LaunchPAD: Travel + Leisure

Media Transasia’s inaugural issue of Travel+Leisure is on the stands according to an ad in today’s issue of Indian Express.
The inaugural cover story is "GOA Unseen" and it claims to portray “Goa as a place that is a well-rounded mixture of the ex-Portuguese colony that it was and the modern tourist destination that it is now” (as quoted on AgencyFAQs).
The magazine is brought out under licensing agreement with American Express Publishing and will be published monthly. It will be distributed throughout India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Pakistan and Bhutan.

Article: More than 'Just a Magazine'

Extracts from Samir Husni’s article on the British magazine industry...

On every newsstand, I saw three divisions in the British magazine industry:
Premium Magazines (that lure readers by expensive covermounts): The most noticeable aspect of the Brit magazine industry was their use of covermounts. Over the past few years there has been a rise in the use of covermounts but this recent explosion is unmatched. Premium titles such as Glamour and Tatler have begun including gifts with almost each newsstand edition.
Newspaper Magazine Supplements
Covermounts aren't the only thing newspapers have gleaned from the magazine industry: many Brit newspapers are including magazines as well. Every major British paper has at least one supplemental magazine in their weekend edition. Each week The Sunday Times includes magazine supplements that cover style and culture as well as news and events in a more magazine style than the morning paper. These are full-fledged glossy magazines with in-depth features, few advertisements and great design.
(Magpie adds: Though, I don’t get Hindustan Times, but I assume HT weekend supplement called 'Brunch’ falls into this category)
Weeklies
All over the British newsstands you can find a weekly that fits your taste. From celebrities to sex to reality television, weeklies cover every topic you may have a compulsion toward. And this is made even more accessible with the low cost of many of these weeklies. With prices less than a pound and with so many choices the British newsstand is a very reader-friendly environment for weekly titles.

Husni ends by saying:
A “newspaper is no longer enough; a magazine is no longer enough; a television show is no longer enough; instead, the newspaper must take the reader from the newsprint to the internet, from the internet to the magazine, from the magazine to the television. Our media must never give a dead end to our readers. We must be constantly sending them to other vehicles where they can consume our product. Otherwise we will be irrelevant and out of touch with our audience”

For complete unedited article, read: “Welcome to the Publishing 360 World”

Newspapers: Very Much Alive

I still read my morning newspaper. In fact, I read three newspapers everyday. One in the morning (before my three-year-old gets up) and another two when I get back from work. Since, I don’t have a TV at home, Newspapers are my main source of news and information.

And now The Economist (a magazine that calls itself a newspaper :)) announces the impending demise of newspapers in its latest issue. The article claims "the business of selling words to readers and selling readers to advertisers, which has sustained their role in society, is falling apart." Newspapers that haven't already migrated to the Web will either do so or disappear, the magazine predicts. It notes that print circulation has been plunging in America, Western Europe, Latin American, Australia and New Zealand for decades, although print newspaper sales have curiously been rising in other parts of the world.
Does that include India? Surprisingly yes!

Consider this: Yesterday, I got the press release announcing an agreement between Wall Street Journal and HT Media Limited under which HT Media's soon-to-be-launched business newspaper and Web site will publish Wall Street Journal branded pages that will contain business and business of life news and information from the Journal, WSJ.com and Marketwatch.com. This news follows HT Media's recently disclosed plans to launch a national business newspaper in India, written and edited for global Indian business readers and international business travelers.

And according to World Association of Newspapers (WAN), in 2005, China had the world's largest newspaper circulation with 93.5 million a day, India came second with 78.8 million, followed by Japan, with 70.4 million; the United States, with 48.3 million; and Germany, with 22.1 million.

Publishing: 5 Printing Technologies to Watch

The July issue of Media Business is available for download at b2bonline.com. The latest issue carries a list of five printing solutions that promise to boost efficiency and cuts publishing costs. They are:
1.JDF: Job definition format (JDF) provides a common, dedicated language for use throughout the lifecycle of the print job and a method for automated work flows in print production. Changing to JDF will eliminate the need for publishers to send heavily marked-up proofs to printers since everything will be noted digitally.
2. Softproofing: Softproofing, or viewing pages on a computer rather than as a hard copy, is another technology that promises to help automate work flows. But while many printers and publishers already do this, there isn’t yet a fully standardized set of color numbers for the industry to follow. Softproofing is expected to eliminate problems and costs associated with hardproofing and cut down on time dealing with printers and ad agencies.
3. Co-mailing: Several printing companies have recently opened sophisticated co-mailing facilities. Quebecor is working to add polybagging to its co-mailing services, having already solved the puzzle of how to co-mail titles with advertising belly bands. RR Donnelley is focused on its co-mailing tracking and tracing capabilities, which allow publishers to see delivery confirmation by postal destination, the total number of pieces in a shipment and the date.
4. Digital Editions: Publishers Press, magazine printing specialist, is one of many printers getting into the digital-editions business. Fry Communications is cranking out 30,000 pages of electronic editions each month and has focused on getting content quickly up onto publisher Web sites with multimedia attached.
5. Personalization: As more information about readers gets digitized, personalization is becoming easier for publishers. Fry Communications recently installed a perfect binder that can selectively polybag titles with up to five outserts. It can also print a personalized message on the outside of the polybag.

