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Now that supermarkets account for a third of all spend at retail on magazines, they are inevitably exercising ever greater control over the magazines they stock.

Tesco's plan to de-list Loaded in 78 of its 575 larger store formats in favour of Maxim is a clear sign of how hard the retailer wants magazines to work on its shelves. Despite selling more copies than Maxim - across all retailers, its sales are twice that of Dennis' rival - Loaded's lower cover price means that it generates less money in these stores.

With larger supermarkets now stocking more ranges - clothes and household products - along with increased pressure from food and drink suppliers for space for new product launches, supermarkets are applying strict return-on-space principles to the goods they stock.

Eric Fuller, managing director of IPC Ignite, appears unconcerned. "These store formats are not necessarily the heartland of where magazine sales happen, making this a small tweak between different classes of store," he says.

Unlike the other products they stock, supermarkets are unable to control the price of magazines, which is fixed by the publisher. This has long rankled with supermarkets and publishers' trends towards price discounting as a major part of their marketing strategy exacerbates their discontent. New titles tend to enter with a low price, prompting established rivals to follow suit - witness the tumbling prices of Marie Claire and Company following Glamour's launch. But at what cost?

Return-on-space

Jim Bilton, managing director of Wessenden Marketing, says: "Retailers are looking for return-on-space and are driven by retail sales value. If price cutting, as well as the sheer number of titles, depresses this, it's a problem."

Duncan Edwards, chief executive of The National Magazine Company, admits that retail sales value is one of three fronts on which publishers have to convince retailers. "We can influence them by the pure maths of it, we can try to persuade the buyer we're offering something unique or we can put some cash on the table," he says. The stakes are higher in categories in which value is already going down, such as men's or women's monthlies, because new titles, or external pressures, have suppressed cover prices.

Steve Tindall, head of retail at MindShare, says retailers have stayed one step ahead by utilising precise demographic data from millions of shopping baskets and loyalty cards. Only by hiring more people with a grocery background will publishers be on an even keel, he argues.

"I'd be shocked if the Loaded situation wasn't going on for other mags," he says. "Supermarkets are using every tool in the trade to negotiate the best terms they can and publishers have sleepwalked into this problem."

A senior buyer in one mid-sized magazine retailer adds: "Publishers' and distributors' approach of 'here's a magazine, here's its price' will always result in tense relationships."

While niche titles have been jettisoned from supermarket shelves, so far, de-listing of mass-market titles is rare. Tesco removed Full House from its stores for some time after Hubert Burda Media cut its planned launch price, but when the price rose the title returned to stores.

Alan Urry, Burda's chief executive, says: "'Me-too' mags have no chance if they're at a lower price today. With each launch, retail sales value (RSV) has to go up for the whole category."

Essential Publishing's Real, part of the Burda group, is set to lower RSV as it moves from fortnightly to monthly with only a 40p rise to £1.40.

Strange move

Roger Williams, circulation director of Hello!, says: "Its RSV will drop, no question, as its numbers are a long way short of Glamour. It's an odd move, especially as with IPC launching Look, facings will be reduced, even in the weeklies."

Williams says that big retailers are shifting from talking about RSV and many more decisions are based on promotional spend. Last year, WHSmith took The Economist out of its high-street stores due to a cut in its promotional spend. They have since agreed terms, but as could happen with Loaded, the absence of a key category driver is likely to have dented perceptions of both retailer and magazine in the short term.

Unless competition authorities decide otherwise, Tesco wants to do better than the oft-quoted one in eight pounds that go through its tills, and magazines will play a major part. Price cutting is likely to remain a common tactic for publishers, but it will need strong promotional support to be a viable option.

PRICE CUTS

TV listings

In 2005, IPC cut What's on TV's cover price by 10p to 35p, prompting Bauer to undercut its rival with a 30p cover price for TV Choice to maintain its position as the "best value" TV listings mag

Men's

Following a relaunch, IPC took 90p off Loaded's cover price, which helped it to regain its position as the second biggest men's monthly after falling behind Maxim and Men's Health. With twice Maxim's news-stand sales, according to the last ABCs, it generates more RSV yet, despite increasing by a further 30p to £2.80, it is still 80p cheaper than FHM and Maxim

Motoring

Last year, Dennis Publishing halved the cover price of Test Drive to £1.50 with little success. The title was sold to Haymarket soon after, then subsequently folded

Women's monthlies

Glamour's debut at £1.50 forced a rethink at NatMags and IPC, with cuts made at Company and Marie Claire. Despite selling around three-quarters as many copies as Conde Nast's title, NatMags' Cosmopolitan generates almost £2m more in retail sales. The market is set to be further tested this month with Real's switch to a monthly, at £1.40.