Evening Standard: Analysis - The new 'celeb mag' boom
By David Rowan
GOOD news for fans of celebrity gossip: your reading list is about to get even longer. Just in case Heat, Now and New! were leaving you hungry - not to mention Hello! and OK! - the publishing industry is about to saturate the newsstands with yet more celebrity glossies.
In the past few days, Celebrity Homes, published by Merricks Media in Bath, and a "younger" spin-off of Now have joined an increasingly brutal battle for the showbiz-obsessed reader, and next month IPC launches yet another magazine exposing how the stars live "off the red carpet and behind closed doors". With circulation already falling among some of the market leaders, is this publishing bubble about to burst? "I don't think so," says Sarah Fisher, publishing director of Now, which last week added TeenNow to a portfolio that also includes Now Celebrity Hair. "There seems to be an insatiable desire for all things celeb, and people are interested in every angle. Apparently we're not yet at saturation point." To test the thesis, Now's publisher, IPC, is about to launch Celebrity Living, in which stars such as Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston let you "share the look of their home" and Nicole Appleton shows you how to host a dinner party. "We see Celebrity Living as a homes title, but instead of using real people's homes, like Ideal Homes, we're featuring those of celebrities," explains Tammy Butt, the launch editor.
"Our target readers are 25- to 35-year-olds buying their first homes, who have been brought up on Heat and Glamour. The stars are slightly bored with bog-standard interviews about their sex lives or their latest movies, and they're actually quite proud of their homes. And the reader gets something they haven't read before." The magazine was initially going to be tested as a one-off, but since the rival Celebrity Homes hit the newsstands on 25 March, IPC has confirmed that it will be published monthly at £1.80. Lynnette Peck, a former GMTV beauty correspondent who edits Celebrity Homes (initially priced at £2), is clearly relishing the battle ahead.
"We're the first celebrity title to launch in the homes sector, and IPC is two months behind us," she says. With a print run of 250,000, her title, she claims, is the biggest homes launch in five years.
Peck's first issue offers such insights as the contents of Gail Hipgrave's (formerly Porter's) by David Rowan 'I'd be very surprised if Celebrity Homes is still around in a year' bathroom cabinet, Anna Ryder-Richardson's "interpretation" of the Beckham residence, and the revelation that top hairdresser Trevor Sorbie spends £600 a month on flowers which he devotes his Saturday mornings to arranging.
These are hardly the talkingpoint insights of a Beckham text message or an OK! wedding buy-up - so why does Peck think there is room for her magazine? "We did research among women aged 25 to 45, the 'celebrity generation'," she says. "They've grown up with celebrities and look to them for guidance on everything from what clothes to wear to what lipstick.
We're bringing together our two national obsessions - celebrities and property." But it will be market forces that determine whether there is room for yet more celebrity titles. The circulation of Now, the market leader, fell by six per cent to 592,000 in the year to December; Hello! was down to 350,000, and OK! to 571,000.
Heat, at 567,000, seems to have peaked, and its owner, Emap, says it expects sales to settle at around 500,000. And even though recent launches such as New!, Star and Closer have a combined circulation approaching a million, there is evidence that many of these are second or third purchases from a relatively fixed number of people - helped by give-aways, price cuts, and what Emap calls a newsstand "war of attrition".
"We're inevitably reaching saturation," insists Louise Matthews, managing director of Emap's Heat and Closer. "The readerships might still show growth, but the profitability of a lot of these titles is in decline." Hello!, in particular, is extremely vulnerable, she says.
IT'S been hit in circulation share dramatically, and now it's having a hard time in terms of ad share and volume of yield," she adds.
"And Now is under fire from every direction - its profitability is going south, and the fact that it had to offer so many issues at 50p in the last ABC period suggests it will do anything to hang on to circulation." IPC, in response, claims that Emap has sustained Heat and Closer only by spending £30 million on marketing in the past four years.
Matthews says that the new titles have arrived too late. "I'd be very surprised if Celebrity Homes is still around in a year," she says.
"As for IPC's Celebrity Living, I hear it has Lenny Kravitz on the first cover. Now, tell me, who's interested a) in Lenny Kravitz, and b) in his home? Women are more sophisticated than these magazines think - they might want to know the celebrity gossip, but they are not going to want to do up their house like theirs." Hello! certainly looks vulnerable, particularly when faced with Richard Desmond's three-pronged assault from OK!, New! and Star, which share content and aggressively discount to build market share. But Sally Cartwright, Hello!'s publishing director, laughs off suggestions that the original celebrity magazine's days are numbered.
"We are less profitable than we were, but that's a long way for questioning our viability," she says. "We still get a good return on our advertising and still deliver the best [readership] profile. Just look at our parent organisation, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year and remains extremely profitable. There will always be demand for a 'respectable' celebrity title." The "celebrity accessory" type of magazine, Cartwright insists, will die out long before the more upmarket titles. "I know how very difficult it is to get access to quality celebrities," she says. "It's easy if you want the C-list, but major stars are expensive. I have nothing against Trevor Sorbie, but I question how much appetite there is to discover his lifestyle." Over at IPC, Tammy Butt is not so sure. "Five years ago you had to be a movie star, but now a reality TV loser can sell a magazine," she says. "Heat has been very good at opening up that pool of celebrities.
People have been saying the bubble was about to burst since Heat was selling 400,000 a couple of years ago - and look at it now. If anything, the market is still growing." Will the inevitable result be, as Media Week joked this week, a glossy magazine called Celebrity Dog Kennels, featuring exclusive access to Geri Halliwell's pampered pooch? "The pet market is vast," Butt says with a smile. "You never know."
