This time however, direct marketers were ready. The industry comprising 280,000 jobs, the industry which contributes £27bn to the economy, the industry that created Tesco Clubcard joined together under the DMA and took a stand and let it’s voice be heard. And what a roar it made! Using social media and the hashtag #panoramamail debate whizzed round twitter; 574 tweets were logged reaching 48,000 people.  Eulogy! spent much of Monday seeding the hashtag and encouraging industry members, thought leaders and consumers to join the conversation whilst the programme aired. And judging by the buzz, the industry’s first foray into social media self defence was a resounding success. We felt proud to represent the industry.

ShortList Media, publisher of free magazines ShortList and Stylist, recently announced it will be launching a free, bi-annual men’s fashion magazine in March 2011. The thick-cut, glossy publication, ShortList Mode, has been designed with Shortlist’s ABC1 metro-male readers in mind. “We are living in an ever-changing world in which young men are spending more time and money on the way they look,” says Mike Soutar, Chief Executive of Shortlist Media.

Soutar is not alone in his thinking, as Bauer Publishing, the owner of weekly magazine Grazia, recently piloted Gaz7etta, the male equivalent of its sister publication combined with the traditional kind of content you’d see in men’s monthies.

And that’s not all, because the hugely successful online fashion retailer Net-A-Porter is also preparing its launch of Mr Porter – a partner site dedicated to stylish men and their shopping desires.

In times of apparent tightened purse strings (or wallet strings in this case) these launches could seem a little risky. But not so. According to The Guardian, “many in the industry are confident that style-savvy male consumers have reached a point in their attitude to self-enhancement that their spending on clothes, creams and even cosmetic surgery can be relied upon just as much as their female counterparts.”

Here at E! Towers, we’re looking forward to get our mitts on these exciting new titles and sharing news of our fantastic metro-male friendly clients with them! The ABC team are also busy preparing for the release of the much awaited ABC Consumer Magazine figures, issued on 17th February, which will provide essential insights on, amongst others, these new publications.

We will also be keeping an eye on the fellas in the E! office for any style changes that may occur as a result of this new reading material. Will Chris swap the gilet for a Burberry flying jacket (all the rage right now in the Milan Men’s Fashion Week)?  Will Dave shave his beard off again in a bid to stay ‘metro’? Or will Rik wear Salmon because it’s the colour of the season, and not just his surname??

Despite the recession, it seems that one of the things consumers are not ready to give up just yet is their weekly or monthly fix of their favourite titles. Magazines are considered by many as an inexpensive luxury, which can bring a little light-hearted relief to everyday life. As such, six of the top 10 market sectors have shown growth, according to the report.

Even before the report was released, the CCR was making headlines, as the publisher of CondeNast’s Vogue accused NatMags of using multipacks as a way of even though it is a perfectly legitimate marketing tool

In terms of circulation trends, satirical magazine Private Eye saw a year-on-year circulation increase of 3.4 per cent, taking sales to more than 210,000 for the first time since 1992. However, we were more impressed with Private Eye editor Ian Hislop’s quip: “The Eye’s circulation figures are like John Terry’s shorts. In the past they may have been down – but now they are firmly up again.”

Debut circulation of Wired magazine, which launched last April, was 48,275 in the second half of 2009, whilst Sky Magazine retained the highest distribution of any magazine,, mailed to 7,423,570 BSkyB subscribers.

The ABC figures released this week paint a familiar picture for the music press: year on year, music titles are facing a brick wall as prominent as Pink Floyd’s; their readership being squeezed like Jools Holland on a bad day.

Weekly titles NME and Kerrang! announced falls in circulation of more than 20 per cent, while monthly titles MOJO and Q also posted circulation decreases, albeit on a smaller scale. It poses the question – what must a music publication do to survive?

NME, for example, has evolved and diversified to fit the needs that today’s tech-savvy reader demands. Far from its humble beginnings as a grassroots newspaper nearly 60 years ago, the magazine is now part of a multi-faceted music brand which includes its own TV and radio stations, concerts, awards, merchandise and a website that boasts 3.5 million unique users a month.

The print publication of NME – while still arguably the most iconic aspect of the brand – has simply become just one part of a much bigger remit. Those who interact with NME now do so across multiple platforms, engaging in content that moves far beyond the page.

In establishing a multi-platform offering, NME has not only safeguarded its brand, but enhanced it, too. The brand offers a much more tangible experience: for example, you can read the review of the new Marina and the Diamonds record in the magazine, listen to it on NME Radio, read her interview on the website and watch her live on the NME tour.

