SIX MONTHS ON SALE IS TOO LONG

A recent new magazine to appear on the shelves in Thailand is @First Taste - a spin-off title from the existing @Gourmet and Cuisine brand. What makes this different, although not unique, is its six-month on-sale cover date.

Speaking personally, having a magazine on the shelves potentially for six months is crazy. It's also unfair to other publishers given the pressure on space. I wonder if anyone has ever calculated the cost of having one magazine unsold on the shelves per month? For the publisher it costs nothing to have this magazine sitting gathering dust for six months, and the retailer will only get money when it sells.

But I'm not the only one who thinks this is unfair.

Mark Fletcher is the author of the excellent Australian News Agency blog. Writing about a similar six-month on-sale magazine from his own news agency perspective, he said: "This is too long.  I will give the title a month.  It it is not paying its way in that time it can go back.  To expect newsagents to give up valuable retail space for six months is nonsense." Sadly, I suspect Thailand's newsagents and booksellers will not share this view, likely keeping it on display until it sells.

@FIrst Taste issue number one, with a cover date of December 2010 - May 2011, is priced at 75 baht. It contains 124 pages of Thai language restaurant reviews and around 14 pages of advertising. It's unclear whether featured restaurants have paid to be included in this magazine.