Glossy magazines have long been a staple of the newspaper sector. Publishers use them, usually on weekends, or on some Fridays for The Australian and The Australian Financial Review, as an incentive for readers and advertisers to invest.
However, this past weekend in the UK, a major Sunday newspaper has backed off and dropped its glossy Sunday read.
The Sunday Telegraph has dropped its Sunday glossy Stella (no relation to News Corp Australia’s Stellar). The brand lives on though with Stella being incorporated into the broadsheet paper, albeit across just five pages.
It’s not a trend that has spread, yet. The Sunday Telegraph’s closest UK competitor, The Sunday Times, still comes with three Sunday glossies – The Sunday Times Magazine, Culture and Style – totalling around 180 pages. Meanwhile The Sunday Observer also publishers a glossy – The Observer Magazine.
UK Sunday broadsheet replaces inserted magazine with puzzles pull-out
The UK Sunday Telegraph has turned to puzzles to help offset the loss of Stella as a standalone. The UK is in the grip of quiz and puzzle fascination. Television is full of game shows and quiz formats and Wordle helps keep many occupied polishing their vocabulary.
“Britain’s biggest puzzle pullout” the paper boasts on its front page. “Eight fabulous broadsheet pages of crosswords, brain teasers and more.” The traditional Telegraph Sunday Prize Crossword and Quick Crossword sit outside this new puzzle section and live on the main news pages.
Newspaper refresh: This is a Puzzle section
What The UK Sunday Telegraph is offering in the new 8-page pullout:
Sudoku (many variations including X, Big X, Jigsaw, Killer), General Knowledge Crossword, Polywords, Evens, Codewords (three of them – solutions next week or find out now for £1 per minute on the phone), Letter Logic, Chess, Bridge, Battleships, Crossgram, Brain Training (20 separate puzzles filling a broadsheet page), page of Children’s Puzzles, Griddler, two new Prize Puzzles – General Knowledge and Sunday Toughie, 50-50 Crossword, Train Tracks, Arrow Word, Codeword Ultra, Double Jigword, The Pub Quiz and more! The solutions alone (some this week and some published next week) take up half a page of small type and graphics.
Enough there to keep even keen puzzlers busy at least for a few days. The section is very much to be enjoyed in the print product though. The UK Telegraph isn’t a great experience for digital subscribers.
Australian newspaper publishers continue to offer inserted magazines. News Corp refreshes its line-up occasionally. The last major overhaul saw Stellar merge with BiNGE in one book while Body+Soul is a stand-alone title.
The Friday monthlies are arguably the best value – The Australian’s underrated monthly Wish and Nine’s The AFR Magazine – perhaps because their editors have a little longer each cycle to finesse their products. Not that there is anything shabby about the work the teams building The Weekend Australian Magazine, Stellar, Body+Soul, Sunday Life and Good Weekend deliver each week.
These inserted magazines offer advertisers substantial audiences according the recent readership numbers. ThinkNewsBrands now releases the latest readership data and it is expected to release the latest 2021 figures in February.
Nine lists print-only readership for its magazines alongside its rate cards – Good Weekend 808,000, Sunday Life 510,000 and The Australian Financial Review Magazine 452,000.
(Source: Roy Morgan, September 2021)
See also: News Corp Australia unveils new look Sunday offering for Body+Soul, Stellar and The Binge Guide