BBC Mags plans new London listings title

BBC Magazines is working on a TV and entertainment listings magazine for London – provisionally called Tonight – and a downmarket TV and satellite listings title. One of these will be launched later this year.

The original 84-page Tonight dummy was planned as a “TV guide and entertainment revue with attitude”, targeting 18 to 34-year-old ABC1s, with TV, cinema, theatre and multimedia coverage. But sources say it has been repositioned to compete less directly with Time Out.

The company is also keen to publish a downmarket sister title to Radio Times. It follows BSkyB’s plans to launch Sky TV Guide – currently sent to subscribers – as a newsstand title (MW February 17).

Radio Times’ publishing team is developing the project and the ad sales team is understood to be recruiting staff to work on the new title. Ashley Munday, ad sales director, denies any decision has been made: “There are dummies around and there always have been. But nothing has been decided.”