The Face and Just 17 may close

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Story on Media Guardian here:
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1167809,00.html

My first reaction is 'they just can't!'. But Emap have a habit of closing magazines I like, so they probably will. I feel rather gutted about this. J17 and The Face, along with Melody Maker and the NME, were the publications that first made me fall in love with magazines, with journalism. I admit my obsession is unhealthy (I'm not obsessed because it's my job to be, I do this job because of the obsession, there was never any doubt in my mind that I wouldn't.), but I feel like the house I grew up in is about to be demolished.

Other more balanced thoughts please.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Press & publishing
Axe hangs over The Face as falling sales force Emap titles review
Dan Milmo and Jane Martinson
Friday March 12, 2004
The Guardian
The Face, the style magazine that was at the cutting edge of 80s and 90s culture, is facing closure more than two decades after its launch.
Emap, the media group which bought it in 1999, is undertaking a review of its titles - a move which is also likely to result in the closure of its now 21-year-old teenage magazine, Just 17.
The group is expected to tell staff today that the future of both titles is under review. Some 20 journalists work on The Face.
A final decision is not expected for several weeks, but the survival of The Face as a monthly magazine is thought to be unlikely.
Emap has not ruled out selling the title, which helped launch Kate Moss as a supermodel and defined publishing for an era. The company is also considering a website version of the title.
Emap would not comment on the closure yesterday, but a spokesman said: "We are reviewing our titles. The Face and Just 17 are under particular consideration."
Launched in 1980, a year after Margaret Thatcher came to power, The Face became the bible of counter-culture.
Cultural commentator Peter York said it epitomised the aesthetic backlash against the former prime minister: "Just being cool was to be oppositional because Thatcher was so uncool."
The Face was never a mass-market publication but its modest circulation has suffered since the turn of the millennium, slipping to 40,000 from 71,000 in 1999, which even then was considered a crisis point. It now sells an average of 24,500 copies a month in the UK and Ireland, with the rest sold overseas.
The consumer magazine market has never been more cut-throat, with upstart celebrity publications such as Heat now attracting an average readership of 566,000. But Heat's success underlines The Face's failure.
If the 90s represented the apex of clubbing, Britpop and urban music culture, then the new millennium has seen the cultural mainstream taken over again by instant celebrities.
The stylish Face, which was too proud to give away CDs on its cover before succumbing with a Basement Jaxx mini-record three years ago, simply found itself out of fashion.
In November 1980, David Bowie was the cover star, but in July 1999 it was carrying a 20-page special on the Star Wars prequel, the Phantom Menace.
It briefly broke back into the mainstream three years ago, when a cover story on David Beckham featured the footballer posing, blood-drenched, in cruciform.
One former Emap executive said there were doubts over the magazine's longevity when it was bought, along with Arena, at the turn of the century for £16m: "The question then was: is this a 90s brand we are buying or can we push it into the next decade? - and that's what they ended up buying."
Although the magazine is understood to have made money for Emap, it has been losing cash in the past year. Its recent love-hate relationship with popular culture is epitomised by Popbitch, the gossip website. The site is run by the editor of The Face, Neil Stevenson, who was appointed in 2002 with the remit of turning the ailing title around.
While Popbitch has had its brushes with the legal fraternity, The Face nearly closed in 1992 when the former Neighbours star Jason Donovan successfully sued the magazine for insinuating that he was gay and then accusing him of being a liar and a hypocrite when he denied it. The Australian actor rescued the magazine from bankruptcy by agreeing to forego 70% of the £290,000 bill for damages and costs.
As well as championing every major youth movement from the new romantics to acid house and garage, The Face's design revolutionised the publishing industry in the 80s. Neville Brody, the magazine's first art director, who designed the title from 1981 to 1986, became one of the world's most influential graphic designers .
But there was much more to The Face than design. It was also the home of some of the best writing, and in Gavin Hills it employed one of the foremost journalists of his generation.
Emap sources said the axe fell as executives drew up the budget for the next financial year and crossed off titles that had not responded to re-launches and new editors.
Just 17, another long-running Emap title, has been steadily losing readers to rivals considered more in keeping with the livelier - and, some would say - racier teenage market.
The magazine has been crit icised by analysts for failing to keep up with demographic and social changes in the fast-moving teenage market for some time.
According to the most recent ABC circulation figures for Just 17, some 134,000 copies of the title were sold last month. That compares with 250,000 for Bliss, Emap's newer magazine targeted at the same age group.
When The Face was acquired by Emap, media observers feared the magazine would lose its cutting edge and become a bland, sterile product. Emap defied the doubters and stuck with the magazine despite consistently declining sales, but Mr York predicted its fate four years ago when he said: "Some magazines simply have a life of their time, and that's that."
Separately, Emap Performance, the group's broadcasting division, is understood to be cutting jobs across its radio stations and music magazines in an attempt to cut costs.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:17 (twenty-two years ago)