Download the entire issue of Media Business or read the article here.

Circulation: Time, Spin Innovate to Improve Engagement

Time magazine's Paid circulation for the second half of 2005 was flat at 4 million, but compared to the same period the previous year, Newsstand sales fell 16.3 percent
During the same period the circulation of music magazine Spin fell 5.3 percent to 540,901 copies, with both subscriptions and newsstand down year-over-year
(both figures from Audit Bureau of Circulations).

This week has seen announcements of significant changes from both magazines in an attempt to improve reader engagement and push up readership figures.

SPIN: Bigger for Better Photos….
Starting with its September issue, Spin increases its trim size from 8-by-10 inches to 9-by-11 inches.

Publisher Malcolm Campbell believes that the move will enable the 21-year-old monthly to include more photos and to stand out on newsstands. It will also help get in more ads. Accompanying the size change are more value-adds like a music player on spin.com (to allow readers to hear the bands they’re reading about) and a new column, "The Spin Mix: Songs You Need to Download Now." The magazine will also will be printed on recycled paper stock.

TIME:Weekend Reading
As a first step toward "redefining the relationship between the reader, the magazine and TIME.com" TIME magazine plans to shift its on-sale date from Monday to Friday, The change which is effective from January 2007, brings back the magazine's original Friday delivery date established by founding editor Henry Luce in 1923.
The publishers believe that the pre-weekend delivery will allow readers to spend more time with the magazine. Copies will hit newsstands on Fridays and most subscribers will receive their magazines by Saturday.
Their competition 'Newsweek' hits the stands on Monday.

Newspaper and magazines have been cost-cutting for last few years. Staff lay-offs seem to be most 'popular' (or rather unpopular) method of cost cutting. Reducing the size of broadsheet to compact, cutting page numbers are few others.
The steps taken by 'Time' and 'Spin' seem more postive as they aim at 'enhancing readership' rather than cost cutting. Let's hope readers and advertisers respond positively too ....

Trends: Catazines and Magalogs

Justice, a specialty retailer of apparel for girls ages 7 to 14 launched a "catazine," a cross between a catalog and a magazine, this month. Justice's catazine caters exclusively to increasingly fashion-conscious tweens and will help tweens put together the perfect back-to-school outfit. The new, 52-page catalog, called Justice, was mailed to about 1 million girls ages 7-14, according to DM News.

Increasing, we see magazines becoming catalogs and catalogs becoming magazines. Lucky Magazine, the magazine about shopping, is generally credited with starting the trend. This new breed of magazine doesn't rely on celebrities or 'how-to' sex stories. In fact, new-style magalogs make some things work that catalogs can't. While catalogers, less than successfully tried to insert pages of sticky tabs for customers to attach to a page of an item they wanted to buy, Lucky can offer this and gain, as it sells these as part of a paid ad.

What makes Catazines different from Magalogs?
Not entirely sure, but it seems that in Magalogs, unlike in regular magazines, virtually every editorial block highlights charms of a particular item, provides the url or phone number to purchase it.
Catazine is a catalog-turned-magazine. Catalogs are usually brought out by one big retailer or a brand name unlike magalogs which feature multiple brands....

Still confused? Read the article "Serious Competition or Opportunity" By Katie Muldoon, president of DM/catalog consulting firm Muldoon & Baer.

Design: Neville Brody, Nick Bell and Scott Goodson in Goa?

According to a mailer inviting entries to Kyoorius Design Yatra 2006, a design festival that aims to serve as a platform that brings together Indian and international design communities, it is likely that these three names will be in Goa from 7th September to 10th September as Speakers.

