Garda Review

Magazine’s concept
Founded in 1923, the Garda Review “gives a voice to gardai who are denied a political voice. They are part of the community and central in preventing and detecting crime. This magazine raises issues relevant to their lives, including: policing, stress, transfers, pay cuts, etc.”

The Garda Review see’s “policing through the eyes of people who deal with it day and night. It is a strong voice for the members of An Garda Siochana, both as individuals and collectively.”

The Garda Review is “much more than a trade magazine, in some ways it is a community magazine. It tackles contemporary issues in Irish society and incorporates elements of news, sports and leisure, whatever is relevant to members of the garda force.” (Neil Ward, Editor)

The magazine comprises of 2 main parts: 4 features Regulars: editorial, competitions, garda stories and news, garda sportsfile, in the job, the last word, eyewitness, legal and informal.


The magazine is printed in full colour and 10 issues are produced annually.


The Garda Review is a subscription based magazine. It is mailed directly to members home address for €1 per week deducted from salary.

Market and funding strategy
The Garda Review’s target market are members of An Garda Siochana. The magazine is the official magazine of the Garda Representative Association whose numbers total over 12,000.


80 percent of the force are at garda rank, so the Garda Review circulates approximately 8,000. copies.

“While the magazine specifically targets garda members, it is also used by politicians, members of the Dail, Seanad, various journalists and students who study criminology.”

It is funded through subscription-€1 deducted at pay.

“This cost is fixed depending on general numbers of subscriptions they receive. It rose steadily in the past few years as we invested heavily in the magazine and in our online edition.”

Circulation X3=readership-8,000 X3=24,000

• 96% are subscribed readers • 2% read a colleague’s copy • 2% read a family member’s copy

(Dyflin Media)

Advertising
The Garda Review “is a national magazine for the police force. We are not interested in local advertising. We need national advertisers to help fund our magazine.”


“Advertising must be relevant to gardai, examples include EBS, insurance, mortgages, etc.”

The Garda Review does not ‘actively sell’. Advertisers who are interested in promoting their product come to them. This is a huge benefit because it helps secure loyalty amongst national advertisers.

They have a set number of pages for advertisements. This increases their reach and rewards their loyalty.

They are adamant that adverts have to be specific to members of the force and it is a ‘waste of money and resources’ placing an advert outside the interests of gardai.

Between 7 and 10 pages are designated to advertising. This includes full page ads, half and quarter page ads.

This represents a 15-23 percent divide (out of a 44 page publication).

Less designated space to advertise online

STANDARD RATES: PAGE COLOUR €1,600 SIZE: A4 (Medialive 2008).

Garda pay rates between €27,000 and €50,000 (GRA payscales 2010). Disposable income?

Amongst the regular national advertisers are:


St Paul’s Garda Credit Union

PenPro-pension and protection consultants

3 mobile

Motorola

EBS

Irishrail.ie

Each advertisement usually has a marketing tool to draw in members-e.g. Special discount for members of An Garda Siochana.

Advertising continued: http://www.gardareview.ie/index.php?article=homepage
DPS Page -1/2 page-1/3 page-1/4 page


Black & White: € 3350 €1900 €1100 €850 €675

Colour €4500 €2700 €1400 €1000 €800

SPOT COLOUR

€125 per standard colour

Cover positions €200

(Dyflin 2008)

Marketing tools
How the Garda Review justifies its price:


The magazine is published 10 times a year. It costs one euro a week or four euro a month.

The magazine can easily justify its price. Made from quality paper it is appealing to look at. Its use of photographs and neatly written content justifies its price.

Contributions by Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy and GRA President Michael O’Boyce .

Editorial staff include: General Secretary of the GRA Pj Stone, GRA President Michael O’Boyce, Donal Flannery of the Garda College and Kerry GRA Spokesperson Dave McMahon.

Expertise of writers:
Competency- “We are looking for competent and accomplished writers. We need someone who can but together an article in a few hours. A professional would take a few hours, whereas with a non-professional it could take days, and even then the quality could let you down.”

“We need writers with a unique and mature style. They must be able to view things through the eyes of our readers. They need to have good interviewing skills and work together as a team. The ‘I’ factor is no good to us.”

