Flow to become almost monthly

As of 2020, the magazine Flow (Sanoma) will increase in frequency from 8  to 10 per year. This Dutch title has been available in Belgium for 10 years. It has been showcased as a “positive women magazine”. Next to Dutch, the title is also available in English, German and French. Its circulation is not audited in Belgium, but the publishers claims increases in sales, especially subscriptions.

Deze Week withdraws half of its local editions

Publisher Roularta is about to downsize the number of regional editions of their publication Deze Week: 19 of them are about to disappear, with only 17 left, most of them consisting of mergers. This change will be effective in November 2019. Last year, Streekkrant Groep became Deze Week, but the new identity did not prevent the free local paper to decrease: compared to Streekkrant, they lost ± 900.000 average issue readers. Gross advertising value reported by Nielsen lost 20% in the first half of 2019 compared to same period in 2018.

Newsweek Belgie: innovation on paper

GMG Group, that ao owns the website Newsmonkey, has launched a Belgian-Flemish version of the well-known Newsweek magazine. Unlike its name, this paper (yes: print innovations do exist) magazine is intended to be monthly.  It relies on a dedicated editorial team. This first issue is 134 pages long and has a print run of 25.000 copies. Their first cover is about the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 touching down the moon.

Their target group is typified as "25-55 high end readers (homo eclecticus) with a global perspective". Newsweek will also rely on advertising revenues, thanks to an internal sales house.

Most of former Cascade titles on their own

Last year, publisher Cascade was taken over by Medialaan-De Persgroep. The new owner of the magazines Eos, Motoren & Toerisme, For Girls Only, Bahamontes & Primo finally sells most of the titles. Only Primo is included in the Medialaan-DPP portofolio. A non profit association, Eos Wetenschap, is taking Eos over in the aim of promoting science and technology in Flanders.

The remaining magazines:  Motoren & Toerisme, For Girls Only and Bahamontes will be owned by De Deeluitgeverij. Ad sales will be operated by this company.

Trusted media environments more effective, magazines argue

Trust and trusted environments recently made the news. So the global Edelman Trust Barometer showed that consumers' trust in online platforms declined (-2 points, 51% agreement) while trust in journalism peaked to an all time high in 2018 (+5 percentage points, 65% trust in source for general news and information). This summer, by means of neuromarketing techniques, a Dutch survey conducted by Sanoma showed that ads on trusted platforms were more effective when it comes to brand preference. In the UK, Magnetic Media also emphasized the added value of trust in media. They relate this to findings made by Peter Field *: media plans including print, and more precisely magazines, are 40% more effective than plans without this medium.

* Peter Field, together with Les Binet, have published 3 major reports on marketing effectivenes in 10 years, the latest one in 2017.

Illustration: a campaign from MMA US, that emphasizes the importance of trust in magazines.