It was the Where To Sell marketing discussion. Presented with the media schedule:
“There you have it –
Combined target audiences – consumers, intermediaries, and opinion leaders.
Consumers market segmentation mainly ABC1C2. Weights as agreed, and there’s the opportunities-to-see analysis broken down by age and sex. . .”
“Aren’t we all!” we said, as one.
(Oh, how we enjoy the old jokes.) Then –
“Hang on! What’s that doing on the schedule? New Statesman? Are you mad? Penurious teachers, pinko radicals, Corbyn’s Praetorium house mag?”
“Hah! That’s the surprise. Yes, it’s still left of centre but it’s no longer out on the boundary of the middle ground. It’s a good read – OK, literarily it’s not the Spectator but it’s lively, interesting, amusing, and I think it’s a good addition to our schedule – but I have to admit this is gut feel, because the readership information is not quite what we’re used to. . .”
So we looked at it, read it, signed off the schedule, and the voucher copy is being read.
The puzzle now is not “Why is New Statesman on the schedule?” but “Why is the New Statesman circulation only c.30,000?” Our media planner can’t produce a conclusive answer. He writes
“Jason Cowley (editor since 2008) is quoted as saying
‘I want. . . . . to explore political ideas on both left and right.’ and he appears to be doing just that – in addition to a wide cultural sweep.
When Cowley won the British Society of Magazine Editors’ Editor of the Year award in 2009 the judges said that he had transformed the New Statesman and ‘created issues of the magazine that were the envy of the industry’.
And in January 2013, when he was shortlisted for the European Press Prize editing award the awards committee said: ‘Cowley has succeeded in revitalising the New Statesman and re-establishing its position as an influential political and cultural weekly. He has given the New Statesman an edge and a relevance to current affairs it hasn’t had for years.’ (Thanks, Wikipedia)
So that’s all right, and it shows.
I rate the New Statesman. I very much hope that it produces the results for Where To Sell or I’ll have some explaining to do. It’s after the schedule is bought and booked that media planners need long lunches – to help them cope with the worry. . . .”.
