With nearly 1,300 issues under its belt and a series of successful brand extensions, The Week has become one of the UK’s most trusted news brands, say the publishers.
To mark the anniversary, The Week has created a special edition of its podcast, The Week Unwrapped, and released a video of its cover artist Howard McWilliam creating one of the title’s distinctive covers.
The Week was launched in May 1995 by its founding editors Jeremy O’Grady and Jolyon Connell. It is designed for readers who are interested in what people are saying about the news, and it celebrates multiple opinions and viewpoints from the world’s most important media sources.
The title remains remarkably similar to its origins 25 years later in its editorial form and function. Founding editor Jeremy O’Grady says: “At the time Jolyon and I launched The Week, it seemed a mad gamble. But it turned out people have a real thirst for seeing the debate in the round. I think people feel more confident in their own opinions when they know the opinions they’ve rejected.”
Shortly after its launch Felix Dennis, the late owner of Dennis Publishing, saw a copy of The Week, and a deal was completed where the founders joined forces with Felix to publish The Week in a partnership to begin with. In 2006, Dennis Publishing finalised a buyout of the remaining shares.
Over the years, The Week’s portfolio has expanded. A financial version, MoneyWeek, was launched in 2000. In 2001, The Week was then launched in the USA, where circulation is now 500,000 copies each week. The Week Junior was launched in 2015, aimed at 8-14 year olds curious about the world around them. In March, The Week Junior launched in America, where circulation is 30,000.
Caroline Law, Editor-in-chief, says: “We’re incredibly lucky that Britain has such a lively and combative press culture. Select some of the best of that, and present it in a form that makes even complex news and opinion easy to understand and interesting to read, and you have a winning formula.”
Other brand extensions include its podcast, The Week Unwrapped, which garners around 25,000 listeners per episode and an average of just over 100,000 downloads per month, say the publishers. The 30th May podcast is a special 25th anniversary issue featuring the magazine team of Editorial Chair Jeremy O’Grady, Editor-in-Chief Caroline Law and Editor Theo Tait. They talk about setting up the magazine, how it's changed over the years, and how they put together each week’s issue.
Cover artist Howard McWilliam has created a video to show how a cover is illustrated. One subscriber will win a bespoke portrait by Howard as part of a range of activities that are taking place to thank current readers and subscribers of the magazine.
