Betfair Official Blog

Stocks And Bares

As this week's magazine ABCs again proved disappointing, we question whether there is a future for bits of paper stapled together...

IN 2001, the Anorak was called up by the Economist magazine asking about the tabloid newspapers' reaction to the horrific events of September 11th 2001. It was five days after, and we observed with a keen eye that Page 3 girls were returned to the Sun after a respectful hiatus. Page 3 Girls were the barometer of business as usual, the feel-good factors.

We are minded of this as Interactive Publishing prepares to come to the market next week. As the Guardian puts it, "'Flotation for porn publisher.' Is this a sign of better times ahead for the magazine industry, and perhaps print media in general? IP acquired a raft of top shelf publication from Richard Desmond's company, and now gives investors the chance to invest in the undressed. This will be the stock market's first listing for a pornography publishing group. The Guardian surmises the deal, "Interactive Publishing, a shell group, is floating at the same time as agreeing a reverse takeover deal with Trojan Publishing, a private business that has built up a large portfolio of top-shelf titles. Before buying rights to about 30 former Desmond titles last year, Trojan acquired about a dozen mostly adult magazines from British Virgin Islands-registered AML Publishing Trust in June 2006. A month later it signed a deal with Penthouse, licensing rights to Forum, an adult magazine for which Alastair Campbell once wrote a column." Alastair Campbell, aide to Tony Blair, wrote fiction. Who knew?

But Trojan also manages magazines for shorter people, such bottom-shelf titles as 'The League' (a football title), cookery mag 'Fresh,' and 'Womens Fitness'. The aim of the float is to get more funds to buy more non-adult organs, and consequently reduce the exposure to the porn business.

The magazine business is fraught. And potential investors may care to notice that they are reading publishing news on the internet, and not in a magazine...