(Evening Standard, April 14 2004)
GOOD news for fans of celebrity gossip: your reading list is about to get even longer. Just in case Heat, Now and New! were leaving you hungry - not to mention Hello! and OK! - the publishing industry is about to saturate the newsstands with yet more celebrity glossies.
In the past few days, Celebrity Homes, published by Merricks Media in Bath, and a "younger" spin-off of Now have joined an increasingly brutal battle for the showbiz-obsessed reader, and next month IPC launches yet another magazine exposing how the stars live "off the red carpet and behind closed doors". With circulation already falling among some of the market leaders, is this publishing bubble about to burst? "I don't think so," says Sarah Fisher, publishing director of Now, which last week added TeenNow to a portfolio that also includes Now Celebrity Hair. "There seems to be an insatiable desire for all things celeb, and people are interested in every angle. Apparently we're not yet at saturation point." To test the thesis, Now's publisher, IPC, is about to launch Celebrity Living, in which stars such as Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston let you "share the look of their home" and Nicole Appleton shows you how to host a dinner party. "We see Celebrity Living as a homes title, but instead of using real people's homes, like Ideal Homes, we're featuring those of celebrities," explains Tammy Butt, the launch editor.
"Our target readers are 25- to 35-year-olds buying their first homes, who have been brought up on Heat and Glamour. The stars are slightly bored with bog-standard interviews about their sex lives or their latest movies, and they're actually quite proud of their homes. And the reader gets something they haven't read before." The magazine was initially going to be tested as a one-off, but since the rival Celebrity Homes hit the newsstands on 25 March, IPC has confirmed that it will be published monthly at £1.80. Lynnette Peck, a former GMTV beauty correspondent who edits Celebrity Homes (initially priced at £2), is clearly relishing the battle ahead.
"We're the first celebrity title to launch in the homes sector, and IPC is two months behind us," she says. With a print run of 250,000, her title, she claims, is the biggest homes launch in five years.
Peck's first issue offers such insights as the contents of Gail Hipgrave's (formerly Porter's) by David Rowan 'I'd be very surprised if Celebrity Homes is still around in a year' bathroom cabinet, Anna Ryder-Richardson's "interpretation" of the Beckham residence, and the revelation that top hairdresser Trevor Sorbie spends £600 a month on flowers which he devotes his Saturday mornings to arranging.
These are hardly the talkingpoint insights of a Beckham text message or an OK! wedding buy-up - so why does Peck think there is room for her magazine? "We did research among women aged 25 to 45, the 'celebrity generation'," she says. "They've grown up with celebrities and look to them for guidance on everything from what clothes to wear to what lipstick.
We're bringing together our two national obsessions - celebrities and property." But it will be market forces that determine whether there is room for yet more celebrity titles. The circulation of Now, the market leader, fell by six per cent to 592,000 in the year to December; Hello! was down to 350,000, and OK! to 571,000.
Heat, at 567,000, seems to have peaked, and its owner, Emap, says it expects sales to settle at around 500,000. And even though recent launches such as New!, Star and Closer have a combined circulation approaching a million, there is evidence that many of these are second or third purchases from a relatively fixed number of people - helped by give-aways, price cuts, and what Emap calls a newsstand "war of attrition".
"We're inevitably reaching saturation," insists Louise Matthews, managing director of Emap's Heat and Closer. "The readerships might still show growth, but the profitability of a lot of these titles is in decline." Hello!, in particular, is extremely vulnerable, she says.
IT'S been hit in circulation share dramatically, and now it's having a hard time in terms of ad share and volume of yield," she adds.
"And Now is under fire from every direction - its profitability is going south, and the fact that it had to offer so many issues at 50p in the last ABC period suggests it will do anything to hang on to circulation." IPC, in response, claims that Emap has sustained Heat and Closer only by spending £30 million on marketing in the past four years.
Matthews says that the new titles have arrived too late. "I'd be very surprised if Celebrity Homes is still around in a year," she says.
"As for IPC's Celebrity Living, I hear it has Lenny Kravitz on the first cover. Now, tell me, who's interested a) in Lenny Kravitz, and b) in his home? Women are more sophisticated than these magazines think - they might want to know the celebrity gossip, but they are not going to want to do up their house like theirs." Hello! certainly looks vulnerable, particularly when faced with Richard Desmond's three-pronged assault from OK!, New! and Star, which share content and aggressively discount to build market share. But Sally Cartwright, Hello!'s publishing director, laughs off suggestions that the original celebrity magazine's days are numbered.
"We are less profitable than we were, but that's a long way for questioning our viability," she says. "We still get a good return on our advertising and still deliver the best [readership] profile. Just look at our parent organisation, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year and remains extremely profitable. There will always be demand for a 'respectable' celebrity title." The "celebrity accessory" type of magazine, Cartwright insists, will die out long before the more upmarket titles. "I know how very difficult it is to get access to quality celebrities," she says. "It's easy if you want the C-list, but major stars are expensive. I have nothing against Trevor Sorbie, but I question how much appetite there is to discover his lifestyle." Over at IPC, Tammy Butt is not so sure. "Five years ago you had to be a movie star, but now a reality TV loser can sell a magazine," she says. "Heat has been very good at opening up that pool of celebrities.
People have been saying the bubble was about to burst since Heat was selling 400,000 a couple of years ago - and look at it now. If anything, the market is still growing." Will the inevitable result be, as Media Week joked this week, a glossy magazine called Celebrity Dog Kennels, featuring exclusive access to Geri Halliwell's pampered pooch? "The pet market is vast," Butt says with a smile. "You never know."
(Evening Standard, April 14 2004)
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, April 14, 2004
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