Yesterday we gave you the breakdown of the costs of printing and distribution costs for the last three editions of the Isle of Wight council’s One Island magazine – excluding the editorial costs, which they weren’t able to provide.
With our article on how the council raises money to produce One Island magazine on a claimed ‘cost-neutral’ basis coming shortly, we thought it would be interesting to look at what you actually when you flick through it.
How many pages have paid to be there?
It’s self-described as “The community magazine for the Isle of Wight,” and having a look at the latest edition – September 2010, we were surprised to see quite how many pages in the One Island magazine were paid for when compared to the number that are straight editorial – news items or features.
If you exclude the front cover, contact and contents page you end up with 29 pages to be filled out of a total of 32.
17 paid-for pages vs 12 not
The summary is that 17 pages are paid for vs 12 that are straight editorial – over half the pages that make up the magazine are paid for. In fact there’s nearly 40% more ‘paid for’ pages than straight editorial.
Below is a full breakdown of what fills those 29 pages.
‘Paid for’ pages aren’t clearly labelled
What is really surprising is that the pages that are paid for aren’t marked as ‘paid for’.
The norm in publishing is to mark ‘paid for’ pages, to guide the reader into understanding what information has been created without commerical influence, and those that have been paid for, as they are generally thought of as advertising. Words that are commonly used are ‘Sponsored feature’ or ‘Advertorial.’ In this issue on One Island, these phrases aren’t used.
… but they used to be
Early on, One Island adhered to clearly labelling the ‘paid for’ pages publishing standard. Looking at October 2006 edition …
- Connexions has a double page spread that is labelled at “Sponsor’s Supplement“.
- The police have a double page feature called “Partner’s Advertisement.”
- The full page IWC schools advert on the back page is labelled “Advertisement.”
Looking at the September 2010 issue
In the Sept 2010 edition the only two things that are marked ‘Advertisement’ are the only two things that the public would expect to be paid for because they clearly look like adverts – The Combined Accommodation Scheme and Nettlecombe Farm on page 12.
The rest of the paid for pages are marked ‘Feature‘; ‘Special feature‘; ‘Annual Report‘; ‘NHS supplement‘; ‘Police supplement‘ and one of them looks like a competition.
As unpaid for content is also labelled ‘Feature – Community safety‘ – it is impossible for the casual reader to know which pages have paid to be there and which other pages are just straight editorial.
Should we know paid vs not?
Shouldn’t the reader know which pages have paid to be in the magazine and which not?
It feels reasonable that, as a reader, it should be clear which pages are paid for and which are not, doesn’t it?
Analysis of IWC One Island magazine (Sept 2010 issue)
| Page | Contents |
| 1 | Front cover |
| 2 | Index |
| 3 | Contents |
| 4 | News articles |
| 5 | News articles |
| 6 | News articles |
| 7 | News articles |
| 8 | News articles |
| 9 | Paid For – Walking Festival |
| 10 | Paid For – One Card |
| 11 | Open day feature |
| 12 | Paid For – Ads & Editorial |
| 13 | Paid For – IW Council accounts |
| 14 | Paid For – IW Council accounts |
| 15 | Paid For – IW Council accounts |
| 16 | Paid For – IW Council accounts |
| 17 | Paid For – IW Council accounts |
| 18 | Paid For – IW Council accounts |
| 19 | Paid For – IW Council accounts |
| 20 | Paid For – IW Council accounts |
| 21 | Paid For – Island Waste |
| 22 | Community Safety feature |
| 23 | Community Safety feature |
| 24 | Community Safety feature |
| 25 | Paid For – NHS |
| 26 | Paid For – Hampshire Constabulary |
| 27 | Paid For – Hampshire Constabulary |
| 28 | Paid For – Hampshire Police Authority |
| 29 | Paid For – Hampshire Police Authority |
| 30 | Coast & Country articles |
| 31 | Coast & Country articles |
| 32 | Events list |
