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Confirmation of the magazine's introduction is expected within weeks.

A sales team has been recruited and retailers are being briefed on an imminent launch.

Glossy monthlies typically debut either in spring or autumn, but a real-life weekly could appear in the summer, taking advantage of low TV advertising rates.

Real People will be the first launch from ACP-NatMag, a joint venture between The National Magazine Company and Australian Consolidated Press. The venture already houses celebrity title Reveal, which debuted last October, but originated at NatMags.

ACP-NatMag registered Real People as a trademark last November. In April it subsequently registered the name Snip & Save, believed to be a shopping magazine project which is currently in the planning stages.

In recent years, women's weeklies have been divided into three sub-sectors: the depressed older title category, and the booming celebrity and real-life genres.

The latter is dominated by Bauer, which, aside from Take A Break, also publishes That's Life, which sells about 600,000 copies a week.

The other major player in the market is IPC, which publishes Chat and Pick Me Up, which it launched in February.

NatMags and its subsid-iaries have six projects in development. Aside from Real People and Snip & Save, the most advanced of these is a UK edition of Prevention, a US glossy devoted to the concept of wellbeing. This will be launched through its NatMag-Rodale subsidiary, and will compete with Hachette Filipacchi's Psychologies, due out in the autumn.