M E ID A

NATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY

Top Magazine titles owned by the national magazine company

324,753

-3.9%

(399.045)

414,358

+1.9%

(455,128)

305,843

-6.4%

(348,893)

Hearst Magazines UK is the trading name of National Magazine Company Ltd

Established in 1910 by William Randolph Hearst

Good Housekeeping had been originally launched in the USA in 1885 by the Phelps Publishing Company of Springfield, Massachusetts. Hearst bought the title in 1911 in a deal which took one hour, the purchase being made out of future profits.

• The first issue appeared in March 1922 with a print run of 150,000 copies.

• It had been brilliantly publicised (“You will realise that Good Housekeeping is infinitely more than a magazine . it is a New Institution, destined to play an important part in the lives of thousands of women”).

National Magazines created a publishing classic with Good Housekeeping, and a highly profitable one. The magazine was packed with advertising from the first issue.

Good Housekeeping in eighty six years has been immense. The timing of the first issue was brilliant. The Great war had created a servant shortage and the middle-classes were beginning to have to learn to run their homes with little, if any, domestic help. Homes and Gardens had been launched in 1919 and Ideal Home in 1920 to reflect these changes in the market.

Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s.

Also known as Cosmo, its content as of 2011 included articles on relationships and sex, health, careers, self-improvement, celebrities, as well as fashion and beauty.

It was bought in 1905 for $400,000 by William Randolph Hearst and Published by Hearst Magazines, Cosmopolitan has 63 international editions, is printed in 32 languages and is distributed in more than 100 countries.

Most of the magazines they own target women. The ages of women they target are 20 and higher

Target audience

The Oprah Magazine -- popular women’s magazine founded by talk show queen Oprah Winfrey

Good Housekeeping -- originally founded in 1885, this women’s magazine is associated with the well known product testing company, the Good

Housekeeping Institute

Esquire -- a literary men’s magazine founded in 1933 and known for some of the high end short fiction it’s published; famed editor Gordon Lish

worked at the magazine as an editor and published writers like Raymond Carver, Richard Ford and T. Coraghessan Boyle

Cosmopolitan -- aka Cosmo, this women’s magazine is one of the bestselling women’s glossies on the shelves

Most successful magazines

• 15 daily and 38 weekly newspapers, and more than 300 magazines around the world

• The Soho-based publisher behind glossy magazines including Esquire and Good Housekeeping bucked the industry trend yesterday, reporting a spike in profits and revenues. Hearst Magazines UK saw profits surge an astonishing 800 per cent to £12.4m, with revenues rising 4.3 per cent to £310m. The remarkable turnaround follows a £42.8m loss in 2009, when the firm was forced to accept heavy writedowns. The reversal in fortunes, overseen by French chief executive Arnaud de Puyfontaine, means it will pay an £8m dividend to its US owner Hearst. The growth in revenue came despite a slight reduction in magazine circulation.

Profit report