The Magazine Industry - ownership

MAGAZINE INDUSTRY

In the UK, the magazine industry operates as an OLIGOPOLY. An oligopoly is where several companies have grown larger and larger whilst competing, to the point where they all have equal power and they all dominate the market. In the UK the companies that dominate the magazine market are:

HEARST - produce 300 worldwide magazines with their UK company Hearst UK publishing 24 magazines in Britain including Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health, Elle, Esquire, Good Housekeeping and Company. They also run 22 major websites including GetLippy.com and Sugarscape.co.uk They also publish 30 international newspapers, 2 radio stations, 30 international TV Channels, 3 international online channels (eg Cosmopolitan TV) and several real estate companies. They also co-own another magazine company with a US company (Rodale) called Natmag Rodale (health magazines) and co-own a distribution company called COMAG with Conde Nast. Hearst UK tried to buy another magazine company EMAP in 2009 to increase their power but their bid of £700 million was turned down

IPC MEDIA – They produce 60 magazines in Britain including NME, Nuts, Woman’s Own, Marie Claire, Loaded etc. Their magazines get bought by 26 million people a month, and their websites get visited by nearly 20 million people a month

BAUER (incorporating EMAP) – They produce over 280 magazines worldwide with 80 of those in Britain including Bliss, Empire, FHM, Heat, Kerrang, Take a Break and Q. Bauer bought EMAP (a magazine company) for £1.4 billion in 2009 and have carried on producing their magazines since then

CONDE NAST – They produce over 30 magazines in Britain including Glamour, Wired, Vogue and Vanity Fair. They co-own a magazine distribution company with Hearst UK called COMAG

CONCLUSION: The results of operating as part of an oligopoly is that all of these companies have to try and compete with each other, and MUST do everything they can to stay on top of the competition. If another company does something to increase their readership, they must either do the same, or try and do something better.

Example:

In 2001 Conde Nast introduced Glamour Magazine, the UK’s first handbag sized magazine. It was so successful that it overtook Cosmopolitan as most popular women’s magazine. Hearst UK were worried about this and so they then launched the travel sized edition of Cosmo in 2004 and now both the full size and travel size version are available in the shops at the same time. Unfortunately although this did increase sales of Cosmo, it wasn’t enough to topple Glamour as the best selling Women’s monthly mag.