Hearst in £574m deal over Elle rights

US group Hearst – owner of NatMags in the UK – is to pay French media group Lagardere €651m for control of its international magazines, including UK arm Hachette Filipacchi, Press Gazette reports.

The agreement includes Elle (in the US, Russia & Ukraine, Italy, Spain, the UK, China, Japan, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Mexico, Taiwan, Canada and Germany) among 102 Lagardère print titles in 15 countries as well as 50 websites and mobile and tablet apps.

Other titles include Woman’s Day, Car & Driver and Cycle World in the US, Red in the UK and Holland.

Lagardère will continue to own the Elle trademark and receive royalties. Before the deal, Lagardère was the largest magazine publisher in the world. Hearst will strengethen its international portfolio against Vogue publisher Conde Nast.

NatMags profile
Hachette Filipacchi profile
Lagardère website
Hearst website
Conde Nast profile

Magazines expand revenue sources

In the 1980s, I worked as a sub and reporter for two weekly medical newspapers: Doctor and Hospital Doctor. In each issue of both, there was a spread of reader offers by post: one page for medical equipment, the other for general goods. It was a good source of income and an idea I copied at Redwood Publishing – I was later told the cash income from one offer saved the company from going bust.

But the idea of publishers selling goods off the page goes back far longer than that. Tit-Bits, that great Victorian pioneer of marketing and all these magazines, spun off books, puzzles and offers of all kinds. Publishers have always sought new sources of revenue because the margins are often far higher than the main publishing business – the trick is not to upset your advertisers.

And it’s still true today, with Future this week teaming up with the Telegraph to produce computer guides for the newspaper’s readers. Windows: The Official Magazine has developed Confident Computing supplements that will be published on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 March, for the Daily Telegraph’s 1.68m readers and the Sunday Telegraph’s 1.45m readers. That’s a lot of publicity for the magazine, and Future will be hoping that the glossy, 52-page supplements will draw less tech-savvy users into the magazine with sections on email, online shopping, internet security and hardware and troubleshooting tips. Alongside the Saturday supplement will be a subscription deal offering three copies of Windows: The Official Magazine for just £1 each.

Future obviously sees potential growth in the magazine (seems strange, just as PC and laptop sales are being hit by the iPad frenzy) with a series of Official Windows Presents set for April, an example of ‘brand extension’ in today’s jargon. Each of these will focus on how computing can help people ‘get more from life’ in areas such as home entertainment, travel, buying and selling online and healthy living.

This is an area where Future has experience: in the 1990s, the Financial Times bought the publisher to pursue just such activities, but the idea floundered and Future took itself independent again.

Other recent ideas include:

• Bauer’s Empire: a three-day film extravaganza, Big Screen at London’s O2 in August;
• Conde Nast’s Vogue Cafe (Moscow), GQ Bar and Tatler club in Moscow and a Conde Nast Worldwide News shop next to its Soho HQ in London

But the title that’s really made a go of it in this area in Tyler Brule’s Monocle.

• shops selling its branded goods in London and four other cities;
• goods made by international brands, from a £20 Monocle notebook to a £370 blanket for sale online;
• Other products branded with its logo have included: a Comme des Garçons perfume; a bicycle; bags; and a Danish-made table. Its bags costs £155-£270. Media Week reckoned it had sold 2000. At £200 each, that’s an income of 400,000, comparable with the magazine selling 100,000 copies a month at £5 each;
• sponsored online video intervieews, reports and travel guide sponsored by the likes of Maurice Lacroix, Spanish tourism and Bloomberg.

What’s hot in magazines

One of the great things about journalism is the breadth of topics that cross your desk. This thought came to mind as I looked at the top stories carried on the Magforum blog:

1. A tale of being Tatlered à la Princess Eugenie
2. Make your own magazine cover
3. Art and the censor
4. Woman turns to Coleen’s wedding
5. Katy Manning, a Dalek and a cup of cold sick
6. Hitler in Mein part work
7. Make your own magazine cover – part 2
8. Lenticular battle for Der Spiegel cover
9. Radio Times theory to Jill Dando murder
10. Slimming down – thanks to digital retouching

Who would have thought Katy Manning would be so popular after all these years.

The glories of Elle in Russia

The March issue of Elle in Russia must have its publishers rubbing their hands in glee. No sign of the credit crunch hitting advertising there. For a start, the issue runs to 460 pages with an ultra glossy cover – and uses just about every device known to print advertising creatives.

Opposite page 362, we have a card insert with spot varnish for Cote d’Or chocolates.

Another card insert by page 202 adds embossed silver ink for Super Slims from Dunhill. The developing world offers the last chance for tobacco companies to ply their wares as mass market advertisers – they are banned from TV and print media in most Western countries and the size of the health warnings on packets is a good decade behind the West.

Cigarettes again, again on a card insert, by page 162 for Virginia Slims with the page using both silver ink and spot varnish.

And Dunhill is not left out of the action. Its ad on page 173 is preceded by a sheet of tracing paper carrying a tailor’s pattern for a tobacco leaf. The advert is on thick card.

But what about gatefold? Tip-ons? Supplements? you cry. Well I’m just coming to the supplements. There are two – a 32-page stapled brochure of Italian fashion, and a magazine-in-itself beauty section running to 356 pages. It has a reverse gatefold with a Winehouse-esque eye gracing its cover.

The supplement has a tip-on sachet of Lancome make-up …

… and a double card spread with gold ink and spot varnish for Carte Noire instant coffee.

Bonuses all round at Hachette Filipacchi Medias.

Elle Russia website

Women’s glossies profiled

Secrets of magazine covers