BBC Worldwide is launching a magazine in the pre-teen market to
cash in on the success of BBC 2’s programme Robot Wars.
Robot Wars magazine will share the same sales team as its ’brother
title’ FBX and Girl Talk. The first issue will hit the newsstands at the
end of March.
A BBC Worldwide spokesperson said the TV programme, which involves
competitors building robot combatants, has attracted a fanatical
following and that the magazine aims to ’take that one step further by
talking to the roboteers about what they do and why’.
Alfie Lewis, associate publisher of the titles, said he was hoping the
magazine could build a circulation of around 100,000 and attract the
kind of advertising that goes into titles such as Shoot, Dandy, Beano
and Match.
’If we had that kind of circulation we could win revenue from the
advertisers of toys, cereals, soft drinks, computer games, youth
satellite TV channels and sportswear,’ said Lewis.
The spokesperson said that Robot Wars’ readership would be slightly
older than the 7- to 11-year-old market of FBX, but that it would be
less specific, echoing the programme’s broad appeal.
Meanwhile, FBX magazine, which has been published for a year, unveiled
its first ABC figure this week of 47,000.
Lewis described this as a ’brilliant start’ but conceded that it needed
to sell more to be a success.
’Once we get the distribution, we are hoping to repeat the growth
pattern of Girl Talk. There is definitely a market for a boys’ lifestyle
magazine,’ Lewis said.
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