How often do magazine titles get sold off to other publishers?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I wonder if the circulation of J17 has been badly hit by the likes of the teen version of Cosmo?

oh, x-post - you just answered that with your post above!

― C J (C J), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Is this because they couldn't work out how to do a J17 and Face radio / MTV station alike.

I felt this way when the Penny post and King & Country folded.[/marcello]

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes Pete, 'brand extension' - spit spit spit.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, it was J17, NME, MM, Face (and also Smash Hits) for me too. I have to admit I haven't bought the Face for a few months - the last time I did I just didn't like the layout. Text all over the place looks pretty from a distance but when it comes down to reading the thing it's just annoying.

Back when I read it cover to cover on the day it came out each month, articles by Gavin Hills and Andrew Mueller changed the way I thought about a lot of things and there were some good book recommendations too. I was the first person I knew who read Trainspotting, which was important to me at the time, though rather less so now.

― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:26 (twenty-two years ago)

GREAT NEWS FOR ALL OUR READERS:

The Face Of A Someone Who Is Just Seventeen
(Imagine how horrible the cover of that magazine would be).

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

The problem with Emap is that it should never have bought The Face in the first place.

(Gavin Hills, sob. He was lovely). Also Madchen are you sure you don't mean Andrew Smith? I can't imagine Mueller changing anyone's life

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe I'm getting confused - I thought he did an article about Afghanistan long before any of the press were taking any notice (I knew a bit about it already because of my Mum's involvement in a charity working with refugees in Aghanistan, Iran and Pakistan).

― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:32 (twenty-two years ago)

It could be either, but Smith's the better writer. Mueller always wants such a big fucking pat on the head for being right-on, which puts me right off his work.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:33 (twenty-two years ago)

AM changed my life very slightly by being such an obnoxious curmudgeon whenever I had to phone him.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:33 (twenty-two years ago)

The kind of guy that's up on all his -isms but neither knows nor cares about whether he's being sexist.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I've never met the guy, so personal issues don't come into it. I'll stand by him because it was the first article I'd seen on what was/is an important topic for me by quite some way and I was pleased it was in my magazine rather than a Sunday supplement.

― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Hate to say I told you so, and hate to agree with Peter York, but I recently opined on my website:

'All those 90s style mags like Dazed and Sleaze and Wallpaper*, they seem pretty finished. They won't really survive the transition to this decade, just like Blitz didn't survive the transition to the 90s. Vice is, like it or not, setting the tone.'

That may be the most optimistic reading. The depressing reading is that Zoo Weekly is setting the tone.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Media/Pix/pictures/2004/01/05/Weekly3.jpg

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:41 (twenty-two years ago)

How have Zoo and Nuts sold?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:42 (twenty-two years ago)

My Face era was roughly 86-90 when Penman often seemed to be writing half the magazine himself (though I was really more of a Blitz boy). I still bought maybe four issues a year (I think the last one was the Pharrell issue) but, though I enjoyed the art direction and photography, I just didn't find very much to read in it any more.

Suzy, how does the Edgy Style Mag keep going? What are its sales figs compared to the Face's?

