What a week for Shortlist Media, the publisher behind the eponymously titled free men's magazine. It reported hefty pre-tax losses of £2.7m, but has also been reported it is to launch a long talked about free women's magazine. That's very encouraging to hear, but probably less so if you're the editor of a glossy women's title.
According to a story in Campaign this morning, which is scant on detail, the title will be an upscale weekly women's magazine to rival glossy titles such as Grazia. It will be aimed at affluent ABC1 women in the 25- to 40-year-old age bracket and will focus on celebrity and fashion. No news there, that's exactly what you would expect.
The Campaign story said the title will launch later this, but Shortlist Media chief executive, Mike Soutar, has since told Press Gazette that although a number of ideas were being considered nothing was decided, which suggests various ideas are being shopped to media buyers to see what they would really go for.
"It's a rumour that's been kicking round," Soutar told Press Gazette, "I was first phoned about it a couple of weeks ago, but our position is we have no imminent plan to launch. We're only 18 months old, trading well in very difficult economic conditions. It's very flattering the industry thinks, after 18 months, we're in a substantial enough position to think about launching something new."
Clearly the formula works. Week in and week out, Shortlist appears and does so with some really good stories and great covers. I haven't read today's, but stuffed the cover with a pic of Pete Doherty lighting a cigarette from a burning acoustic guitar into my bag. Pretty striking.
They've shown they can do it, but to go and launch in blood curdling recession takes some balls as magazine and newspapers fall left right and centre, including those in the female market like Eve, with others cutting staff.
When Shortlist media announced its results Soutar (if you have never seen him explain the magazine you must check this video) said the venture had a three-year plan to make profit and was on track to meet this target.
If you can lose £2.7m and be on target and expand in a recession things are not as bad as the top numbers might suggest, but it will come down to what advertisers will put money into. Soutar said told Media Week he had been expecting greater losses. "But we beat our original forecasts. We are well set to hit our targets in the next 12 months."Interestingly, Soutar said that Shortlist "had been a contributor" to Arena going out of business.
I think he's probably right, what then does the launch of Shortlist for women have in store for women's magazines? Those overstaffed glossies are already suffering and with the entrant of a free player, women might start cutting back on what they buy. If they do that then other weaker magazines in the women's market will go under (as Eve has done).
Okay so if not a women's magazine what other titles could Shortlist launch? What other areas are ripe for expansion in the free magazine market considering that the sport category is already taken? Film or maybe food? Food could really be a dark horse. That's our guess.
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So how will this succeed where the likes of Midweek, Ms London, Girl about Town and Nine to Five failed about a decade ago?
I imagine via quality and some good journalism, i only vaguely remember Ms London and GaT and don't recall them being very high quality.
Gordon Macmillan
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