Desmond to shake-up women's market with Take5 title

by Staff,, Brand Republic 14-Feb-05, 08:30

LONDON – Richard Desmond is set to enter the lucrative women's real-life stories magazine market with Take5, a title to take on the likes of Take a Break and the recently launched Pick Me Up.

The launch is likely to anger the National Magazine Company and its Australian partner, APC, which had planned to introduce a version of Take5, which APC already publishes down under, into the UK.

IPC Media launched Pick Me Up in January, backed by a £6m TV advertising campaign.

Desmond's Take5, which will be based on a title given away free with the Daily Star Sunday, is likely to offer a similar mix of real-life stories and celebrity gossip and will face stiff competition.

In the latest set of ABCs, the real-life sector sold 2,389,038 copies from January to June 2004, almost 200,000 more copies each week than three years ago.

As well as Pick Me Up and H Bauer's Take a Break, Take5 will take on Bauer's That's Life and The National Magazine Company's Best.

News of Take5 comes as Desmond gears up to invest up to £10m in women's magazine Happy, set to launch in April. It will feature shopping content linked to the Express Shopping TV Channel.

The £10m budget for the magazine, which was originally to have been called B Happy, is several times the level previously indicated and will fund a heavyweight pre-launch TV campaign.

Separately, Desmond's plans to launch a lads' weekly, KO!, have been put on hold.

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