The Garda Review produces 44 pages per working month (22 days). They look for 2 pages a day-anything up to 1400 words and 3 photographs.

The professional standards associated with the magazine force it to ‘go outside’ for talent and expertise. While some writers are former members, this is not a requirement as it is ‘very hard to maintain’ and they don not have the same skill bases as working journalists.

Circulation and online presence
The Garda Review circulates around 8,000 copies per month. The highest costs associated with the magazine are:


Postage

Printing

Labour

The magazine has varying staff costs based on full time and part time positions. In the future it is proposed that the publication will be emailed to subscribers. But while there is demand for hard copy this will not be the case.

Online presence:
While the magazine would like to have the same reach as The Guardian, this is not the case.

“Having the magazine online is purely about existence, so that when people Google us they can get basic information from our site.”

Being online the magazine raises extra advertising revenue, although this is limited. It is used to offer some public content while maintaining the exclusivity of being a member.

It provides a platform for discussion and blogs (members only).

“An online presence for us is to accommodate those members who can access the net and share there views in a secure environment without prejudice. It is also about giving the public an insight into life as a garda and how they can make a difference.”

FREE TIME AND INTERESTS: • 69% of readers have internet access in their home • 38% are current gym members • 60% of Garda Review readers plan to change their cars in the next 2 years • Over 40% of readers take at least three holidays every year


Figures based on 2005 Garda Review Reader’s Survey from overall readership 7,500

“Our online strategy for the future is to produce a backlog/reference library of previous issues. It is also about trying new features, which may be added if market research indicates the need for it. For now it is about having an online presence. Who’s to say in the future we may be forced to go it alone online? If it is dictated by demand then that is where we are headed.”

Online presence
Age profile and geographical spread may help understand decisions made by the Garda Review with regards advertising and having an online presence, etc.

(Dyflin 2008)

Challenges and opportunities
The Garda Review faces challenges including “having an audience, giving the message to the wider world and having an online aspect relative to our competitors”.


The magazine does not have any real threat in its target market. “The only threat per se is from the Garda Times, but that is a yearbook for retired members, so we don’t really look at it as a real threat. We would help provide information to them on a regular basis. What comes around goes around.”

“We are well equipped to deal with these challenges because of our strengths. We have a unique distribution twinned with the GRA and a security policy for our members. We offer unique content, something there is always demand for.”

The future:
“Policing is changing, we are becoming more involved in industrial relations. We have been around for 87 years. Someone obviously had great vision and foresight. We have stood the test of time. There will always be a need for a police force, so there will always be a demand for the Garda Review.”

Success
The magazine is enjoying unprecedented popularity among readers. How

can we measure this? Paying subscriptions have risen from 3,470 in 2003
to 7,926 in September 2007; considerably more than doubled.

Over 8% of Garda Review readers responded to our readers’ survey.

Of these respondents, nearly all (98.4%) read every issue of the magazine

and over half of readers (52.7%) read the entire magazine cover to cover.

(Dyflin 2008)

Advice: “Working with the Garda Review will provide opportunities to learn how to write hard news stories, soft articles, features and develop photography skills. You will gain contacts for life. Don’t overlook a small magazine when your starting out.”


References

Dyflin Media (2008) ‘The Garda Review Reader’ [online], available: http://www.dyflin.ie/rp_garda_review.htm [accessed 16 Feb 2010].

Garda Review (2007) ‘The Story’ [online], available: http://www.gardareview.ie/index.php?article=The_Story [accessed 16 Feb 2010].

Garda Representative Association (2010) ‘Salary Scales’ [online], available: http://www.gra.cc/payscales.shtml [accessed 16 Feb 2010].

Media Live (2008) ‘Magazines: Garda Review’ [online], available: http://www.medialive2.com/general-market/ [accessed 16 Feb 2010].

Periodical Publishers Association of Ireland (2009) ‘Research on Advertising in Magazines’ [online], available: http://www.ppa.ie/market-research.html [accessed 16 Feb 2010].

Interview with Mr. Neil Ward, Editor of the Garda Review (16 Feb 2010).