The Guardian is quoting Reuters that United Business Media has ended talks with Informa about a possible merger, while Informa said it had received a fresh approach. Informa said in a statement “it has received a further approach from a third party that may or may not lead to a takeover offer in cash being made for the company”.
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.’
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.’
Am at the Istanbul Modern museum - great exhıbıtıon of early Russıan photography. Early technıques - bromoıl; gelatıne sılver; saltpaper - look lıke paıntıngs. Cheeky portraıt of Eısensteın (as ın Battleshıp Potemkın) by Alexander Grınberg makes hım look lıke a naughty, chubby boy (taken ın 1927).
However, the museum blocks access to Magforum as pornography! How does thıs happen?
Mike Soutar, publisher of weekly freebie Shortlist denies a claim from Alan Brydon, head of press communication at MPG, a media buyer, that ‘the anecdotal evidence is unfortunately that they distribute [the magazine] to anybody and everybody who will take one.’
Soutar claims 82% of readers are in the ABC1 socioeconomic groups, but admits distributors have to judge age and wealth by appearance alone: ‘If somebody who’s female or doesn’t seem to fit the demographic wants it, you can’t snatch it back off them.’
The title is expected to deliver a circulation figure of more than 460,000, almost double that of Bauer/Emap monthly FHM - of which Soutar was once editor-in-chief - in today’s ABC figures.
FT report
Shortlist profile
Censorship tends to generate stacks of publicity, as the Poles are discovering over their Tellytubby scare, and having your work attacked is just the thing for an up-and-coming artist.
Now, there’s a pastiche of ‘An Era of Mercy’ in Russia!, a US magazine . The original photograph (below) - of two Russian policemen kissing in a birch forest - drew opprobrium from politicians when it was shown in Moscow’s Art4.ru gallery. It shot the Blue Noses Group to fame last autumn.
The image was pulled from an exhibition of Russian art in Paris, leading the New York Times to run an article entitled ‘ Putin’s last realm to conquer: Russian culture‘.
Hello! has taken out advertising in today’s Daily Mail Weekend magazine to plug the first of its quarterly Fashion Issues (£6; 340-pages; on sale 13 Feb). The colour advert is printed on card. The ratecard cost of a two spreads in the magazine is almost £168,000. A similar insert graced the Sunday Telegraph’s Stella - that’s another £63,000 according to the ratecard.
The Fleet Street diaspora will no doubt be queuing up at the National Portrait Gallery to catch a glimpse of Snowdon’s snap of 12 newspaper editors taken for Vanity Fair. Their sense of importance enhanced by the fact that they barely had time to take their coats off - and that Dacre of the Mail, probably the finest of the generation, couldn’t make it, among others. But will Barber come to regret that tie? Couldn’t surgeons have been brought in to remove Rusbridger’s duffle coat? And didn’t Thomson time his transantlantic shift just right?
I first came across a photograph by Edward Burtynsky last July on the cover of Canadian current affairs title The Walrus. He takes photos of quarries - but the results are incredible to see because the sense of scale diappears. I thought the cover of Walrus showed Dinky toys in a model! Take a look at his book - you won’t regret it.
The Bulletin - Australia’s 128-year-old weekly news magazine - has closed. The demise of the ‘Bullie’ has been blamed on competition from websites and expanding weekend newspaper supplements.
ABC News described the title as having been ‘critical in defining Australianness’.
English language news weeklies have a hard time all over the world because of the strength of US titles such as Newsweek and Time - though even these are feeling pressure from online news.
The Week developed a successful UK business strategy, which has also worked in the US - so much so that Felix Dennis kept the title when he sold off the Maxim-based US arm of his magazine empire. However, The Week follows a Victorian model and keeps costs down by summarising other people’s news; it does not publish original writing from writers such as Peter Carey, as The Bulletin did.
The news comes just days after the sons of Australia’s two media dynasties - Lachlan Murdoch and James Packer - joined forces to take private Consolidated Media Holdings, the remnants of the late Kerry Packer’s media empire. CMH owns 25 per cent of PBL Media, which in turn owns Channel Nine, Bulletin publisher ACP and stakes in websites Ninemsn and Carsales.com.au.
Media commentator Harold Mitchell expressed surprise at the closure, given its closeness to the Packer family, which had owned the title since 1961, in a news report video.
However, media analyst Peter Cox said the magazine had been a favourite of the late media mogul Kerry Packer and upon his death, there had been no need to keep it open.
‘Quality journalism is an expensive product and it has low viewership and readership in Australia,’ he said. ‘It’s not a surprise to me at all.’
The issue of The Bulletin dated 23 January 2008 will be the last.
Profile of news weeklies in the UK.
