Manchester Magazines: The Skinny cometh

Manchester has many things, but it doesn't have a listings magazine. Online, there are plenty of places to look to for cultural inspiration, including Creative Tourist, Manchester Wire, and enough good blogs to choke an eGoat (see sidebar). But since CityLife folded in 2005 and Time Out wussed out in 2007 we haven't had a proper listings magazine.

Well that's all going to change soon: we're getting one. Well, half of one. We have to share it with Liverpool. You know, that other city a scant 36 miles away. The conventional media wisdom (only reinforced by the failure of the Northwest Enquirer a few years back) goes that these two cities are so irrecconcilably different they must be kept apart at all costs, and will respond negatively to any attempts to lump them together. Kind of like Edinburgh and Glasgow. So who better to conquer this job than the publication that has successfully covered both those cities in one publication for seven years? Yes, The Skinny is setting up a Northwest edition. They've been flirting with the idea for the last couple of years, but now it's official: they're hiring a staff and will be publishing both online and (take a deep breath) in print starting in April.

They've lined up Lauren Strain to edit the magazine and are recruiting over here on The Skinny site, with a few positions up for grabs including a subeditor and section editors for books, visual art and comedy: some paid, some not. It will be run from offices on Tariff Street in the Northern Quarter, which will probably put some noses out of joint at the other end of the M62, but they were never going to please everybody with that one.

It seems like every week I get a email about a new website that will be covering Manchester (the latest is Wow247 which asked me to pick out some fun things to do in Manchester the other day). So I doff my fedora in The Skinny's general direction for taking a chance on print in this city. Now let's all try to read the thing, shall we? Or we won't be getting another one.

Manchester media update

It's an interesting time for Manchester's media world. As in the old Chinese curse: "may you live in interesting times."

Metro: Late last year they laid off a large percentage of Manchester Metro Life staff, and now lo and behold, the section seems to have entered the giant shrinking machine. Shame, that - it was one of the last places you could find out what was going on. Now it seems Metro has jumped on the old media blogging bandwagon. The Manchester Life blog is written by the few bods left over there in the scads of free time they must now have (sarcasm, that was.) Not a lot on there yet, but it's good to see them entering the fray. There's definitely a need for more cultural coverage here, online or off.

Word has it that Time Out have finally pulled the plug on the Time Out Manchester website they were hilariously updating with new content quarterly (yeah, check in once a season to find out what's on!) I guess this means there is now officially no hope of them ever producing the mag. I'll add that collector's edition issue one to my Manchester magazine graveyard, a collection that is becoming so large it may soon require its own room.

If there's no way to make a profit on a cultural mag in Manchester, maybe it's time to start hitting up the non-profit sector. That's exactly what the forthcoming Chimp magazine has done. The long-in-the-works first issue of Chimp, out Saturday for £1.80, was produced with the help of a £10,000 Awards for All community grant - sparking some debate over on NW media site How-Do

For my money (£2, if you're asking) one of the most exciting magazine launches in ages has been the appearance of the lovely Belle Vue, a tiny collectively-produced fanzine that embodies the real spirit of Manchester. And is somewhat preoccupied with where to get a good greasy spoon breakfast, but I can completely understand that. You can get it at Piccadilly Records and Cornerhouse, and there should be another one out soon. So, you see, it's not all gloom and doom. These days, small and homespun trumps big and glossy every time.

Time Out Manchester update

Yet another installment in the laborious will-they-or-won't-they saga of Time Out's much anticipated Manchester launch.

In an interview on brand new NW Media networking website How-Do, Tony Elliott declares that the magazine will start in October, following the launch of a beefed-up TOM Website. It should definitely launch by the middle of October, he says ... unless it takes longer to set things up, that is, but certainly we can look for a launch no later than the beginning of next year.

Uh huh.

There are some more interesting bits in the interview, like the part where Tony says he's "fairly confident" the magazine can shift 8,000-9,000 copies every week. And, yes, it's a video interview delivered via YouTube. Pretty spiffy, no?

But the best part of this interview is down in the comments, where two competing magazine editors have written little love notes purporting to wish Tony good luck on the Manchester launch that are actually wince-inducing, thinly-veiled shills for their own unimpressive mags, 69 and (my favourite) Moving Manchester. What a couple of palookas.

If you're wondering where How-Do came from, it's the brainchild of Nick Jaspen formerly of the NW Enquirer. It "offers news, opinion and resources for those working in all aspects of media in the region." It looks promising so far.

Other interesting bits include a piece on Manchester Confidential, complete with an amusing description of the advertorial site's restaurant "review" process, and a comments spat... already! And we notice they have very good taste in blogs, too.

(Thanks to Mind for the Time Out tip-off)

Time Out Manchester: Outta Time?

We've all been wondering what's going on with Time Out Manchester, which was supposed to launch this spring, you remember? It's been verrry quiet on that front. But Monday there was another communication from on high, buried down at the bottom of a Media Guardian gossip column. Here's the key bit:

"Elliott scoffs at suggestions that the magazine is being shelved. "We remain completely committed to Manchester and will launch in autumn," he says. "We are still in the process of raising investment. We need about £1m, and we have people working on that. We just do not have the liquidity to set it up on our own, though we have always said we really want to run Manchester ourselves, like we do in Chicago and New York."

Yeah, remember when he swaggered into town and said all that stuff about giving Manchester "the magazine it deserves?" Hmmmmm. The crack team of journalistic guns-for-hire assembled for the launch issue are all wandering away, I hear, to work on other promising "projects." A few were allegedly offered starvation wages to write for the soon-to-be-expanded TOM website, but declined.

It seems money's tight for TOM. Maybe we should start a fundraising drive, hold a few bake sales?