More about the men and their magazine experience…

Neville Brody is a British graphic designer, typographer and art director, known for his work on The Face magazine (1981–1986) and Arena magazine (1987–1990), as well as for designing record covers for artists such as Cabaret Voltaire and Nine Inch Nails.
He was one of the founding members of FontFont (now FontShop) in London and designed a number of notable typefaces for them. He was also partly responsible for instigating the FUSE project an influential fusion between a magazine, graphics design and typeface design.

Nick Bell was creative director of Eye, the highly influential international review of graphic design from 1997 to 2005. He is now Special Consultant and occasional contributor to the magazine. His experience on Eye has enabled him to develop a more curatorial method of editorial design – one he has adapted very successfully for the design of exhibitions.

Scott Goodson is the Co-founder of StrawberryFrog, an agency based in Amsterdam and New York. Fortune Magazine has hired the New York office of StrawberryFrog to help build its brand. Fast Company reported some months ago that Fortune expects Strawberry Frog to add coolness to its brand image.

According to the mailer the event will also see the launch of Kyoorius Design Magazine, a quarterly magazine that covers Indian design scene. Initial print-run is expected to be about 5000 copies. The magazine would be circulated in India, Europe, USA and Southeast Asia (in phases). The launch issue is estimated to weigh in at 84 pages, covering 12 prominent design studios over India, with the theme "the future starts here".

Those intersted in enrolling for the event can register here

LaunchPAD: Reed Infomedia announces Six Titles

Reed Infomedia India (51:49 joint venture between Reed Business International and Infomedia India Ltd) plans to launch six B2B magazines in India. ‘JCK’, a trade magazine on jewellery is the first to launched in October 2006, to coincide with the JCK trade show to be held in New Delhi.

Following ‘JCK’ will be five more titles:
Variety: Targeted at the film fraternity, including multiplex owners, distributors and exhibitors.
Flight International: On the aviation industry.
Logistics Management: Targets production heads of companies, purchase managers, logistics managers and line managers.
Control Engineering: A magazine on manufacturing automation and high-end machines.
ICIS: On the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries.

All these magazines will have controlled circulation, except for ‘Variety’, which will sell on the newsstand. A print run of 20,000-40,000 copies is being planned initially for each magazine.

NEWS Source: AgencyFAQs.com
You can read the complete unedited news here

LaunchPAD: 25 Titles in Seven Months

From January 2006 to end of July 2006, Indian Media market saw more than 25 new magazine launches. Key observations on the launches:

Region- specific magazines are very well received. Many are also using latest technologies to reach their target groups, for example 080 (Monthly Bangalore Update for the International Bangalorean) is also available digitally at www.080mag.com.

Many titles like Marie Claire (Outlook group/French Marie Claire Group), Global Services (CyberMedia and CMP Media) PCWorld India (indian subsidiary of IDG worldwide) Computeractive (Next Gen Publishing Ltd. And VNU Business Media) are results of Indian and Foreign collaboration

Indian Titles are also looking at expanding their reach outside India. 'BioSpectrum' from CyberMedia was launched in Singapore in order to establish it as India's first exclusive biotechnology business magazine that aims to extended its territory into the Asia

Special interest media makes a foray into regions. Infomedia India launched Hindi editions of two of its leading special interest publications, we also see a Tamil publication in automobile category

Detailed listing of titles released in the last seven months:

General Interest Magazines:

Technology Magazines:
B2B/ Professional Magazines:
Region-specific Magazines
Non-English Language Magazines
Have we missed mentioning your magazine launch?
Please drop a mail at magscene.com@gmail.com to report any discrepancy in the tables above or to add to our list.

Those interested in a detailed list of newspapers and magazines launched this year, can visit the monthly newsletters India Media Observer.

NOTE: Some tables have minor errors. However due to some problem with Blogger I am unable to load corrected versions. Please excuse the error, I am working on the problem. Will rectify it soon!

B2B: 2006 Harris Study highlights effectiveness of B2B Media

B2B magazines more informative and reliable than general media
A recently published study by Harris Interactive and American Business Media highlights the importance of Business Media among executives. The study, conducted between February 2006 and April 2006 with 588 completed interviews, is said to be projectable to the entire B2B industry. Key findings include:
• Executives report regular usage of B2B magazines. Senior executives not only read more magazines than mid-level executives, they spend more time with those magazines.
• Sales people and B2B magazines are the most involving sources of information, with trade shows and B2B websites not too far behind. General business media such as magazines, television and newspapers, fall low on the engagement scale. (see the accompanying graphic)
• When asked what source of information executives rely on to do their job best, B2B magazines (41%) comes out on top as the single most mentioned resource, well above any general business media.

You can download a presentation that captures the key findings of the study here

More about B2B Magazines in India later this month...