Guardian unveils magazine launch to target international readership

Guardian Newspapers is launching a monthly magazine this autumn aimed at The Guardian and Observer readers in North America, Europe and Australia.

The magazine, which does not yet have a title, will be made up of features already published in The Guardian Weekend magazine, the Observer magazine and the four specialist monthly titles, Observer Food, Sport, Music and Woman.

A Guardian Newspapers spokesman says: “We have a wealth of material that isn’t easily seen by our large international readership because international versions of newspapers don’t carry magazines, and because long features are less easily digestible online.”

The launch reflects Guardian Newspapers’ strategy of making The Guardian and Observer content available on as wide a range of platforms as possible.

The newspaper group recently launched business podcasts, G24 – a free, 12-page print and read A4 document updated four times an hour and featuring the latest news, sport and media stories.

It also announced it would start publishing stories online before they had been printed in the hard copy version of the newspaper.

Executives at the group expect the launch to attract clients who advertise to a global market, but say it is too early to decide whether a bespoke management and ad sales team will be set up.

Three years ago The Guardian looked at launching a magazine in the US, a project that got as far as the stage where dummies were produced, but the idea was then scrapped.

Since then, executives have been considering ways of accommodating a growing readership abroad, particularly in the US and Canada.