Editorial is no longer judged against its price

In his overview of customer magazines (Publishing & Design supplement, DW 7 February), Jim Davies omitted a key reason why our media are now being taken more seriously – a reason reflected in Adrian Shaughnessy’s overview of on-line publishing in the same supplement.

Now that ‘all on-line is a free-sheet’, the quality of editorial content is no longer being measured purely against its price. Once, customer magazines were compared only to newsstand titles and disparaged simply because they were free.

Now, thanks to the Web, the content of customer magazines is being judged on its own high merits within a universe of ‘free’ editorial.

Hence, perhaps, the recognition and status which customer magazines are now achieving.

Paul Keers, Editorial director, Axon Publishing, London EC2