Cosmo goes gravure after format change

13 November 2015

Packaging

Cosmopolitan magazine has moved from web offset to gravure in its new midi-format, in a move that could have a far-reaching impact if the new size sets a publishing trend.

The glossy women’s monthly was previously printed web offset at Polestar Chantry in two formats: normal and travel size.

It changed size to a new 260x200mm ‘midi’ format with the October issue, and PrintWeek has learned that publisher Hearst Magazines UK subsequently moved the title onto the gravure presses at Polestar’s Sheffield site.

The switch to gravure will result in substantial savings on paper costs, compared with the potentially inefficient use of paper for the midi format on standard web offset press cut-offs.

One paper expert said: “There could be a horrendous amount of waste doing it web, so rotogravure is a sensible way to do it if the run length is big enough.”

Hearst did not go into specifics regarding paper savings, but a spokesman told PrintWeek: “We regularly review our print options based around a number of factors including capacity, especially with Cosmopolitan now printing in such large numbers.”

Although the title’s circulation had declined 10% year-on-year in the latest ABCs, to 235,327, the spokesman said the print run had been increased to coincide with the revamped October issue, the first under new editor Farrah Storr.

Hearst has so far also stuck with the £1 promotional price point instigated alongside the format change. “That’s the new cover price, but we don’t discuss our long-term pricing strategies,” the spokesman added.

If other publishers follow suit it could provide a fillip for Polestar's gravure business, which has been hit by declining contractual demand from its key newspaper supplement clients at Sheffield.

Similarly, any shift from web offset to gravure could also benefit Prinovis in Liverpool.

“Companies in the publishing world are always looking at each other, and you do get trends,” noted one magazine production expert.

Of the glossy, perfect bound monthlies on UK newsstands, just one other title is currently printed gravure. Condé Nast’s handbag-sized Glamour magazine switched from web offset to gravure in 2004, when it moved from Cooper Clegg to what is now Bertelsmann Printing Group in Germany.