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Edgy Style Mag is clearly a front for something else.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:43 (twenty-two years ago)

i'll be amazed if Zoo and Nuts are still going by the end of the decade tho. the weekly novelty won't last. monthlies have started to seem quite outmoded though, thanks to speedy internet mainly (market saturation also huge factor) - these same reasons apply to music industry (labels and shops going bust)

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I hope The Face doesn't die. I bought my first issue in ages - the Brody Dalle one - recently, and found myself reading it from cover to cover with relish. Didn't realise it sold so little though - I'd always assumed it was up there with Q around the 140k mark. Hmmm.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Nuts is poor. Zoo Weekly is double poor. And if you want to buy one, don't worry, there's loads left. Give it six months, both will be gone.

Havent bought The Face in Many years. (I have editions 1 to 10 in a box in the attic)... Should have a look at this months.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd also be interested to know what Word's sales are like. It's not great, but it'd be a shame if they went under because they didn't have the EMAP/IPC clout to give away a free cd every month.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes well I'd rather have the full on style-regime of Wallpaper* magazine compared to the sugar-free-wallpaper*-lite lifestyle bollix which pass for most newspaper supplements, G2 to thread!

Taking sides: Just 17 or FeMail... ARGHHHHHHH.

Anyway, it's J-17 these days. To be honest I think it's a fair point that these may be due for the axe. I never read the Face so I care less about that then I do for J-17. I'm quite sad that CosmoGirl UK has a different attitude to CosmoGirl US, which ISTR a couple of years ago was actually quite (gasp!) empowering (dare I say that word), in that along with the 'here are the latest new look fashions' it had fun and well written stuff about education and careers and creative pursuits! The UK one, on a recent reading was a load of auld toss.

― Sarah (starry), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Nuts at least has been doing quite well in sales terms. Sadly. On Monday there were a load of protesters outside IPC towers for International Women's Day with banners reading "Nuts to sexism!"

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I keep forgetting - which is the one with full nudity?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:50 (twenty-two years ago)

(nb. this is not a shopping advice request)

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Gosh, my last post sounded ever so "right on", I do apologise.

Zoo, innit?

― Sarah (starry), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to date a Smash Hits journalist in the 80s, and I remember going to meet her at the offices on Carnaby Street, which were also Just 17's, and the NME's. What really struck me was that the Smash Hits and NME writers (including my date) were all peculiarly sexually-repressed, whereas the Just 17 writers were pretty healthy and frisky. It seemed odd that such different attitudes should all be going on in the same building.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Hmm. Remind me, which ones of those three employ music journalists?

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I am curious as to Momus's definition of 'peculiarly sexually-repressed'.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 12 March 2004 11:57 (twenty-two years ago)

It would be ungentlemanly of me to say more, as I am still in touch with the person concerned (she sent me a postcard recently). The lines from Bowie's 'Breaking Glass' come to mind: 'You're such a wonderful person... but you've got problems...'

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Zoo/Nuts are J17 for 12-yr-old boys. Vice is the New York Press of style magazines.

Somehow my own Edgy Style Mag manages to be both a) reinventive and b) out of this sort of melee, I'm sure because the founder still holds the vast majority of shares in the company and has turned down a fair few offers over time. I'm not sure what the sales figs are as it stays out of the ABCs but my guess is 50-70k British readers depending on who is on the cover, same amount abroad. They are working a niche and that is its size; it's the fashion/art/'creative' industry bible in a way that the others aren't, and the most international by far of all of these magazines. Salaries and fees to work there have never been high; photographers work for cost as a showcase for their work, but you're at least paid on time.

There have been rumours for the past four months that at the very least the Face's editor was for the chop. The approach that style magazines have to take, where they get in early with things and write positively but intelligently, is harder to accomplish now; access to your story is at once near but kept at arm's length.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Was it a specific request she balked at?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Did she draw something awful on your carpet?

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Ha ha.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm talking about what they wrote as well. Just 17 was racy, Smash Hits rather squirmy and ironic about sex.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes but if you wanted real raciness you bought MORE magazine.

― Sarah (starry), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Well more importantly the NME and Smash Hits were about music. J17 wasn't.

