So much for the great magazine divide

‘Sara Cremer, the former editor of such consumer titles as New Woman and Eve,’ writes Ian Burrell in the Independent, ‘has been lured across the great magazine divide to become editorial director of Redwood Publishing.’

‘Great magazine divide?’ What divide?

Redwood was started 25 years ago by former Daily Express editor Christopher Ward and Campaign publisher MIke Potter.  Its editors in the 1980s included Peter Crookston (Nova and the Observer Magazine), Paul Keers (GQ), Tony Hilton (Times Washington correspondent) and Richard Barber (Woman’s Own and TV Times).

These editors and many others bounced between the two sectors - Keers worked on Cosmo, later Redwood,  then newspapers before GQ and then back to Redwood before founding contract publisher Axon with Redwood production director Ellen Brush.

Redwood wasn’t unique in this respect then and the phenomena hasn’t gone away. Cremer is just one example among many.

Customer publishers profiled
Consumer publishers profiled

Slimming down - thanks to digital retouching

A slim-looking Kelly Osbourne fronts today’s Independent Extra feature on digital retouching. This is how she looked on the cover of Fabulous in February:

Other examples include:

• Kate Winslet being ’stretched’ to make her look so tall and thin on a February 2003 GQ cover that she appeared to have size 12 feet (see below). Winslet described the digital manipulation as ‘excessive’. In 2006, the Closer Diets website identified Winslet as having the perfect celebrity body.
• Kate Moss was turned black for the Red Independent issue in September 2006 to highlight the issue of black models on covers.
• Princess Eugenie being touched up and ‘busomed-up’ - ‘Tatlered’ according to the Daily Mirror - this year (see below).

The article discusses the work of Pascal Dangin and the Dove advertising campaigns, which featured photographs by Rankin. The Hayward gallery held an exhibition in April that featured manipulation of images as far back as the 1920s by photographer Alexander Rodchenko.

How Kate Winslet appeared on GQ - one of a series of images at the Indpendent website

Below - how the Mirror reported the treatment of Eugenie’s image

Emap makes changes

Guardian Media Group and private equity firm Apax - the joint owners of the business arm and the Emap Communications name since March -  have restructured the company as four divisions:

• Emap Inform - magazines;
• Emap Connect - exhibitions and festivals;
• Emap Insight - data;
• Emap Networks - conferences.

The company name will change from Emap Communications to just Emap.

David Gilbertson, 50, chief executive of B2B publisher Informa, was appointed to head the group last month.

Guardian Media Group said last month that the proportion of its revenues gained from print had fallen from about 85% to 65% since the Emap purchase.

The emap.co.uk and emap.com sites were down this morning.

BBC to launch magazine in US

The BBC plans to launch BBC Knowledge Magazine in the US in August. The magazine will be published by BBC Magazines Bristol, offering features on science, history and nature.

The 100-page title will be published six times a year and will draw on articles from Focus, BBC History and BBC Wildlife.

Monocle sells

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.

Monocle and news magazines profiled

TalkSport to spin off digital magazine

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

Digital subs from Barnes & Noble

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.

Hippies come out of the underground to buy Oz

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.

Magazines start phoning and singing

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.

Did-he-or-didn’t-he Felix Dennis

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.’