The enduring attraction of print

It's not just the web that keeps editors awake at night. Cheap weeklies and media fragmentation make for a tough life on the newsstands. Will Hodgkinson looks at why, despite the challenges, magazine sales continue to grow

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful," decreed William Morris, "or believe to be beautiful."

The British magazines that are thriving in a multimedia-expanded climate have taken the father of the arts and crafts movement at his word. The panoply of instant information available to anyone with an internet connection means that for magazines to be authorities in their field is no longer enough. They have to offer a world of their own - imbued with those twin essentials of function and beauty - that has resonance for the world beyond its pages. And the titles thriving in an age of media fragmentation are focusing on that elusive thing that any pop svengali will tell you is the key to success: identity.

Earlier this month at the annual Society of Editors conference in Manchester, the Mail on Sunday's Peter Wright defended his decision to include the new album by Prince as a CD giveaway by explaining that newspapers are no longer mere news services but "cultural packages ... put together by a remarkable collection of people with fingers on the pulse." The same can be said for magazines. There is still a demand. ABC figures confirm an overall year-on-year growth since 2006. But a newsstand magazine only has a place in the market if it offers something that no other format - newspaper supplements, television programmes and websites - can.

Men's magazine shake-up

The biggest changes of the last year have been happening in the men's sector. When IPC's Nuts and Emap's Zoo were launched in 2004 their weekly dosage of nipples, celebrities and healthy masculine pursuits like football and warfare, preferably all combined in some way, proved to be just what the young British man was looking for.

Subsequently, a number of the monthly titles had a panic attack and dropped any attempt at aspiration to appeal to the type of man that considers lamping a passer-by to be the ideal ending of a good night out. The policy didn't work and circulations suffered as a result. Men's Health and GQ stuck to their guns - covering all aspect of men's health and promoting a James Bond fantasy lifestyle, respectively - and it saw them through.

Now the other titles are following suit. Former Wallpaper* editor Jeremy Langmead's recent move to Esquire is a sign that we're seeing a return to the quality men's monthly.

"Clearly, for a monthly to copy a weekly is a very bad idea," says Men's Health editor Morgan Rees. "Magazines like FHM have realised that and they're going back to being a title that offers more than just girls. I do think the example of GQ and Men's Health doing their own thing has led to a reinvention in the men's market. Our remit has been to cover health in all aspects of a man's life and make sure we offer more than just train ride entertainment. That idea of providing a service has, I think, been influential on the market as a whole."

GQ's Dylan Jones has fashioned a public image that furthers the image of a GQ "type". The magazine he edits does not have cover-mounted CDs or DVDs, prides itself on a roster of big-name writers, and raises its profile with the annual Man of the Year awards, which manages to get very famous men associated with the magazine by offering them, well, awards.

"The awards reinforce the brand values of the magazine," says Jones. "Most awards ceremonies celebrate achievement in one field -film, sports, music and so on - but we celebrate men working in all these different disciplines, and by doing so get a message out of what GQ is about.

"The awards don't pay off financially; in fact they cost a fortune. But in terms of what they bring to the magazine, they are invaluable."

The whole concept of "brand-building" is bandied about so often in the magazine world that it's become a cliche, but its importance is undeniable.

At the turn of the millennium the New Musical Express was in trouble, being no longer sure if it was the left-leaning, serious-minded-but-also-irreverent music weekly of old or a comic starring rock stars instead of superheroes. Current editor Conor McNicholas, who seems like he would be happier displaying flow chart figures to IPC executives than burning out his nasal cavities in the back of a van with Pete Doherty, has understood that selling Brand NME has become key to its survival. The publication gains column inches through its annual Cool List - it's a ridiculous concept but an undeniably tantalising one - and gets out to a core teenage and student audience through its NME club nights.

McNicholas pushed the brand further this year by including a seven-inch single by the White Stripes as a covermount. The average NME reader may not even own a record player, but that won't stop the single from becoming a classic pop culture artefact and that can only help the title's status as the indie Smash Hits.

According to Dylan Jones, the future will see a polarisation of the market. "What has been happening in retail clothing will be happening increasingly in magazines," he predicts. "There will be a lot of fast-food activity from freesheets and downmarket weeklies, and then the top end will stay at the top - they will remain real luxury, glossy products."

Jones's forecast is borne out in the women's lifestyle titles. Celebrity-bashing/worshipping weeklies such as Heat and Closer sell over half a million copies each week, providing a fast fix of insubstantial but titillating diversions, and at the same time Vogue is having one of the strongest periods in its 90-year history. The magazine's profile is high - it frequently places stories in the papers, such as its recent nomination of London's number 19 bus route as one of the world's most glamorous locations - its circulation is strong, and it has maintained status as a byword for sophistication and glamour. How did that happen?

