Magazines have long had merchandising pages, but few can be as eclectic as Monocle’s. The website is selling products branded with its logo that include: a Comme des Garçons perfume; a bicycle; bags; and a Danish-made table. Media Week reckons the site has sold 2,000 bags.
TalkSport is to launch a weekly digital-only TalkSport Magazine in the summer, says Media Week. The radio station has taken on James Mallinson, former publisher of Dennis’s Monkey e-magazine to run the title.
Digital magazines history
Barnes & Noble is to start selling subscriptions to more than 1,000 magazines, in both digital and print formats through its website. The US bookseller claims prices will be up to 90% cheaper than buying the magazines from a newsagent.
BN.com is using Zinio for the digital versions and M2 Media to send out magazine subscriptions. Readers will be able to use a ‘see inside’ feature to preview some magazines. Also, 12,000 back issues of hundreds of titles will be available as single copies in digital format.
The hippies are really coming out of the woodwork as the media celebrates 1968 and all that. Prices for underground magazines such as Oz are going through the roof. A copy of issue 5 from July 1967 sold for £561.30 on Ebay in May last year. A February 1967 first issue sold for £560 in September (one cost just £360 in 2006).
In December in London, a complete run made £3,600 and an almost complete run of International Times, fetched £3,000. That looks cheap compared with what’s on offer on Ebay at the moment - £5,999 starting bid for a set of Oz, £9,999 for a buy it now - and he wants £29.95 for the postage!
Probably better to fly to Bonhams in New York, which is auctioning a complete set on May 16 with a guide price of $3,000 - $6,000 (that’s about £1,500-£3,000, so for £10K you could bag the lot and have a good holiday).
It’s part of a collection put together by fashion designer Peter Golding. It’s worth taking a look at at his Inspirational Times 3D exhibition.
Men’s Health is to use interactive advertising in its July/August issue that allows readers in the US to receive real-time information from advertisers. Readers will be able to take a photo of any advert with a mobile phone to send to a company called SnapTell, which will send a promotional message back to their phone instantly.
The US is seeing growing interest by publishers in interactive advertising. The April 30 issue of People plays a Natasha Bedingfield pop song using a battery and speaker wedged within its pages — though this idea is not new. IBM did it in a French magazine almost 20 years ago.
The ‘I killed a man’ confession of Maxim founder Felix Dennis in the Times isn’t lying down. The great man himself has tried to pass it off as an April Fool in BusinessWeek:
‘What [the press] didn’t notice was the date,’ [which was April 1, Dennis claimed] ‘Anyone who thinks that story is real needs a sense of humour check.’
But there’s no playing it down in Press Gazette. Read all about it there: ‘Ginny Dougary reveals the story behind her explosive Times interview with magazine mogul Felix Dennis, and how she kept his murder claim in it.’
Premier Model Agency founder Carole White has attacked magazine editors for not using more coloured models:
“…it’s always about sales and the idea that blue eyes and blonde hair sells. I’m not sure I believe that. If fashion editors were a bit braver and tried out black, Asian and Chinese models, our eyes would be easier on that look.
“They don’t give the opportunities to these girls. Given that there are so many variations of skin, particularly in London, it’s a backward step being taken if no one is brave enough to give ethnic girls a chance.”
White addresses the issue in an interview with Arifa Akbar in today’s Independent. The article makes it clear that she believes the women’s magazine industry is part of the problem, despite the defence of Vogue by Alexander Shulman.
Country Life has set out on the campaigning trail with a 10-point agenda:
· Give children more freedom
· Label food by county of origin
· Eat a rare breed
· Reduce Britain’s deer population by 30%
· Drink English ‘champagne’
· Clean up our verges
· Learn to love GM crops
· Only eat ethically produced chicken
· Save protected rural areas from flight paths
· Plant a tree
Seems like there’s a conflict here - big on rare breeds and ethical chicken while promoting GM crops.
Men’s monthly GQ is to launch in India - following its Conde Nast stablemate Vogue. Sanjiv Bhattacharya, a British journalist who was features editor of GQ in the UK, will be editor with most of the material generated locally.
Dylan Jones, the editor of British GQ, is a consultant. Jones uses the Observer story to take a swipe at his competition - weekly freebie ShortList as well at National Magazines’ Esquire: He claims Esquire’s relaunch under Jeremy Langmead has been ‘a total failure’, because ‘they are selling 10 per cent less at news-stands. They’ll be giving it away at tube stations next.’
Piers Morgan on journalists from a pithy interview in the Observer by James Robinson:
I’m having so much fun doing this TV lark [a return to editing newspapers is] unlikely in the near future. It’s in my veins. It’s in my blood. I love Fleet Street, I love journalists. They are a disgusting bunch of venal reptiles and I love wallowing in their pit.
The interview follows Morgan’s GQ profile of Nick Clegg in which he lured the Liberal Democrat leader into bragging about his ‘no more than 30′ sexual conquests, which has resulted in the nickname ‘Cleggover’ in Westminster.
Morgan also discusses his victory in the US celebrity version of The Apprentice:
‘It’s quite interesting how the British press treated my victory. Half the papers completely ignored this global event [sic]. I thought that was a great accolade.’
The former Mirror editor might have had his tongue in his cheek, but journalists have long had a dislike for colleagues who find fame elsewhere.
Yet there is a long history of screen-struck editors, most famously the legendary Arthur Christiansen. He played the role of Daily Express editor in the 1961 film ‘The Day the Earth Caught Fire’ - and, of course, had done that job for real for 25 years. A Topic magazine report at the time revealed Lord Beaverbrook demanded a private showing in his Fleet Street office. The 82-year-old Express proprietor - in whose ‘glasshouse’ or ‘Black Lubianka’ the film had been shot, is reported to have said: ‘Wonderful. If you had taken up acting instead of editing, you would be another Cary Grant by now.’
Perhaps that’s what Morgan is really after.
