, Zed Zawada as publisher and was designed by Steve Bush - the same people who launched Smash Hits. A free 48-page preview was distributed with Smash Hits (the launch price was 45p).

It went up against IPC titles Oh Boy and My Guy but the presentation and design was far better. Hepworth claimed that the editorial was not as patronising as other teen magazines. Just Seventeen also had the advantage of being able to offer a 10-day lead time for advertising, far shorter than other magazines.

Just Seventeen quickly established itself as the market leader until the arrival of Sugar in 1994 and sales slowly fell until it closed in 2004.

Emap announced the closures of J-17 and The Face at the same time. Just Seventeen built the market for general interest teen titles. Both closures were blamed on the changing marketplace causing sales to fall.
Emap profile

Last issue of Jackie (3 July 1993) featured TV actor Jason Priestley (Brandon Walsh in Beverly Hills 90210) as the centre-spread pin-up and features about boy band Take That and actor Brad Pitt

Jackie [closed] Back to top

DC Thomson, Dundee. Weekly. 11 January 1962 - 3 July 1993 (1539 issues)
Jackie was launched with Cliff Richard on the cover and a free 'twin heart' ring' for 6d. It came out every Thursday. Although the parent company was based in Scotland, it was published from offices at 185 Fleet St in London.

Colour pin-ups of pop and film stars of the day were at the heart of the title, along with 'dreamy picture love stories', which evolved into photo strips, fashion and beaty shoots and the cathy and Claire problem page. At its height, Jackie sold 1.5 million copies a week.

The last issue (50p) had actor Jason Priestley as the centre-spread pin-up; a feature 'Just mad about Brad [Pitt]'; and 'Take That: then and now'. It also carried a double-page promotion for new fortnightly Shout (at 75p), which the (unidentified) editor said would fill the 'Jackie gap'.

Former staff include journalist and broadcaster Nina Myskow and Tracy Beaker author Jacqueline Wilson.

In April 2007, a BBC2 documentary, Jackie Magazine: A Girl's Best Friend, revealed that newsreader Fiona Bruce had modelled for its photostrips. Also, she regularly talked to a David Cassidy poster pinned on her bedroom door. Other television presenters with a passion for the title included Martha Kearney, Trisha Goddard and Anthea Turner.
DC Thomson profile

First issue of Jellyfish (17 April 2007)

Jellyfish [digital- closed] Back to top

National Magazines Co, London. Weekly digital magazine. 17 April 2007- August 2007
Teen digital magazine sent out weekly via email. It was launched as 14-week test product backed by advertisers such as Rimmel and Alberto VO5. Celia Duncan was its editor. Viral marketing and advertising in other NatMags titles were used to promote the title. Jellyfish uses Ceros technology from Applecart, a UK e-publishing consultancy, to give the appearance of pages being turned over (also used by Emap for Digital Living and for Dennis Publishing's Monkey). It focused on fast fashion, celebrity videos and postings from readers. Products on the fashion and shopping pages can be bought online using a click-and-buy system. As the website said, 'If it moves, click on it.'

NatMags launched Jellyfish as a teen product but repositioned it for 18 to 25-year-olds in June, after the closure of Cosmo Girl! The publisher cited distribution problems, with the email meeting spam filters and corporate firewalls. The Guardian quoted NatMags chief executive Duncan Edwards saying Jellyfish failed to demonstrate a sustainable business model.
National Magazines profile
www.jellyfishmag.com

Kick! Back to top

Attic Brand Media, London. Monthly (13 a year). 2006-
Six to 14-year-old boys and girls
Football features, news and gossip for readers aged six to 14.

Kick! reader profile

Live and Kicking last issue

Last issue of L&K bagged with a make-up bag and the first issue of It's Hot

Live and Kicking [closed] Top

BBC Magazines, London. ?- April 2002 (issue 103)
Spin-off from Saturday morning TV show of the same name. Declined alongside the show's popularity, suffering a 30% drop in sales over 2005. It's Hot was launched to replace the title. A sample issue of It's Hot was given away with Live and Kicking, which was folded into the new title
BBC Magazines profile

Preview (issue 0) of LM

LM (Leisure Monthly) [closed]

Newsfield, Ludlow, Shropshire. Monthly. January 1987-?
Short-lived male lifestyle title from computer magazine publisher. A free, 78-page edition was used to promote the launch, with the first issue set to go on sale on 15 January 1987. The editor was Roger Kean.
Newsfield profile

Looks / Celebrity Looks [closed] Top

Emap/Emap Elan, September 1985- February 2002
Emap spent £500,000 on the launch of this fashion, beauty and haircare monthly aimed at young women aged 16-24. Some £400,000 was spent on TV advertising and 400,000 copies of a preview issue were given away with the 18 September issue of Just 17. The first issue cost 70p for 96 pages with a print run of 200,000 - an industry rule of thumb would suggest the company was aiming for a settle-down circulation of 140,000. Ramune Burns was the editor under editorial director David Hepworth.

