Consumer magazine publisher Future will launch a new lifestyle magazine later this year capitalising on the ‘phenomenal’success of its monthly craft title Mollie Makes.
Chief executive Mark Wood told Press Gazette the new magazine would be in the same ‘simple living’vein as Mollie Makes, which smashed Future’s launch subscription record.
Print subscriptions to the monthly title, which celebrates its first anniversary this month, now stand at almost 12,000.
In May, the company reported a 4 per cent drop in revenue and pre-tax losses of £0.7m in the six months to 31 March, but falls in print were partially offset by a 37 per cent rise in digital turnover, up from £7m in 2011 to £9.6m in 2012.
Print subscription revenue was also up 3 per cent year on year. ‘The story on print sales is not one of unremitting decline,’said Wood.
‘We have got growth. Mollie Makes is our most successful magazine launch for a decade.”
The new lifestyle title, which has not been named, will aim to build on the success of Mollie Makes, which Wood said was a ‘phenomenon”.
‘I think we’ve really have touched a nerve,’said Wood. ‘There’s a very strong trend among the under-30s towards do-it-yourself, make-it-yourself, simple living.”
Last month, Future released figures for iPad editions, which revealed that sales had passed £3m since the launch of Apple’s Newsstand in October 2011.
The company will continue to push its tablet editions and could launch more digital-only titles, said Wood.
It will also look to launch several of its UK websites into the US market, following the same model as TechRadar in the US. It is part of steps to get the US back to profitability in 12 months.
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