Online content has opened up the possibility of “unfettered creativity” in an era of magazine homogenisation, according to the editor in chief of Radio Times.
Gill Hudson said that this year has brought great and rapid change to magazines but that digital developments opened up the possibility of experimentation.
Hudson, who has just unveiled a Radio Times redesign, said: “There’s a buzz about the web, people are free to experiment a lot more in a way that I think a lot of magazines have lost. “A lot of magazines are homogenous at the moment. The web is an opportunity for slightly more crazy, off-the-wall thinking. Not all of it will work but magazines have been so researched, so focused grouped and we’re all using the same design packages, we’re all using the same fonts, I think how brilliant to have access to some unfettered creativity.”
Radio Times has been redesigned as technological developments change how TV and radio audiences consume content, and on which platform. Listings have been bumped up by 14 pages, including for each day a “Must-see TV at a glance” section with a further six pages of listings, covering 70 digital channels.
Other new features include: dedicated genre pages for Sport, Music, Soaps and Living, plus revamped Film, TV and Radio sections plus new-look radio listings bringing FM and digital stations together with two pages per day devoted to 15 stations, and now categorised by genre.
Hudson said of the changes: “It’s part of constantly monitoring a very fast moving environment. It’s quite a delicate balancing act. What we have done now is a really good move in the right direction and give ourselves flexibility to change more in the future without running so far ahead of our readers that they are completely lost.”
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