'Heat's Frith Quits To Dish Celeb Dirt', Sky News

Friday, February 29, 2008

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Quitting Heat Editor To Squeal On Celebs, By James Silver, Media writer

The editor-in-chief of Heat magazine, widely credited with creating Britain's boom in celebrity reporting, is to quit the Bauer Consumer Media title.

Mark Frith will leave the popular weekly in May.

The announcement came as it was revealed that the former Smash Hits editor had clinched a book deal with Ebury Press, publishers of Piers Morgan's bestselling diaries, to dish the dirt on his dealings with celebrities ranging from the Beckhams to Jade Goody.

Frith's achievements in the magazine world are unique.

He steered Heat's circulation from 65,000 - and threats of closure - to nearly 600,000, spawning innumerable copycat titles in the process.

He also won the prestigious Periodical Publishers Association editor of the year twice.

The magazine's success sent shockwaves through the rest of the UK media scene, with newspapers and TV scrambling to cover Britain's celebrity culture with Heat's trademark irreverence.

However, the rumour-mill had been buzzing for a while that Frith's departure from Bauer was imminent.

Heat's ABC figures had started to dip dramatically. Latest circulation figures revealed that the title sold 533,034 copies in the second half of last year, shedding more than 65,000 copies year-on-year.

But more damagingly, the magazine was embroiled in a very public row last year, when the title gave away stickers mocking the model Jordan's disabled son Harvey.

While it is understood the incident took place when Frith was on holiday, it has been viewed as a catastrophic editorial blunder. It resulted in 143 complaints to industry regulator the Press Complaints Commission and the magazine was forced to apologise.

Frith's book - to be called The Celeb Diaries - is due to hit the shelves at Christmas.

In the meantime, expect nervous celebrities to be exhorting their publicists to find out just exactly how much dirt Frith is prepared to dish.

:: You can read more articles by James Silver at www.jamessilver.net

Posted by James Silver - On Friday, February 29, 2008

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