'Testing time for Time Out', The Evening Standard

Tuesday, October 05, 1999

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Three editors in less than a year and circulation is dropping: London's best-known listings magazine is feeling the pinch, reports JAMES SILVER

ON the face of it, Time Out's founder and publisher Tony Elliott should be feeling the pinch. The fact that he claims he isn't says much about the man.

In the first half of 1999, Time Out sold 91,500 copies a week - a 20 per cent fall in three years.

Then there's the "editor problem": three occupants of the chair in the past eight months - a turnover so startling one wonders whether Kelvin MacKenzie was in any way involved. In December, outsider Vicky Mayer replaced the long-serving Dominic Wells. By July, that appointment was deemed to have been a mistake and she departed. Elliott admits of Mayer: "She performed very well in the interview, and we thought a Time Out outsider would be a good idea ... but it didn't work out. It's just one of those things."

Former music editor Laura Lee Davies, very much an insider, stepped up to replace her. The improvements, say her publisher, are already plain to see.

Tony Elliott famously founded Time Out back in 1968 on his 21st birthday with a Pounds 75 present from an aunt. The aunt must have been impressed, as the magazine soon found its niche covering London's underground and alternative arts scene. It survived the Seventies, saw off a major strike in 1981 when 45 staffers broke away and set up the now-defunct rival City Limits with Pounds 150,000 of GLC money, and won the battle to carry complete television listings which helped spur circulation to a high of more than 110,000 a week.

With its only direct rival What's On? struggling, Time Out's position looked unassailable. But then trouble arrived in the form of free London-listings supplements launched by national newspapers with deep pockets and established markets. From the Guardian's pocketsize Guide to the Evening Standard's Hot Tickets, Time Out was hit where it hurts.

"There has definitely been an impact," concedes Elliott. "In pure number terms, I can't argue with that. But given that there are about 1.7 million free guides (the combined total of all free London-listings supplements sold with newspapers each week) in the market place now, in a way we're doing very well. I think we've taken as much impact as we're likely to."

But Elliott's confidence isn't necessarily shared by all. Advertising space-buyers, for example, are much more downbeat. Laura James, head of press at New PHD, thinks the magazine is having "a difficult time of it and I can't imagine the situation's going to get any easier.

In its heyday, Time Out was a brand that had a lot of credibility... but it doesn't appear to have it any more." Adam Crow, of media-buying agency Mindshare, agrees. "Time Out used to be an automatic inclusion on the advertising schedules ... maybe it got too arrogant. It used to be very popular in the early Nineties, full of good ideas, but I haven't spoken to anyone from Time Out in the last two years."

There are, however, some encouraging signs for Time Out. Elliott insists there's every indication that the ABC figures have now bottomed out, and he expects a small increase next time around. The fact that Time Out appears to have weathered the success of Metro, Associated Newspapers' free paper distributed on the London Underground, and seen off Emap's struggling entertainment weekly Heat (which is shrouded in rumours of imminent closure) add to his cause for optimism.

A new advertising campaign launched this week bears the slogan "Time Out, The Greatest London Authority!" and plays to what many see as the magazine's one huge strength: its critics. Where rival publications use listings compiled by agencies such as the Press Association, Time Out boasts staff critics who wield considerable influence in their specialist field.

Then there's the undoubted success of Time Out's spin-off publications: tourist guides, restaurant listings and listings magazine for cities abroad. Time Out New York was launched four years ago and already outsells the London version in what many view as an even tougher market. Elliott is planning two further North American weekly magazines for next Easter: one in Chicago and the other in Los Angeles.

Back in London, meanwhile, Time Out's cover price may have to go up. Currently Pounds 1.80, will Londoners be happy to shell out Pounds 2 or so for listings they can get elsewhere with their daily paper? "We are always reminding ourselves that it's less than the cost of a pint of beer," says Elliott.

Certainly true around his Tottenham Court Road offices. But it's not perhaps much of a reason to buy a magazine.

(Evening Standard, October 6th, 1999)

Posted by James Silver - On Tuesday, October 05, 1999

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