"Fashion coverage has never been higher, with more space given over to fashion in newspapers and the expansion of women's weeklies, and I thought we would be threatened by that," says Vogue's editor Alexandra Shulman. "In fact we've been empowered by it. A greater awareness of fashion has brought home the fact that Vogue is the authority in the field and does it better than anyone."

Applying William Morris's dictum to Vogue, the magazine is certainly beautiful. But does it have a function now that fashion is so instantly available on websites or cheap weeklies?

"Yes it does, because we have the ability to endorse and edit the vast amount of stuff that's out there," says Shulman. "The fact that Vogue is still thought of as an adjective is proof of that. But the weeklies and the websites have put more pressure on us to produce extraordinary, elaborate fashion pictures that nobody else is doing."

Much has changed in Vogue's 90-year history, how ever, and a fashion magazine cannot possibly remain static.

"Our old emphasis on two seasons and two collections is changing because the industry is changing," says Shulman. "We're driven by what is going on in retail and the world at large. At the same time we're not going to abandon our core values. There's a weightiness to Vogue that is integral to its continued success."

Escaping the screen

Despite widespread panic about the all-conquering power of the web, there were still 1,000 new magazines proposed this year, with a third of those making it into publication and on to the newsstand. In a recent speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Rupert Murdoch announced that print media had been "remarkably, unaccountably complacent" about the internet, but perhaps Paul Horrocks of the Manchester Evening News was more prescient when he stated at Manchester's Society of Editors conference: "What price for all the whizzes and whistles of new technology if we don't have audiences?"

Magazines have the power to offer an appealing experience that staring at a computer - which many of us do for our working hours these days - just doesn't.

"One of the problems about the internet is that information is everywhere and editing is nowhere," says Wallpaper's Richard Cook, who has overseen editorship of the magazine's hugely successful city guides. "So it ends up being dominated by he who shouts the loudest, which is generally Ron from Dagenham. There will always be a place for thought-through, planned and edited media and a magazine remains the best format for that."

The city guides have to hold their own against the internet more than most forms of print media. Google the name of a hotel you're considering staying at and you'll typically find scores of comments about it from contented or disgruntled former guests. Cook's challenge with the guides was to infuse them with the Wallpaper* style and ethos, thereby making them unique, but ultimately functional.

"The magazine is about finding beauty in unusual things, celebrating what's left behind, and looking at different ways to live well," says Cook. "We realised that we had missed a trick by not applying that to travel. The guides have offered a tightly edited take on a city, and they have helped the magazine too by expanding the Wallpaper* world to include people that might be put off by the glossy covers and the emphasis on design.

"There's a luddite streak in me that feels magazines are still the most accessible medium there is, especially when it comes to travel."

Ed Grenby of the Sunday Times travel magazine rejects the suggestion that the internet is a threat to magazines, arguing that websites are a natural extension of a brand. "If people find us online they're led to the magazine," he says.

"It's like Top Gear. To some people it's a website, to others it's a magazine and to others it's a television programme, and those three platforms complement one another. A travel magazine works the same way. We have discovered that people enjoy planning their holidays, and talking about them when they get back home, as much as they enjoy the holidays themselves. A magazine is part of that planning experience, and travel websites don't take away from it."

On a simple, physical level, magazines remain a modern entity. They have a pacing that suits modern life, whether that's sinking into an article for the duration of a train journey or poring over images on the sofa to relax after a day's work. One of the unexpected developments in recent years has been an upturn in the fortunes of Britain's current affairs titles, most notably the New Statesman and the Spectator, at a time when news is free and political comment blogs are rampant.

"You may get the latest about what's happening in Pakistan from your computer screen or your mobile phone, but authoritative, intelligent writing is a pleasure that people will pay for," says the New Statesman's editor John Kampfner on the trend. "We occupy the radical left position we always have, and we're absolutely clearly on our thinking, but there's space within that for different voices fitting into an overall tone that's appealing."

Magazines will endure as long as they continue to fulfill a function - and a little bit of beauty won't hurt, either. As Kampfner points out, "I'm chained to my computer all of the working day. The last thing I want to do when I get home is stare at it some more."

Magazines continue to offer companionship, entertainment, escapism and diversions both mindless and thought-provoking. They furnish the home and hang around as long as the next spring-clean or attic clearout. Until we do away with the material world entirely and upload our very beings on to the internet - and it could happen - magazines will continue to have a place in our lives.

Will Hodgkinson
The Guardian
19th November