Associated to challenge listings mags

Associated Newspaper’s listings magazine Hot Tickets, which comes free with London’s Evening Standard, is to go on sale through newsstands in an attempt to rival Time Out.

The magazine, which will continue to be free with the Thursday edition of the Evening Standard, goes on sale from Friday with a cover price of 85p.

There will be an initial print run of 30,000 copies in addition to those already distributed with the Evening Standard.

Sue Minnikin, advertisement director of the Evening Standard, says: “The magazine will stay with the Standard. We would like to build up newsstand sales of the magazine alone so that it has a comparative circulation to Time Out of between 70,000 to 80,000.”

Improvements include a weight increase to 70gsm paper.

The Evening Standard’s circulation department is asking retailers to display the magazine alongside other listing titles, such as Time Out, which has a cover price of £1.80.

Neil Jagger, circulation director, says: “Hot Tickets has been a tremendous success as a promotional tool for the Standard. We now believe we have identified potential to sell copies through retailers.”

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations figures, Time Out’s average net circulation for the period for July to December 1998 was 96,206.

The Evening Standard’s average net circulation for the period November 1998 to April 1999 was 454,142.