There’s a lesson to be learned here in the ongoing debate surrounding newspapers’ attempts to safeguard their existence. In creating a coherent brand across various platforms of which the print magazine is just one part, NME has negated the risk of readers flocking to other publications to consume their music content by effectively creating a ‘one-stop shop’.

The ABC figures may paint a picture that NME will forever struggle to replicate its readership figures of the halcyon days of the 70s and 80s. Then, the magazine regularly shifted a quarter of a million copies a week, compared to just 38,486 now. The truth may be closer to the fact that its readers, like the NME brand, are simply evolving in the way they consume music content.

Talk has been rife in the media world about the waning importance of print media and whether it is due to have the final nail banged into its coffin.  In his blog, the COMMS corner, Adam Vincenzini is undertaking a substantial experiment to put to the test accusations of digital media cannibalising print media.

On January 1^st he embarked on a quest to go one year without buying or reading a print newspaper to see how it would affect his role as a PR consultant.

So far, he is discovering a lot – particularly about the ways he consumes digital media.  There is flexibility in digital news that allows him to choose which articles he reads, depending on his interests. He’s also become more aware of the rapidity with which he receives news throughout the day by following the Sky News breaking news Twitter feed.

I agree that taking in news digitally allows for immediate consumption. For example, when I get into work in the morning, I scroll my Digsby Twitter feed to get a steer on the stories that are due to be breaking later in the day.

But no matter what, I’ll always enjoy reading the paper. For me, the difference is that I’ll purvey a newspaper leisurely over my bowl of cereal. I look at newspapers almost as magazines now. I use them as leisure material, whereas I log on to actually read the news.

This is personal consumption, though. Professionally, I still can’t beat the feeling of seeing my coverage in the newspaper – it feels more real.  The sense of achievement is higher, and it’s something tangible that I can show friends and family. Maybe I hold print coverage in high esteem because I am quite new to social media. But having been encouraged to engage with online communities in my final year at university, I expect this to change.

I like print, I prefer it as I would Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference range to Sainsbury’s own brand, but do I really need it? I imagine not. Good luck to Adam with his ‘no newspapers’ challenge.

Less than half a century ago, newspaper publishers still divided their power base between London and the regions. The provinces were considered just as important as the capital, and the nationals all had fully staffed operations in northern cities, particularly Manchester.

Fast forward a few decades and the regionals have undergone cataclysmic decline. Even the biggest groups are cutting jobs left, right and centre – or at least have plans to. Some might argue that mourning the demise of local journalism is a bit like crying over spilt milk. Speaking from the harsh experience of traipsing round grim town centres scouting for stories (at one point I remember scrawling ‘news’ ideas on the back of a pastie wrapper), I agree to some extent that the information provided to the dwindling local readership can often be paltry fare.

But this is about more than funerals and flower shows. Local papers remain a breeding ground where some of the best budding journalists cut their teeth, and in those pockets of the UK where true communities continue to exist, engagement with local news teams is still important to people.

From a PR point of view, the regional print and online titles remain a vital outlet to ensure London-based clients’ messages extend beyond the M25. So I was outraged to hear from a friend in the North-west that his publisher intends to axe sub-editors in favour of multi-skilling reporters, who will ‘write stories directly onto template pages and create print and online headlines, reducing the need for sub-editors’

This raises the terrifying prospect of PR. If stories being posted are unchecked by green (or simply talentless) reporters – who knows how many client wrangles this potential drop in standards might cause?

Image graciously borrowed from SMLXL’s post on the death of local newspapers

I, for one, used to quite enjoy reading Thelondonpaper.  Finding out about Sarah Harding or a Geldof’s nightly exploits became rather addictive reading after a long day in the office.  However, in the five months since tlp closed, I haven’t quite found anything to fill the gap, so I’m intrigued to find out what the mysterious forthcoming London Weekly has to offer.

A quick trawl of its site reveals a rudimentary selection of news stories, but it’s the celebrity ticker at the top that gets my attention.  Calling itself ‘fresh press’, London Weekly is a great idea for those of us hungry for the latest celebrity news.   Unfortunately, further investigation leaves me expecting more after being directed to the ‘news’ that the Gallagher brothers still aren’t speaking to each other.

So what more can we learn?  Alas, not much.  There’s no launch date on the site, though other sources claim it will hit our streets on 1 February.  It’s certainly ambitious, aiming to give away 250k copies a week on Fridays and Saturdays outside Tube and railway stations with regional editions planned by 2012.   Other than that, we’re left none the wiser.

The challenge for any freesheet is that they need to be all things to all people.   Metro’s concise mix of news, sport and celebrity has been a nationwide success story. Yet despite their best efforts, the giants of UK newspaper publishing, Associated and News International, couldn’t crack the London market.  The newly free Evening Standard is having a good stab at it, but has anyone managed to pick up a copy after 6.30pm?  A free paper backed by five private equity investors might provide what Londoners are looking for, but at the moment, they’re not giving much away.

