Magazines for Europe - EMMA Magazine 2014-15

“Empowering citizens” is a key role for magazines. And today they fulfill this task better than ever. With more than 360 million regular readers, many of the 50,000 or so magazines across Europe – which include both print and digital formats – have more readers than ever before. Magazines are about identity, creativity and authority. They inform, educate, entertain and guide people in an intimate and very personal way. Magazines inspire, animate the exchange of ideas, and build communities, and thus continue to be one of the most trusted media that EU citizens rely on. The European Magazine Media Association, EMMA, works to create awareness about the need for an appropriate regulatory framework and fair competition. This includes strong copyright rules, extending the reduced VAT rates from print to digital, shaping data protection rules so that they do not hamper a free press, supporting advertising self-regulation rather than introducing advertising bans and restrictions and ensuring a non-discriminatory and fair access of publishers to all digital platforms. This “EMMA Magazine” provides insights into some of the key regulatory issues under discussion at EU level, which are so crucial to the future of Europe’s magazine sector (with 80 per cent of national legislation relevant to magazine publishers originating from the EU Institutions). In addition, you can hear about the outstanding achievements of magazines when it comes to investigative journalism, as well as showing how they successfully connect to their continuously growing audiences. The magazine also reports on relevant innovations and disruptions on the technology side, which are driving fast pace change in our sector. Consequently, business models are in a state of flux: the income derived from selling professional content remains a key revenue source, but is only picking up slowly online.