Media / Talk of the Trade: Magazines grow . . .

AFTER a difficult couple of years, the magazine sector is positively buzzing with announcements and rumours of new launches and even cover price rises. DC Thomson, best known for Beano and Dandy, is launching a monthly baby magazine called First Steps in September, while Emap is making its Your Complete Guide to Pregnancy & Birth a quarterly publication. Meanwhile, IPC is thought to be planning a gossipy showbusiness weekly. With sales of 20,000, the Oldie may be folding, but Your Cat, test launched in April, is going monthly after its first issue sold 12,000 more copies than its target 20,000. And while newspapers are in a price war, the Economist, which likes to style itself as a weekly viewspaper, is putting up its price by 10p to pounds 2 from 6 August.