It’s not ‘U’, it’s digital, as another glossy exits the news stands

News that U magazine, a monthly glossy aimed at younger women, is to cease print publication sent me back to The Irish Times archive, where I found a piece I wrote in 1999 about the Irish women's magazine sector.

It's a gloomy enough report. That year's readership figures had just been announced and there was significant collapse in the numbers. All titles lost readers – Image, Irish Tatler, even that advertiser-magnet Woman's Way, but U magazine was haemorrhaging them.

Annoyingly I was so busy reporting the facts and figures I didn’t speculate what, in the final year of the last century, might be causing the notable decline in reader interest. I’m curious now, though. Was there too much competition from UK titles; or from the ever-more sophisticated free magazine inserts in newspapers, or was it simply boredom with women’s magazine content, which tends towards the repetitive and formulaic?

It could be any of those things – or none. Twenty years is a long time in media terms, but whatever the cause, it unequivocally wasn’t that go-to culprit for just about anything these days: digital.

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It's digital now, though, that's to blame for the demise of the print version of U magazine

Back then the iPhone hadn’t been invented. You took photos with a camera and got the prints developed (at One Hour Photo – the convenience!). And the concept of Instagram and Snapchat – if anyone could have described them – would have sounded as likely as setting up home on Mars.

It's digital now, though, that's to blame for the demise of the print version of U magazine, which goes to the printer in Drogheda for the last time this week – and that's according to its publisher, Ciarán Casey.

The August issue will be the final newsstand one for a magazine that was launched 40 years ago. According to Casey, the readers are online and that’s where he’s taking the brand – it’s not simply a title any more.

By now he's familiar enough with it. In 2014, he began working with his sister Norah at her publishing company, Harmonia. And late last year, Irish Studio, where he is a now a director, bought six Harmonia titles – Irish Tatler, Irish Tatler Man, U magazine, Food & Wine magazine, Auto Ireland and Ireland of the Welcomes.

Reader events

"The print proposition [for U magazine] ceased to be a commercial proposition," says Casey, adding that his concentration will now be on growing the brand on digital and through reader events.

The newsstand price of the magazine is €2.10 – the cheaper end of the glossy monthly market. There are no recent circulation figures for the magazine, as Irish Studio does not subscribe to print auditors ABC on the grounds, says Casey, that those figures count only print, and not the other activities such as online presence or the events that, he says, significantly boost the appeal to advertisers.

He's confident that the U magazine brand has a "recognisable personality" ("sociable, carefree, high street, a little bit rebellious") and a demographic of 18-30 that will be attracted to the digital proposition.

Which sounds optimistic in that very crowded digital space. And if selling advertising was proving a struggle for the print issue, making it non-commercial, digital advertising rates are much lower.

Irish Tatler Man, a magazine launched during the boom and for which circulation was always relatively low, is also to cease print publication. Casey won't be drawn on the print fate of the four other ex-Harmonia titles.

“Print is more resource heavy than digital,” he says, in reference to the restructuring currently under way at Irish Studio, which will include redundancies at the Dublin company which has a staff of 27. The consultation process around that restructuring has not been finalised.

Trend

In ceasing its print offering, U magazine is part of a broader trend that has seen many established titles, including Teen Vogue and the UK edition of Glamour – also aimed at younger women – disappear from the newsstand to live online and through branded events. When Condé Nast pulled Glamour from print last November, it said: "Today's Glamour consumer moves to a different rhythm than the one who bought the magazine when it launched in 2001. It is a faster, more focused, multi-platform relationship."

But while print is retreating in the face of digital, there’s unexpected movement in the other direction. Asos, the quarterly unisex magazine published by the online fashion retailer, has a circulation of 435,000 in the UK. It was once a free direct-mail catalogue but has evolved into a cool print magazine, sold online for €1.34.

But don't call it a magazine. It's a 'physical version' of something larger

And, in June, Facebook came offline very stylishly and entered the dead wood world with its Grow by Facebook magazine.

Available free in such top-spender hangouts as British Airway’s lounges in Heathrow and Gatwick, its first edition features articles on Paris, Diageo’s craft beer and has “H&M’s millennial whisperer” Oscar Olsson on the cover.

But don't call it a magazine. It's a "physical version" of something larger. Grow by Facebook is, according to the social media giant, part of a marketing programme, available "in person [events], in pixels [on Facebook] and in print".

“We know that business leaders have limited time for long reads at work, so we’ve also created a physical version with journeys in mind,” says Facebook. Somehow the idea of a magazine – on paper, with pages to turn – from the great print slayer, that is seen as a necessary way of targeting a particularly worldly upscale audience, feels like a tiny victory for beleaguered print.