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Most famous Smash Hits staff writer: Neil Tennant

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:05 (twenty-two years ago)

and Tom Hibbert, too. I guess SH had a repressed public schoolboy attempting to release their inner 13 year old girl vibe going.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:06 (twenty-two years ago)

(Remembers that Alan McGee signed Momus to Creation in 1986 saying he wanted 'artists that appeal to Face readers'... and that the Momus Face feature that month was written by Smash Hits girl... Wishes hadn't raised this topic...)

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Was More magazine around in the 80s? I associate it with a later time.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:07 (twenty-two years ago)

J17 gone? Oh no! Oh god, if Smash Hits ever closes down, I'll commit suicide. Seriously.

The Face? Good riddance, mutter mutter etc.

― The River Kate (kate), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess SH had a repressed public schoolboy attempting to release their inner 13 year old girl vibe going.

Now I am imagining 80s Smash Hits being staffed by an army of Tom Ewings and it's a bit disturbing.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:10 (twenty-two years ago)

The words Army, and Tom Ewing do not fit in the same sentence (mutter mutter, gawd help us if there was a war. Oh there was. Then a big one then.)

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:11 (twenty-two years ago)

A soundclash?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Remember - only 2% of the infantry actually fire at the enemy - the rest are reviewing Britney records.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:14 (twenty-two years ago)

.. and in a friendly fire situation, 34% of complainants responded "Hit me baby one more time.."

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:36 (twenty-two years ago)

But one thing I feel quite strongly about The Face is that it is one of quite a small number of UK magazines which seems to hold on to a certain positive idea of beauty. I think this is because it came up with the New Romantic movement, which was a rare flash of pure aestheticism in an otherwise rather pragmatic and laddish culture. The lad mags of today are about 'nooky' rather than sex, and mostly about football anyway:

"Stories in Zoo must be sexy, funny, or about football," says (editor) Merrill. "Ideally, a story will be all three at the same time, and if it's none of those things it's ditched."

The UK mags I buy, and that focus on what I'd call beauty, are Wire and Frieze. Both started in the 90s (or late 80s?) but staffed by people formed by that New Romantic sensibility of 'beauty' -- Michael Bracewell in Frieze, for instance, who was a stalwart of Blitz, the archetypal 80s 'beauty style mag', and all the ex-80s NME people at Wire. These magazines are in a demographic bubble and a time warp, it seems. Then again, what if that kind of beauty interest is in Britain's future as well as its past? If only in a 'return-of-the-repressed' sort of way?

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I've only bought the Face on rare occasions... it seemed to be aimed at trend people rather than the actual kids. But it was always nicely packaged and full of pretty pictures of anorexic smacked out models. I will be sorry to see it go, however.

the most recent issue I bought had a photoarticle in it about Palestine... it was really strange, treating a conflict and world of human misery as an excuse for KEWL pictures.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 12 March 2004 12:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Skipping 73 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

xpost: haha Suzy, I'm sure. However, I was only speaking about the shame they should feel toward their investors. "Uh, we couldn't figure out what to do with a venerable and still viable style bible, so we uh... shut it down."

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 22 March 2004 22:36 (twenty-one years ago)

There were many places The Face could have taken me and I'm sorry I chose very few of them. I'm a little more sorry it has to go.

― Barima (Barima), Monday, 22 March 2004 22:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Spencer: well, at director level they don't give a shit about trendies and also come to resent them in a creepy Middle England way if they used to be trendy themselves (see also 'mirror, mirror on the wall', or are these weird plastic people who you can't quite imagine outside a hermetic corporate culture, or are LCD ad guys who go through all the societally proscribed vanilla life stages with extra booze. I'm shocked every time I see one of these media CEOs who don't seem to have one shred of connection to writing or otherwise creating stuff for a magazine; they always seem so hacky-tacky and stilted to me.

(well said Barima)

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 22 March 2004 22:51 (twenty-one years ago)

(Thanks, suzy)

My collection of Face back issues is a source of quiet pride for me (even though it's mostly late 90s, it's still great for re-reading).

― Barima (Barima), Monday, 22 March 2004 23:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I can think of one person who has connections to them who has the money to buy it, but her partner might feel a tad (more) emasculated.

Kate Moss and Jefferson Hack?

― James Mitchell (James Mitchell), Monday, 22 March 2004 23:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Eeeeuw. No, although she does have the money.

