ABSTRACT
The magazine industry is increasingly dominated by large companies. Not surprising, perhaps, but it’s not long since the arrival of new computer technology brought with it the hope that it would become so cheap and easy to produce magazines that anyone would be able to do it. For some this meant a real possibility that a new democratised magazine publishing industry would open up its arms to smaller, minority interests. It hasn’t happened quite like that. It is now more expensive than ever to launch a magazine brand, although a company such as Future Publishing demonstrates how quickly a new commercial publisher can, in just a few years, become one of the UK’s largest companies. Fanzines and alternative magazines are launched and survive, as they always have, because someone cares passionately enough to work for nothing. Subscribers buy them in spite of the paper quality because the subject matter is of interest. But there has been no burgeoning of a half-alternative or non-commercial press (Atton 1999), the success of The Big Issue being a notable exception.