It was an immediate success with a first ABC figure of 137,017.

Burns left in July 1988 and took up a launch editor post at contract publisher Redwood on BBC Holidays 89. Morag Prunty took over the editor's chair.

The main teen magazines in 1988 are given in Table 1.

In 1989, Mandi Norwood was appointed editor of Looks. However, by January 1991 she was in the editor's chair at Company, taking over from Gill Hudson.

By 1992, Looks was selling 231,083 but this was the peak of its sales. In December 1997, Emap Elan repositioned the title in an attempt to boost sales, which had fallen to 151,000. Eleni Kyriacou became editor. The magazine was redesigned with more emphasis on celebrities and reader make-overs. Publishing director Delyth Smith said the approach was driven by changes in the teenage magazine market, with the success of ‘baby glossies’, such as Emap's own It's Bliss and Futura's Sugar. In December, BBC Magazines announced the closure of its TV spin-off style magazine, Clothes Show. Earlier in the year, Emap had relaunched Just Seventeen as J17, taking it from weekly to monthly.

In May 2001, Looks changed its name to Celebrity Looks, though editor Margi Conklin said the change just reflected what had been the case since 1998. However, in February 2002, Celebrity Looks closed.

Mad About Boys first issue with blow-up, heart-shaped picture frame

Mad about Boys [closed] Back to top

Planet Three Publishing Network, London. Monthly. February 2001 - ?
Editor Zia Allaway launched this title for young teens, which came with a blow-up heart-shaped picture frame as cover gift (£1.50; 32pp). 'Look delish for your first date' was the main cover line. It was a stapled, self-cover magazine.
www.planet3.co.uk

Match of the Day cover from 2011

Match of the Day (MotD)

BBC Worldwide, London. Monthly, 1996-2001. Weekly, 2008-
The BBC launched Match of the Day magazine in 1996 as a spin-off from the Saturday night TV series. It was a monthly for adults, but closed in 2001 when the BBC lost the rights to broadcast Premier League highlights and closed the programme.

In 2008, MoTD magazine was relaunched as a weekly on Tuesdays for younger readers aged eight to 14. Four out of five readers are boys. In 2008, BBC Books published an annual based on the magazine.
MotD reader profile
BBC Magazines profile

Typical Match! cover from 2011

Match! Back to top

Emap/Bauer, Peterborough. Weekly. 1979-
Match! magazine launched on 6 September 1979 with Kevin Keegan on the cover fronting a column, Learn To Play The Keegan Way. By the mid 1990s the magazine was the biggest selling weekly football title, with sales of 242,000. Rival weekly Shoot switched to a monthly frequency but closed in 2008. However, the BBC’s Match of the Day took the best-selling title in 2010. Bauer describes the readership as aged seven to 16, mainly boys with a median age of 12.
Match! reader profile

Emap profile
Bauer profile

Minx magazine first issue cover October 1996 - ‘For girls with a lust for life’ in their early twenties who had grown out of Just 17 and More!

Minx [closed] Back to top

Emap Elan, London. Monthly. October 1996 - July 2000
Minx, which had been known as 'Project Beryl', was described by Elan's managing director, Sue Hawken, as 'the next step up from More!' It was backed by£1.5 million spent on TV and radio advertising. The editor was Toni Rodgers and the first issue - ‘For girls with a lust for life’- cost £1. The target circulation was 170,000-180,000 and 50,000 copies were given away in welcome packs to women at colleges. It was described as a cross between National Magazine's Company and Loaded, that aimed to sell to 'young, assertive, rather scary young women'. Emap closed Minx in 2000, despite sales of 120,000 a month.
Emap profile

Mizz cover from 9 August 1989 (issue 114)

