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Money
and personal finance magazines
Personal finance is a hard-fought sector, especially given the extent
of competition from daily columns in newspapers on business, money,
investing and wealth management. There is also extensive coverage
- and dedicated sections - in the Saturday and Sunday papers. There are
also more specialist magazines covering, for example, franchises.
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The
Investor, which claims to be Ireland's only magazine for
the private investor, is published 10 times a year.
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BBC Worldwide Ltd
In September 2005, launched How
to be Better Off, a one-shot personal
finance magazine, with FT Business (below).
It appears to be published once a year and features content
from TV and radio shows such as Money
Box, You
and Yours and Working
Lunch. The editorial strategy is to sell
to 'readers who are interested in personal financial management
but find current sources of advice in the market daunting'.
BBC Worldwide profile
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Charterhouse specialises in investment and financial magazines,
books and websites. It publishes the consumer monthly What
Mortgage magazine for prospective house purchasers,
borrowers transferring between lenders or types of mortgage,
and financial intermediaries. The company has mortgage and
wealth management divisions. In April 2008, it went into administration. |
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The Economist was founded in 1843.
It is an international magazine of economics and politics rather
than personal finance.
The Economist has always been called a newspaper though
its format is that of a weekly magazine. Since 1928, it has been
half owned by the Financial Times Group (Pearson
profile);
the other shares are held by independent shareholders. The editor's
independence is guaranteed by a board of trustees. To mark its
first 150 years, it carried an article by Ruth Dudley Edwards*
. This began: 'The main virtues of today's Economist -
reverence for facts and figures, integrity, consistency of principle,
rational analysis and absolute clarity - were already visible
under the editorship (1843-57) of its founder, James Wilson,
a Scottish hat-manufacturer. So too were the main defects: arrogance,
priggishness, absence of doubt, frequent failures of imagination
and too-clever-by-halfery.' Contact:
*The Pursuit of Reason: The Economist 1843-1993 by Ruth
Dudley Edwards is published by Hamish Hamilton (1993) and Harvard
Business School Press (1995)
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FT Business is the specialist publishing arm of Financial Times
Group, which is owned by Pearson (profile).
It publishes 14 titles, including:
- Investors
Chronicle a personal investing weekly.
Most of the website can only be accessed by subscribers.
Investors Chronicle also runs events.
- Three titles for retail investors, such as Financial Adviser.
- The Banker and nine other title for institutional investors.
- In September 2005, launched How to be Better Off,
a one-off magazine, with BBC Worldwide (above).
This featured personal finance and investing based around TV
and radio shows such as Money
Box, You
and Yours and Working Lunch.
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Guardian Magazines
Ltd Back
to top
The Guardian gained control of Money
Observer, which was founded in 1979, when it took over
the Sunday
Observer newspaper in 1993.
It sold the title to Moneywise in February
2008.
Guardian
profile
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Your
Mortgage was founded in 1986 as a monthly magazine
for mortgage borrowers. Website includes news, mortgage calculators
and best buy tables.
Incisive profile
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Among the facts Moneyweek quotes to advertisers are that
34% of readers are employed at board level, and that the average
reader has invested in shares worth £148,000. It publishes
its 'best' articles on personal finance and investing a month
after they appear in print. |
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Moneywise is the biggest-selling personal finance magazine
in the UK. The website (December 2005) quotes an ABC figure of
60,035, but this dates back to 2003, as does the NRS readership
figure of 182,000. It gives data on products its readers buy:
| Product |
Readers
|
Index |
| ISA/PEP |
93,000 |
225 |
| Personal
pension |
51,000 |
191 |
| Private
health insurance |
35,000
|
274 |
| New mortgage
in past year |
18,000
|
185 |
In February 2008, Moneywise Publishing bought personal finance
monthly Money
Observer from Guardian Media Group. The deal
came a month after GMG combined with private equity group Apax
Partners to buy the trade magazines arm of Emap. With monthly sales
of 23,827 in 2007, Money Observer trails behind Moneywise’s
30,151. claims to the
'the UK's leading personal finance and investing magazine'. The
website carries stories from Money Observer, a free weeky
newsletter of investment tips and news about personal finance.
Moneywise was bought by Capital Accumulation from
the UK arm of Reader's Digest Association in October 2004. Capital
Accumulation also owns investment website Interactive Investor.
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Partridge Publications
(2000)
What
Franchise is a free magazine sent to people
interested in buying a franchise and starting their own
business. The magazine carries a listings section with details
of franchise opportunities on offer.
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Who Wants to be a Millionaire was launched in October
2005 by Seven Publishing but has since closed. It was published
under licence from Celador, who make the TV series of the same
name. Seven's main title is the food monthly Delicious.
Seven profile
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Contract publisher headed by journalist William Cash. Publications
include Spear’s Wealth Management
Survey, a quarterly
sent to 25,000 wealthy people and families across Europe, and Annabel's,
for the London night club. Its titles aim for the 'super rich'
and 'high net worth individuals'.
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Money
and personal finance titles (2005) Back
to top |
Title
|
Publisher |
Launch
date |
ABC
sales Jan-Jul-2005* |
| Economist,
The (UK edition) |
The Economist
Newspaper |
1843 |
155,371 |
| How to be
Better Off |
BBC/FT |
2005 |
annual |
| Investor, The
|
Ashville Media |
|
5,045 |
Investors
Chronicle (weekly) |
FT Business |
|
38,171 |
| Money
Observer |
Moneywise/Guardian
Magazines |
1979 |
25,186 |
| MoneyWeek
|
Moneyweek
|
|
26,471 |
| Moneywise
|
Moneywise
Publishing |
|
47,183 |
| Spear’s
Wealth Management Survey (quarterly) |
Spear Media |
|
n/a |
| What
Franchise |
Partridge
Publications (2000)
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|
11,534 |
| What
Mortgage |
Charterhouse
|
? |
n/a |
| Who
Wants to be a Millionaire |
Seven/Celador
|
2005 |
closed |
| Your
Mortgage |
Incisive
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1986
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n/a |
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| *Source:
Audit Bureau of Circulations
(ABC) |
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