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March 31, 2005updated 22 Nov 2022 2:54pm

BSME to confront Blair

By Press Gazette

By Alyson Fixter

Britain’s leading magazine editors were due to confront the Prime
Minister on Thursday over fears that a controversial decision by the
Office of Fair Trading could cause hundreds of small magazines to fold.

One hundred members of the British Society of Magazine Editors
(BSME), headed up by GQ editor Dylan Jones, were offered the audience
with Tony Blair as part of the PM’s election campaign.

But they were expected to use the opportunity to question him on the OFT issue.

The OFT announced last month that laws on magazine distribution were anti-competitive and should be scrapped.

Publishers
have warned that the result could be greater buying power for big
chains and more niche titles being taken off the shelves.

Thirty
editors, including Jones, Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman and Elsa
McAlonan, editor of Woman’s Own, have also written to Blair about their
concerns.

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Jones said in advance of the meeting: “Blair will be
meeting with 100 magazine editors who, just on a quick survey of
readership figures, probably reach about seven eighths of the
population.

The OFT ruling will be one of the questions we will
raise, along with the issues that came up [such as abortion] in the
pieces in Glamour and Cosmo this month.”

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

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