]]> http://blog.eulogy.co.uk/2010/01/will-the-new-london-weekly-be-what-the-capital-is-looking-for/feed/ 1 http://blog.eulogy.co.uk/2010/01/snow-joke/ http://blog.eulogy.co.uk/2010/01/snow-joke/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:00:14 +0000 Lizzy http://blog.eulogy.co.uk/?p=200

There is no denying that the recent adverse weather conditions have really caught the attention of the nation.  Since well before Christmas we have been subjected to news on the weather and weather on the news.  Few of us don’t know the story of the woman who went out to get her Christmas turkey and has only just made it back.

Last week – and I mention this as it is quite likely that you missed it – there was a threat to the Labour leadership.  The opposition spent much of the week trying to get rid of the Prime Minister and it got covered for one day before we were back to some chap talking about the economic impact of us all bunking off to make snowmen while the sun doesn’t shine.

What we are dealing with here is, in many ways, the perfect story – at least from the newsroom perspective. We love the heart-warming stories of have-a-go heroes delivering milk to old ladies. Add to this the fantastic photos of Snow Daleks, and you have the makings of a true epic.  But above all, and unlike the Prime Minister story, it’s identifiable.   Be it to describe our miserable journey into the office or just to say that the whole fuss is ridiculous, we all have a comment to make on it. Never before have the ‘Your Pictures’ and ‘Your Comments’ sections of news sites been more busy.

What I find really fascinating about this are the implications it has on the ongoing debate for and against monetising news content online. For the record, I completely agree with paying for comment and analysis from professionals, and do believe that this should be charged for as it would be in the street (if it protects the production of content).  However, if Joe Public is helping (or even pushing) the news agenda, it changes things.   Shouldn’t we get a cut if the news is predominantly made up of our stories and pictures?  And would we all be so willing to send things in if we had to pay to access that content online?

A few short years ago it would have been hard to imagine the Evening Standard being handed out free. But the age of the freesheets has radically changed the publishing playing field. Mainstream titles are waging their own price wars in print and online, and looking for ever more radical ways to attract the fickle newspaper buyer – from wallcharts and CDs to winning Stonehenge (well a sunrise there, at least!). But for the freesheets it is a battle of volume; a battle that claimed thelondonpaper as its most recent casualty.

If freesheets are to generate the ad sales required to allow them to continue printing, then consistently appealing to a broad audience is essential. It will be interesting to see how the Evening Standard, which has always cultivated a relatively young, upmarket readership, balances the needs of the commercial department with the editorial integrity on which it has built its reputation.

Mike Ironside, chief executive of the National Readership Survey was at Eulogy! last week and asked us whether we felt our newspapers had a unique voice. Without a doubt, the room replied. It is clear that newspapers are still a national passion. Over the course of a week, three quarters of the UK population reads a newspaper, and half of us are still buying a Sunday paper.

If the Evening Standard can make the free model work, then it is going to put serious pressure on rival titles that are still hanging on to their cover price. But how long can the free model prosper? In this case, the power really is in readers’ hands. If we’re not willing to pick the freesheets up, then the advertisers will follow suit.

Like many others, I have found the evening journey rather empty since thelondonpaper departed and the Evening Standard, which has a distinctly different voice to London Lite and other freesheets, is undoubtedly a welcome addition for commuters and advertisers alike.

As we handle PR for both ABC and the National Readership Survey, we have immediate access to the tools that tell us national newspapers are continuing their spiral of decline. There are some short-term blips to this trend, and not every title is suffering, but overall it’s a bleak background.

Traditionally left-leaning titles such as The Guardian, The Observer and especially The Independent are struggling. In the case of the former, the journalist suggested editorial was beginning to cosy up to the Conservative front bench in a bid to stem the backlash for its long-term Labour support, should the Tories triumph at the next General Election.

Be that as it may, the death of any quality national newspaper (as our guest pointed out, the recent swap to Berliner formats more or less rendered the term ‘broadsheet’ obsolete) should not be taken lightly. In the same way that a whole town goes into mourning if its football club goes bust, so a title’s loyal readers would feel let down.

For PR folk, a healthy press is vital for the basic element of our job: placing stories in print. Newspapers also continue to be a central plank of the wider media community, not least planning and buying. And for the UK as a whole, the nationals remain a vital defence against political excess. It would be a tragedy if a great swathe of the publishing middle ground was doomed by the rise of rolling TV news and the appetite for quick-hit online updates.