Guest Speaker- Nick Mazur-PPA

Nick Mazur, Deputy Chief Executive of the Periodical Publishers Association was the sixth guest speaker at UCF, introducing students to the PPA and their work. The PPA's role is to promote and protect the interests of professional media publishers, in particular it's almost four hundred member companies who publish more than 2,260 consumer, business and professional magazines.

He explained that the industry has an annual turnover of around £7 billion, with the majority of this coming from circulation and advertising.

He went on to explain that the majority of consumer magazines gain around 65% of their revenue from circulation, with only around 35% coming from selling advertising space, whereas business publications rely more on advertising, as much as 80%, and only 20% of revenue coming from circulation.

'Ten years ago this was a different picture, as both consumer and business magazines relied equally on advertising and circulation revenue,' he said.

There has been a 52% rise in consumers expenditure on magazines and a 22% increase in the number of magazine titles in the last decade, when there was around 8,500 magazines in publication every year, about 5,100 business and 3,400 consumer magazines. This is the 'changing landscape of the magazine industry,' according to Mr.Mazur.

Mintel International Group Ltd, a specialist in consumer, media and market research, expect a turnover of £531 million within the consumer magazine sector by 2009.