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 22 March 2004 23:46 (twenty-one years ago)

If emap are making a magazine called "popbitch", wouldn't they make a point of closing "the face" to remove competition?

So, one more edition to go and then it's 'if'?

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 10:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Are they?

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 10:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I was somewhat surprised to see EMAP feature in the Sunday Times's recent list of 'best employers to work for'

Ha! Yeah, best if you like being given a load of bollocks about 'nurturing young talent' only to find that they will suck you and your friends dry and then find a creative way of easing you out of the company.

― Anna (Anna), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 11:01 (twenty-one years ago)

... as long as you're not a writer, that is

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 11:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Your search - "best employers to work for" emap - did not match any documents.
Suggestions:

- Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
- Try different keywords.
- Try more general keywords.
- Try fewer keywords

― Anna (Anna), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 12:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm feeling a new wave of bitterness since they've recently managed to 'let go' of a few more people I'm fond of.

― Anna (Anna), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 12:39 (twenty-one years ago)

91: Emap

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 12:48 (twenty-one years ago)

"A smash hit with its staff"

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 12:48 (twenty-one years ago)

clearly the future is: you will all read heat and like it.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 12:54 (twenty-one years ago)

To be fair they do have a good development culture. They are big on new ideas. But they would rather shut something or sack someone and start right from the begining again than try and find ways around the problem. Focus grouping and brand extensions are kings, so as Ed said you will read heat and like it.

― Anna (Anna), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 13:03 (twenty-one years ago)

So what is the Edgy Style Mag you are on about?
Sleaze sells 2k and Dazed sells between 3-7k, I can't remember I-D's but it's still up for sale innit? Please tell...

― Debord (Debord), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 13:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not sure what the sales figs are as it stays out of the ABCs but my guess is 50-70k British readers depending on who is on the cover, same amount abroad.

can that possibly be true, suzy??

also does sleaze really only sell 2k? that sounds v low.

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 13:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I think an order of magnitude was left out.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 13:56 (twenty-one years ago)

And transferred to edgy style mag?

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 13:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Apparently Jockey Slut only used to sell 1500 but I haven't actually seen the figures for that. I was told by a guy from a record label - he said that the Jockey Slut ad sales guy had said - I don't know why everyone is worried about getting in Jockey Slut, it only sells 1,500!
Remember kids: there's only one reason a mag stays out of the ABC's - and it ain't to look cool.I reckon Edgy Style Mag is Dazed - what with the comments about not paying well (or at all!)...

― Debord (Debord), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Can I suggest that speculating about the actual identity of "edgy style mag" is a poor idea. Most of the threads on this board appear on google searches.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Why is that bad?

― Debord (Debord), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:10 (twenty-one years ago)

There is no WAY Jockey slut only sells 1500! It wouldn't be stocked in WHSmiths if that were the case.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Debord - because suzy doesn't want her employers seeing this.

Ricardo - you'd assume, but then again the Independent on Sunday only sells about 5000 copies in Scotland and you can get that in most newsagents. I guess there a lot of returns.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow. But then again Scotland is less than 10% of the UK population wise, so that would translate to 50,000 throughout the entire UK.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Well it isn't any more is it? I thought that figure was mental too, but seeing as no one reads it any more it kind of seems to be likely.
They stock Sleaze and it is HARD FACT that it sold about 2,200 copies as Sleaze Nation.

-I would think her employers ahve better things to do than read a board? Has she slagged them right off proper like on here?

― Debord (Debord), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Random googling has sunk people before. One of our ex-posters came up on the first page when you googled for the name of her employers.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh yeah, I know. But you don't find Jockey Slut in almost every newsagent. I don't really think the two are that comparable, but your disbelief just reminded me of my own when I read the Scottish ABC figures for newspapers and thought of all the newsagents there are.

Did you see that thing about the Wall Street Journal's court case with al-Fayed, where it emerged that it only had three web subscribers in the whole of the UK?

