MoS gives away ads as You misses target

The Mail on Sunday’s newsstand edition of You magazine is giving away free advertising after missing early sales targets, according to press buyers.

Managing director Stephen Miron, who launched the revamped You magazine at the beginning of March (MW December 1, 2005), originally hoped to sell 50,000 paid-for copies, even though a slightly different version came free with the Sunday newspaper. But early reports show sales targets are being missed by more than 20,000.

Following these reports, full pages of advertising costing &£1,000 at launch are now free. One buyer says: “Even if the idea was to drive traffic towards buying The Mail on Sunday it hasn’t worked. The ABC figures due for release this Friday show the paper 12% down year-on-year. The fact that advertising is being offered free isn’t positive.”

Another buyer believes Miron misjudged just how tough the women’s weekly market would prove to be: “Obviously if they told agencies that pages were trading at &£1,000 on the basis of a 50,000 circulation, a 20,000 circulation makes them worth a lot less,” says the buyer.

Another buyer is more positive and says: “The launch was based on research that told Miron a huge percentage of You readers weren’t reading any other women’s press.

“So if, say, 20,000 of the 28,000 You readers are unique, they are valuable to my clients and worth trading with,” the buyer explains.