Time Out goes down under

Time Out magazine has launched in Sydney - the 20th international edition of the iconic entertainment bible.
Sydney is the fourth magazine launched this year after Singapore in March, Delhi in April and Lisbon in September, a company spokesman said. It will be followed by the launch of Time Out Barcelona in December, to be published in Catalan.

The weekly magazine began in London in 1968 and now has local versions in cities as diverse as New York, Moscow and Dubai.

The Sydney edition, the first for Australia, hit the streets this week with an introductory $AUS1.95 (85p) cover price. The first issue covers the whole of October and the magazine will launch as a weekly at the end of this month, with the cover price yet to be announced.

Editor Angus Fontaine, a former editor of GQ and Ralph in Australia, said the magazine would celebrate the "rich, racy, utterly unique metropolis" of Sydney.

"The weekly mag that we're about to unleash on you will be an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of everything hot and happening in the city," Mr Fontaine said. "A great city deserves a great magazine. This is it."

Time Out owns or jointly owns Time Out in London, New York and Chicago and licences the brand in 17 other cities, including Sydney. The brand also includes a popular series of guide-books on cities or activities such as snowboarding.

The Sydney licence is held by independent publishing house Print and Digital Publishing, founded by Justin Etheridge and Michael Rodrigues, who are its joint CEOs.

Mr Etheridge, a former publisher of Time Out in the Middle East, is publisher of Time Out Sydney.

The magazine is based on the UK model and will cover arts, entertainment, fashion and food, with special sections for kids and the gay and lesbian audience.

The debut issue has 96 pages, covering topics from an exhibition of the photographs of Max Dupain at the NSW State Library to the school holiday programme at the Sydney Observatory. The print run for the first issue is understood to be 35,000.

The website, at www.timeout.com/sydney, has dedicated sections on Around Town, Arts, Books, Film, Food & Drink, Gay, Hotels, Kids, Music, Outdoor, Theatre, and Shopping and is to be updated daily.

There is no direct competitor to Time Out in Sydney, though the magazine will compete with free street newspapers such as The Drum and listings supplements in newspapers such as The Sydney Morning Herald and the Sydney-based The Daily Telegraph.

Caitlin Fitzsimmons
The Guardian