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry - that was in reply to Ricardo.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Err - Ricardo's post before last.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Can I suggest that speculating about the actual identity of "edgy style mag" is a poor idea. Most of the threads on this board appear on google searches

I'm not sure there's much danger of that. The names of the magazines must be on thousands of web pages, and a google search of S-- C-- by herself doesn't even find the two instances of it on ILX. A far better reason is that it's rude.

xpost - see here for reasons to be careful about slagging off even web-ignorant employers: Putting your blog details on a job application, C or D?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree it's rather far-fetched, but suzy's said before that she doesn't want it on here, so yeah, I think her privacy should be respected.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:23 (twenty-one years ago)

I bow to your superior knowledge, N. There must be a hell of a lot of unread pages slopping to and fro between distributors and newsagents every week.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:24 (twenty-one years ago)

well, yes, that as well. (x-post)

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Ricardo - that's why you only rip the covers off and send them back...
I understand the privacy thing now.
Are there many journo types on here then? Is it like an informal union?
Surely there aren't enough magazines or people who actually buy interesting music any more to support a whole message board!

― Debord (Debord), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd better not stop reading the IOS or their Scottish circulation will go down to 4999.

― leigh (leigh), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

There are quite a few writers on ILE, Debord, yeah. I'm not really one of them, though I do work in the media.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:38 (twenty-one years ago)

(sidetopic: is the new look IoS now more attractive outside london? cos the demise of talk of the town makes it much less attractive inside london, and i'd always assumed that the majority of their circulation was in (greater) london.)

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:40 (twenty-one years ago)

The latest IoS Scottish sale is actually 5927 - up 17.2% (or err.. 869 copies) on the same month last year. Keep up the good work, leigh!

The Business (prev. Sunday Business)'s sale north of the border is even more ridiculous - 689 copies a week.

Toby - yes, I enjoyed the new magazine and wondered if it meant that Talk of the Town had disappeared.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 14:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Debord, I thought you drank yourself to death en derive ten years ago when I used to write for the Face.

ESM is not for divulging, this is not negotiable. But it sells a damn sight better than the Face has done recently, at least 40,000. The fragmentation of the mag market means that *no* title sells as much as five years ago, even.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 16:52 (twenty-one years ago)

two weeks pass...

Ooh! Revive as they might have found a buyer!

http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1187059,00.html

― suzy (suzy), Wednesday, 7 April 2004 06:51 (twenty-one years ago)

You have to *register* to access the Guardian online? Fuck that!

― Super-Kate (kate), Wednesday, 7 April 2004 07:00 (twenty-one years ago)

No, Kate, just to read the media section.

The real 'fuck that' should be for the Independent and its 'Independent Portfolio'.

Anyway, the frontrunner to buy is Hachette Filipacci, who own Elle and Red.

― suzy (suzy), Wednesday, 7 April 2004 07:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Good news, then?

― Barima (Barima), Wednesday, 7 April 2004 13:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Hachette Filipacci

What a brillliant name. Is that a person?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 7 April 2004 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Sounds like an effeminate mafioso.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 7 April 2004 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, he's an enforcer for the Squillaci mob out of Trenton

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 7 April 2004 14:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Hachette is the name of the French company that launched Elle, Filipacci is the name of the famille wot own it.

― suzy (suzy), Wednesday, 7 April 2004 16:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Here's some news on this from today's WWD:

SAVING FACE: A future is forming for The Face, Emap’s fashion and pop culture title that closed last month after 24 years on the newsstand. An Emap spokeswoman said the deadline for sealed bids closed last week and the publisher has moved on to in-depth discussions with potential bidders, including venture capital groups and small, independent publishers. Industry sources said a group of London City financial types with bonus money to burn are among the contenders, and the offer price is in the neighborhood of $6.3 million, or 3.5 million pounds. Other contenders are believed to include Peter Howarth, managing director of the publishing company Show Media, and Ashley Heath, editorial director of Arena Homme Plus, another Emap title. Both declined to comment. The Emap spokeswoman would not discuss the names of the bidders, nor would she confirm the sales figure. “We’re looking for a speedy solution to the situation,” she added. “The Easter holidays set us back a bit, but we hope to make a decision by next month.” As reported in March, Emap suspended publication of The Face after the May issue. — Samantha Conti

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:18 (twenty-one years ago)

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