The battle among women's weeklies will be triggered by the imminent arrival of ACP-NatMag's real-life magazine, Real People, which, it is understood, will launch with a cover price of 60p.
This will match IPC's Pick Me Up, which undercut the market when it entered the category in January. It was followed by Hubert Burda's Full House, which launched at 70p, but has now cut its price to 60p.
Rivals fear the presence of three budget-priced titles will establish 60p as the going rate for a weekly in consumers' minds. This would force others to slash their prices, bringing titles such as H Bauer's 1.2m-selling Take A Break, which currently sells for 74p, into a price war.
Other magazines that could join the melee include Bauer's That's Life and Bella, IPC's Chat and Woman's Own and The National Magazine Company's Best.
Another price war is brewing in the TV listings sector, where Bauer has recently been testing a price of 40p for TV Quick, a 25p discount on its usual price. Should this become permanent, IPC's TV Times and BBC Magazines' Radio Times could be forced to slash their prices.
Supermarkets will argue that such rampant price discounting undermines publishers' insistence on controlling the retail price of their products.
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