Now's award-winning editor Jane Ennis is to step down as editor of the celebrity magazine in the New Year after a decade in the post.
IPC said Ennis will stay on to lead Now's forthcoming tenth anniversary celebrations, and unveil a new look for the title in the next few months.
Her career has spanned Honey, Nova, TV Times and Best, as well as newspapers from Today and Sunday Mirror to the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph. Ennis launched Here! with Gruner + Jahr, which was later acquired by IPC and merged into Now. She is both a PPA and BSME award winner.
Ennis told Press Gazette: “I’ve had a fantastic ten year run. This has been the best job I’ve ever had and I am sad to be leaving a great team.” She told the magazine’s staff on Tuesday that she had resigned. She is serving a six months’ notice period. Her plans for the future are not known, but a friend says she is looking for a new challenge.
Ennis, 58, is widely credited with inventing the market for gossip magazines.
During her reign, she has seen the launch of five titles based on her pioneering formula of celebrity gossip and paparazzi pictures. These include Heat, Closer, Reveal, New and Star. Despite the competition, Now maintained market leadership through eight consecutive ABC periods finally loosing its number one position to Heat last year.
Her deputy, Jeremy Mark, is among those being considered as a successor to the editor’s chair.
Ennis is the third highly rated weekly magazine editor to have resigned from IPC in the last six months. Elsa McAlonan, editor of Womans Own and Phil Hilton, editor of Nuts, are also serving out notice periods.
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