Mizz cover from 20 April 2005

Mizz [closed] Back to top

IPC Media/Panini. Fortnightly. 1985-
Mizz is the great survivor in the teen sector, celebrating 24 years on newsagents' shelves in 2009. In March 2006, Italian sticker-book publisher Panini bought Mizz from IPC. Former editor Leslie Sinoway was named editor and the company set about a relaunch. Sales had fallen 14.1 per cent to 60,425 in 2005. The deal took Panini UK into a new market and it bought Bliss later in the year from Emap. At the end of 2008, Mizz sales had risen to 65,609.
IPC Media profile
Panini profile

Mood magazine first issue cover - from the Psychologies stable

Mood (France) Back to top

SNC Selma (Hachette), Paris. Mothly. October 2005- . Fun feel for a teen magazine marketed as coming from the same team that launched Psychologies in 1988 - Jean Louis Servan-Schreiber and Perla Servan-Schreiber.

It used a compact format (185mm by 224mm) with a print run for the first issue of 400,000 copies. It cost €2.50 for 148 pages. The directrice de la rédaction was Cécile Lestienne with publicity by Fabien Livet. Mood
used a special advertising rate card for the first three issues. It was backed by a €3 million (£2m) marketing budget through radio, poster, online, press, viral and 'street' marketing. The website was an important part of the package, with a spread on pages 10 and 11 promoting the online element. The home page featured a counter giving the number of days since the issue came out, which changes to the next issue countdown a week in advance.
Mood

More! Top

Emap London Lifestyle, fortnightly, 6 April 1988 -
Women's lifestyle/fashion title for 16- to 24-years-olds. Most readers are single and at university or working and living at home. Sales stood at 277,000 at the end of 2005 and 271,629 at end of 2006 (though the title had gone monthly by then).
More! website
Emap profile

My Guy from 24 March 1979. The tag line was 'Britain's sensational photo-story wekly!'

My Guy [closed] Back to top

IPC Magazines, London. A4 weekly.
'Britain's sensational photo-story weekly!' was how My Guy marketed itself. The stories were backed up by A4 colour posters of pop stars. The cover on the left features Tim Sparkes, a John Travolta lookalike.
IPC profile

No1 from 15 June 1985

Wendy James of Transvision Vamp on the cover for the week of 1 November 1989. The interview was by Paul Simper with photographs by Angus Ross. Number One carried the strap 'Britain's best-selling pop weekly' (Smash Hits was fortnightly)

Number One columnists included Pete Waterman

No 1 / Number One [closed] Top

Holborn Publishing Group (IPC)/BBC Enterprises, London. Weekly. 1985-1990

No 1 was a pop weekly aimed at the 13-to-19 age group. Reports said £343,500 was spent on TV advertising for the launch and the title was selling 146,302 copies a week by 1988. (Chartbeat was launched as a fortnightly on alternate weeks to Emap's Smash Hits at the same time but soon folded.)

At the start of 1989, No1 was selling 130,721 copies a week - but fortnightly Smash Hits was roaring away at Emap with 786,886. No1 was redesigned with a more sophisticated look and logo under editor Colin ‘French Kiss’ Irwin. Columnists included Pete Waterman with a Hitman! piece, Help!, with Pat Thomas answering queries and Parlez-vous Pop?

However, circulation wilted in the face of the competition from Emap to 102,347. In April 1990, IPC sold the 'ailing' Number One to BBC Enterprises, which announced it was suspending publication from August 8 to prepare for a relaunch in October. Former Fast Forward editor Nicky Smith, said No1 had lost its way under IPC as it tried to appeal to an older readership.
IPC profile
BBC Magazines profile

Oh Boy! from 27 October 1979

Oh Boy! from 31 March 1984 with Charlie Birchell from Simple Minds on the cover

Oh Boy! Back to top

IPC Magazines, London. Weekly. 1977-1984

In December 1984, IPC's Youth Group merged My Guy and Oh Boy! magazines. Oh Boy later became a Romantic Fiction monthly, along with Loving Monthly, My Guy Monthly, Photo Love Monthly and True Monthly.

Patches - 14 May 1983

Patches Back to top

Petticoat (21 May 1971) had 40 pages and cost 6p.

Petticoat columnist Chris Ward went on to edit the Daily Express

Petticoat [closed] Back to top

IPC Magazines, London. Weekly. 1966-1975
Petticoat was a tabloid-sized young women's magazine launched at the height of the Swinging Sixties. It fashioned itself as 'For the young and fancy free'. In 1967, it absorbed Trend, renaming itself Petticoat/Trend until it dropped the latter part about a year later. By this time, its slogan had changed to 'The new young woman'.

