TV glossy to challenge ‘Listener’ this year

Press, 28 February 1984, Page 6

TV glossy to challenge ‘Listener’ this year

A new magazine to challenge the role of the “Listener” as the nation’s best source of information on television programmes will be launched later this year.

The magazine, a weekly with national, distribution, will be launched by Strathmore Publications, Ltd, publisher of “More” magazine, and linked to “Auckland Metro.”

Mr Clive Curry, a coowner of Strathmore Publications and “Auckland Metro,” said the new magazine would give advance information on television programmes, and its stories would be more directly related to what was on television than those in the “Listener.” /'Where the ‘Listener’ puts it down as a TV pro-

gramme, we will write about it,” he said. “It will be a light entertainment magazine, with emphasis on what’s on TV and not on politics, women’s lib and other things the ‘Listener’ does.”

He was unable to give a firm starting date for the magazine, but said it would be about August or September. He was also not sure of its retail price. He said it would be about the size of “Auckland Metro,” and would have many colour photographs. “It will be everything the ‘Listener’ isn’t,” he said. Mr Curry said it was planned to print initially about 200,000 copies of the magazine. The magazine will be edited by Phil Gifford, aged

37, a “Listener” sports columnist who has also worked for the “Auckland Star,” “New Zealand Herald,” and on a number of overseas reporting assignments. Mr Gifford writes the weekly “Loosehead Len” rugby column for the Auckland sports paper “8 O’Clock.”

Mr Gifford does not consider basing the format of the magazine on television programmes to be limiting, as television covered a wide area.

“The magazine is not limited to stories about a particular TV programme, although every story will be tied in some way to TV, unlike the ‘Listener,’ which has Stories totally unconnectetPto TV,” he said. The magazine will feature

a lot of personalities and cover a lot of sport, although sport will not dominate.

“The stories will be about what people are enjoying on TV. I would have had a more extensive coverage of the Winter Olympics than the ‘Listener’ had, if the magazine had been going now,” said Mr Gifford. Mr Gifford emphasised the use of glossy pages and colour photographs. “It will look brighter than the ‘Listener’,” he said. “I would hope our stories will have more energy. There are a number of very good writers in Auckland keen to be in the market.”

Mr Gifford is one of only two confirmed staff members at present, tjje other being William Chen, at pre-

sent the art director of “Auckland Metro.” Mr Gifford will begin full-time work on the magazine in two weeks.

“What we will be doing now is finding our staff and working out where to put them, working out what our first stories will be, and so on,” he said. Although the magazine will be in competition with the “Listener,” Mr Gifford said he had not joined the new publication because he was dissatisfied with his former employer. “It isn’t a case of a disgruntled former employee leaving,” he said. “I have no complaints about the way I was treated, but I have my own ideas about the sort of stories people find entertaining.”