Brad Pitt on the cover of Total Film. Emmerdale's Linda Lusardi on the cover of Yours magazine. Any soap on the cover of Radio Times. Magazine editors chat at the Periodical Publishers Association conference about the good and bad covers.
Gill Hudson, editor, Radio Times
Hudson is a forthright editor and happy to admit her failings. "We are nearly 85 years old and you would think that we would know what works on the cover but we don't," she said.
The magazine has a 50-50 male/female split. "We are the only upmarket mass-market magazine in the country and I find that really liberating."
"We have to make something an event, our readers expect something special. I want them to look forward to it."
Recently Radio Times put the science fiction programme Heroes on its cover, with the character Hiro slashing the RT logo with a samurai sword. "It has audacity and boldness that people expect from the Radio Times."
As a rule, Radio Times normally does its own shoots - "it brings something new to the party" said Hudson.
Her readers hate lots of cover lines and fluorescent type, which they regard as down market.
Hudson said that when journalists visit her office she shows them all the TV magazine covers but takes off their logos. "It's always a test of the magazine, can you tell what it is without the logo?"
Cover poison
The big programmes every week on television are the soaps. "We have to find programmes that are big enough to justify a million sales," said Hudson.
"I can't touch the soaps," she admits. "Radio Times readers like to think that they are very intelligent and above the soaps - even though they do watch them."
Nev Pierce, editor Total Film
Pierce, of Future magazine's Total Film, reveals that animated characters are a slight turn off on the cover. "People want to look a real person in the eye."
His magazine is about big movies and "trying to introduce a bit of wit".
Free foil posters are the "wet dog" of his magazine. "If I could do one every month then I would."
Readers want big stars, big films and "men in spandex" that is, super heroes.
Cover poison
"We did a Brad Pitt cover, his first UK interview in four years. It sold fine but it didn't fly and I thought that it would fly." Pierce fears that readers might have had too much of Pitt on the cover of Hello! and Heat. "Lifestyle covers do not sell in my market."
Valery McConnell, editor of Yours
Yours is aimed at women over 50. Its ABC is about 327,000, after switching from monthly to fortnightly about two years ago.
"We are now selling about 700,000 a month when we were selling about 386,000. So we are all very pleased with ourselves, basically."
"Our readers want stars they think that they can sit down and have a cup of tea with." Thus Twiggy = in, Julie Christie = not sure.
McConnell produces a magazine cover featuring Twiggy and the coverline: "Sexier than ever!"
"Sexier than ever when you are older, wow! It's still a talking point," she deadpans.
Memories and looking back a key part of the paper as are certain types of celebrities.
"If I could resurrect one person who has died it would be John Thaw, he was absolutely massive for our readers."
Cover poison
McConnell came a cropper when she ran a cover featuring Linda Lusardi - she was on Dancing on Ice and Emmerdale and was a Page 3 model for the Sun, but as McConnell said "it was when Page 3 was nice".
"She didn't do that well for us. So obviously, for a segment of our readers, it was a case of 'I'm not having a cup of tea with someone who has had their nipples in the Sun'."
