Glamour stole the show with an impressive entrance into the women’s lifestyle/fashion sector, driven by a £4m marketing campaign and its handbag-sized A5 format. The title swept in just 690 copies behind Cosmopolitan with a debut ABC of 451,486.
Duncan Edwards, deputy managing director of The National Magazine Company, owner of Cosmopolitan, suggested it was Glamour’s £1.50 cover price rather than size that was driving up sales. "If we were to sell Cosmo for £1.50, I’d be disappointed with sales of 450,000," he said.
NatMags, IPC and Emap insist they have no plans to try out the smaller format. While the launch activity has grown the sector by 17.8 per cent, some publishers remained sceptical about the progress of recent launches In Style and Eve.
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In Style editor Dee Nolan said in a publisher’s statement that she was "delighted" with sales at 150,344. However, Louise Matthews, managing director of Elan Entertainment at Emap, suggested the title would have been looking for sales more towards 180,000 given the scale of the launch.
BBC Worldwide’s £2m title, Eve, posted an ABC of 131,369, thanks to bulk sales and showed every cloud has a silver lining when wet weather coincided with a covermounted umbrella to attract extra readers.
As the sector suffered the closures of Bare, PS and Nova earlier in the year, Marie Claire, Essentials, Woman’s Journal, Woman and Home and Family Circle saw sales slide.
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Rita Lewis, publishing director at IPC Southbank, stressed Marie Claire would deliver growth in the next half under new editor Marie O’Riordan.
Company fell 14.4 per cent on the previous period while Red shot up 11.4 per cent.
By Ruth Addicott
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