The issue shown here (21 May 1971) had Terry Hornett as editor - who went on to found publisher Carlton - and columns by Chris Ward (later editor of the Daily Express and joint founder of customer magazine publisher Redwood) and Anne Nightingale - Britain’s first female DJ on Radio 1. The problem page was by Claire Rayner.

It was printed by Eric Bemrose in Long Lane, Liverpool.

Other staff included Janet Street-Porter, who describes in her memoirs how she was taken on in 1967 by Audrey Slaughter, editor of Honey, for Petticoat and stayed until 1969, when she went to the Daily Mail under women's editor Shirley Conran. Working with her at Petticoat was Eve Pollard who later edited the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday Express before launching Aura. Another Honey-turned-Petticoat staffer was Jane Ennis, who worked at Nova, the Sunday Mirror, Best and Today before making celebrity weekly Now its market leader, stepping down in 2007, only to take over at ill-starred First for Emap, which was closed by Bauer after its 2008 takeover. PR hipster Lynne Franks - supposedly the model for Edina (played by Jennifer Saunders) in TV series Absolutely Fabulous - and Maggie Goodman - who went on to be editor of Company and Hello! - also went through Petticoat's doors.
IPC profile

Popcorn, first issue of the German language pop music magazine, in January 1998

Popcorn in February 2008

Popcorn Back to top

Marquard Media / Axel-Springer, Germany. Monthly. 1998-
German-controlled title that - unlike teen mags in the English-speaking world - sells to both boys and girls. Again unlike the UK, frees gift are bound into the magazine rather than tipped on the cover. Posters were a big selling feature of the first issue - there were 10, including Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, Moffatts, Hanson, The Boyz, Brooklyn Bounce, Gil and 'N Sync.

Axel Springer bought the title, along with 12 others, from Zurich-based Marquard Media for an undisclosed sum in November 1999. Springer said the deal gave it the lead in the teen markets in Germany, Poland and Hungary and across Europe. Popcorn then had a Europe-wide circulation of more than 600,000, and Madchen, another monthly in the deal, sold 400,000.

Popcorn has been licensed or jointly published in Poland (2000), Hungary (2000), the Czech Republic (2001), Romania (2001) and Latvia (2004).

Popworld Pulp - Brooklands spin-off based on Channel 4 series closed after 2 issues

Popworld Pulp [closed] Back to top

Brooklands Group. Weekly. 11-18 April 2007
Channel 4 spin-off for £1.49 that aimed to vacate the hole left by the closure of Smash Hits!. However, the title closed after just two issues! The company said the title had researched well but that buyers just failed to appear.
Brooklands profile

Shoot [now web only] Back to top

IPC/Pedigree Books. Weekly/monthly/weekly. August 1969- June 2008 (now web/app only)
Shoot was launched as a weekly by IPC and reached sales of 120,000 copies in 1996. It changed to a monthly magazine in 2001 and was selling about 36,000 copies at the end of 2007. It was relaunched as a weekly in March 2008 to try to compete with the BBC’s relaunched Match of the Day and Attic’s Kick! but closed in June. Pedigree Books, which published a Shoot annual, bought the brand name and runs it as a website and an app.

IPC profile

Debbie Harry and Blondie were on the cover of the first issue of Smash Hits in 1978

Smash Hits! [closed] Back to top

Emap. Monthly. November 1978 - 13 February 2006.
Smash Hits! became an iconic title whose sales peaked at a million in 1989 but fell steadily to 120,000, behind BBC rival weekly Top of the Pops, which is shored up by its link to the TV programme. Emap also closed Just Seventeen in 2004, the closures signifying a switch in teenage spending to online and mobile phone based media. The name lives on as a digital music TV channel and radio station, online and as a mobile phone service. A temporary 'blubathon' website was set up to mark the title's closure at SmashHitsForever.

Smash Hits! was a springboard for many journalists, including founding editor Nick Logan (The Face), David Hepworth and Mark Ellen (who together founded Word publisher Development Hell), Barry McIlheney and Heat editor Mark Frith.

