Mail on Sunday prepares spring launch for standalone You mag

The Mail on Sunday’s You magazine is to go on sale on newsstands on Mondays and Tuesdays, starting in the spring, according to industry insiders.

A &£15m makeover of the women’s supplement will see it adopt “Grazia-quality” silk-finish paper and be available on newsstands from the first week of March.

But press buyers remain unconvinced that such an idea can work. One says: “Consumers will be reluctant to pay for something on a Monday that they could have had free the day before.”

Another press buyer says: “It is an idea that has been looked at before by Sunday newspapers, but the problem is what do you charge for the magazine individually? If you put it on the newsstand for &£1.50, you’re in trouble – the Mail on Sunday only costs &£1.30 in its entirety – but if you charge anything less than &£1, you’ll be debasing the whole brand.”

He continues: “And where do you position it? It’s not going to go up against Grazia, which is all fashion, but to put it up against Woman’s Own means aiming it at 65-year-old women, which is the last thing The Mail on Sunday wants.”

Another source adds: “You is a quality product and might succeed on the newsstand if it were not available with a Sunday newspaper – but the people who currently read it are not going to buy it separately if they miss their Mail on Sunday.”

The Mail on Sunday recently launched Live, a magazine aimed at men.