Hopefully everyone in the industry with an interest is already aware of this, but just in case, please be aware that today marks the start of Magazine Week 2008, organised by the PPA.

I'm eagerly awaiting the results of their poll on the "best British magazine cover", and shall be doing as the campaign urges by trying a magazine or two outside of my normal repertoire. I currently have in mind an eclectic mix of The Lady, Kerrang!, and Fur & Feather - if I can get hold of a copy.

Unsurprisingly, in common with most people who work in publishing I'm a big fan of magazines in general, so it was encouraging to read in the PPA's fact file that consumer expenditure on the medium has grown by 48% in the decade since the dawn of the internet.

But this got me thinking. During that period publishers have also benefited from low paper and seemingly ever-cheaper print production prices, and I can't help feeling that things will be very different in the coming decade. News that M-real has sold its publishing paper business to Sappi broke this very morning, and such consolidation is the inevitable result of overcapacity and unacceptable returns among papermakers. As we know paper prices are already on the way up.

And what of the health of the UK magazine printing sector? It's looking like the last rites are in order for some of the players on my current "watch list". Consolidation? Maybe, but it's an expensive game. Closures? Almost certainly.

Come Magazine Week 2009 we may even be in an era of more realistic print pricing, which will make life interesting for publishers who've grown used to having their bottom line inflated by ever-decreasing production costs. Whisper it, but print prices can go up as well as down.