The week the closure was announced, a copy of the first issue sold on Ebay for £30. The seller, Ruth, said: 'I bought it. Smash Hits! was the best pop magazine of its time. I'm 35 now and I used to buy it regularly from about the age of 8 to 13. I remember tearing out the posters to cover my walls and singing along really girlie to the songs.'

A book, The Best of Smash Hits by Mark Frith (editor), was published by Little, Brown in 2006 at £14.99.
Emap profile
Smash Hits! website

First issue of Sneak, a 'teenage Heat'

Sneak - free copy with Smash Hits of 17 April 2002 (below)
Smash Hits with preview copy of Sneak and free wallet


Last issue of Sneak

Sneak [closed] Back to top

Emap Performance, London. Weekly. 30 April 2002 - August 2006
Launched as a ‘teenage Heat’ under editor Jennifer Cawthron (68 pages; 90p). Had been called Project Monkey. Extensive sampling strategy: free copy given away the previous week with Smash Hits; sample copy in December with Bliss. Sneak's circulation peaked in 2003 at 104,174, but fell to just 74,299 before being closed. Brand was not maintained online, unlike many other teen closures.
Emap profile

First issue of Sorted, a teenage monthly for boys

Sorted [closed] Back to top

Sorted Communications, Brighton. February - May 2004
Monthly for teenage boys aged 12-16. The first issue (£2.50; 100pp) included an A1-sized poster for Whiplash computer games on one side and the film School of Rock on the other. The editor was Martin Klipp. However, after just four issues, it closed. The fifth issue, featuring a cover interiew with David Beckham, was at the printers. In a report in the Press Gazette, editor Piers Townley (who had been deputy for the launch issue) blamed the profligacy of the founder and chairman Russell Church, saying a 200,000 print run for the launch had been 'commercial suicide'.

Star [closed] Back to top

BBC Magazines, Weekly. 18 October 2000-2001
Hello! For 'tweenagers' aged between 11 and 16 who were too smart for pre-teen magazines, but too young for Company. Priced at £1.60. Closed a year later.
BBC Magazines profile

Sugar first issue November 1994. Within a year it was selling 205,000 copies. However, its sexual content was a factor in the establishment of the Teenage Magazine Arbitration Panel. TMAP is the industry's self-regulatory body. It aims to ensure that the sexual content of teenage magazines is presented in a responsible and appropriate manner

Sugar Back to top

Attic Futura/HFUK/NatMags/Hearst. Monthly. November 1994-
Sugar - aimed at girls aged 13 to 19 – was an immediate success, exceeding its 150,000 circulation target to achieve a first ABC figure of 205,000. It went on to overtake Emap’s long-established market leader Just 17. Sugar retained that position in 2009, although sales had fallen from 200,000 to 158,000 by the end of 2008. Emap relaunched J17 and also responded by launching It's Bliss. 1994 was a boom time for the sector with most titles putting on sales, even with the launches. But the teen sector took a nose-dive and Sugar closed at the end of 2010 with sales of 113,320 a month. The age of the average reader was 16. The company carried on with and expanded the website spin-off, Sugarscape.com.

The magazine was compared with IPC’s lads’ mag Loaded, in using sex to win over young readers, with articles such as ‘Is sex driving you crazy?' Explicit sexual editorial in Sugar and other teen magazines was a controversial issue and led to the setting up of TMAP.

In 1998, Sugar, by then the best-selling young women's monthly, signed a deal with Force 9 to develop a clothing range, and with Westbridge for a range of lingerie. Yet the teen magazine market was seen as having peaked, registering an overall decline for the first time since the launch of Sugar. Overall sector sales slumped 4.6% in the first half of this year, compared with the latter half of 1997. Sugar saw its first drop in sales, 3% year on year.

In 2005, Sugar launched a campaign against underage sex after the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said teachers should use such titles in class to help teenagers discuss their problems.

A year later, after 11 years, Sugar lost its place as the number one girl's magazine to Bliss. The contents were based on a mix of real-life stories, shopping, beauty, horoscopes and a lads section. Both titles had reduced to 'schoolbag' size, with the same pagination, cover price, advertising to editorial ratio and the same number and type of advertisers. Free cover gifts - make-up, bags and flip flops - were seen as important in attracting buyers, who were regarded as fickle. Real-life stories with headlines such as 'My parents used me as a sex slave' and 'My cocaine and ecstasy binges ... with Mum' were used in both titles.

In 2006, Sugar teamed up with the NSPCC for a national drive against bullying with a 'Stand up, speak out' campaign for readers to design a poster.

In December 2007, HFUK launched Sugarscape.com, which claimed to be 'the web’s first social bookmarking tool aimed at teen girls'.

Teen Now - spring 2006 cover

Teen Now Back to top

IPC Connect, London. Spring 2004 -
Editor Jeremy Mark launched this spin-off quarterly for younger readers from celebrity weekly Now. Followed teen celeb mags Emap's Sneak (2002) and the BBC's Star (2000), which both failed, but IPC's effort was much less ambitious.

For the first issue, the cover photo of Britney Spears was linked to an article on celebs who were single. There were eight pages of posters, including a centre-spread of Orlando Bloom. Lots of pages of house ads: for relaunched 19, Mizz and Now.
IPC profile  

Teen People

Teen People (US) [closed] Back to top

Time Inc. Weekly. January 1998 - September 2006
With the number of US teenagers forcast to rise from 29 million in 1997 to 34m by 2010, publishers were keen to address a growing market. Teen People was a spin-off from the poplular US weekly People and one of three teen launches around this time, the others being Snap! from Bauer Publishing (September) for 14-to-19-year-old girls and Weider's Jump (1997; also licensed in the UK in 1999), aimed at girls aged 12 to 17.

Teen People promised advertisers sales of 500,000 copies and issue with the editorial based around celebrities and teenage fashion and beauty.

Teen People was suspended in 2006 with the publisher blaming a switch by youngsters to online media.

Teen Vogue (US) Back to top

Condé Nast, monthly, 2001-
In 2003, Amy Astley, editor of Teen Vogue in the US, said she was shocked by UK titles such as Bliss. 'They are really bad,' she told the Observer newspaper. 'They are really smutty. They have a real focus on sex and that's not what we are doing at all. That is not our focus.' Astley, whom the article by Paul Harris described as a 'protegee of legendary Vogue editor Anna "Nuclear" Wintour', produces a fashion-based title with a no-sex rule.
Condé Nast profile

Teen World (US) Back to top

'How to flirt with a boy' was the strap line above the masthead

Top of the Pops Back to top

BBC Worldwide, London. Fortnightly. March 1995-
Brand extension from the long-running television series, launched with Peter Loraine as editor (£1.25; 52 pages). It came with a cassette and poster to challenge, and ultimately defeat, Emap's Smash Hits, which closed in January in January 2006 after its sales halved in a year to 92,398.

Six months later, BBC TV announced the end of Top of the Pops, the world's longest running weekly music show (started in January 1964). The closure cast doubt over the magazine spin-off, whose sales had dropped to 96,576. However, with the demise of Smash Hits, TotP's sales recovered to 105,025 by 2007.
BBC Magazines profile

Tops [closed] Back to top

10 October 1981 - ?
'The Great New Magazine for Boys and Girls' with 31 pages of comic strips, posters and articles, including The Professionals, Adam Ant comic strip, Little and Large, Sally James interview, Todd Carty's Schooldays and Kid's Army. Came with a free cover gift of flicker stickers.

TV Hits Back to top

Attic Futura / Hachette Filipacchi UK / Essential Publishing Ltd, Colchester (owned by Hubert Burda Media UK). Monthly, August 1989 -
Monthly for 12-to-18 year olds first launched in Australia in 1988 and then in the UK. Its first ABC figure was 148,206 (Jan-Jun 1981). By 1994, it was selling 189,000 with an average reader age of 14.4 years. In 1995, WH Smith and Sainsbury took the title off their shelves after the magazine gave a 16-year-old girl explicit advice on performing oral sex. TV Hits was sold to Essential Publishing in June 2005.
Attic Futura profile
Burda profile
Essential profile
HFUK profile

We Love Pop Back to top

Egmont UK. Monthly, autumn 2011-
Egmont, which describes itself as 'a leading UK children's publisher of books and magazines', moves up the age range and into the pop sector. Target market is girls aged 13 to 15. The 'launch circulattion' was reported as 119,000 copies. If this was actual sales, it would suggest a setttle-down figure of about 84,000 copies an issue (first issues tend to have higher sales because of the number of people who try them out as a result of the advertising and marketing push that accompanies a launch).
Egmont website

Top teenage magazines (end 2010) Back to top

Top teenage magazines (end 2008) Back to top

Teenage magazines : details and sales Back to top

Mirabelle